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An Annoying Beginner's Questions~

post #1 of 3
11/9/09 at 3:39pm
Thread Starter 
Hello all

If you're irritated by noobs, it's probably best to go back and not return to this thread, just a warning!

Ok, after 2 years of HD201s and much lurkage here and elsewhere, I purchased a pair of HD595s for use with my computer a few days ago.

I had been planning on using a Sound Blaster Connect! external card with my headphones, but I've come to the conclusion they're pretty much a sidegrade to my motherboard's new-ish ViA onboard. It was sent by Amazon as a replacement for my old, broken, Sound Blaster Live! It's pretty much, it seems, for connecting pc to speakers etc (has the connections for it). Anyway, it's discontinued, and my audiophile-ish friend tells me early sound blasters (which I assume this is, with extra connections) were pretty awful, and modern onboard is better.

That's sort of question one - would you say this is true? Happy to go anywhere and find out whatever information is needed about my particular ViA chip/drivers to this end (would have posted, but don't know what's needed or where to find it)

The plot thickened today, when I remembered my old stereo system that's been collecting dust for 8 years, quite a nice Sony (for its time), and I realised that the Sound Blaster Connect would let me connect to the amp through it. Anyway the model number of the Sony amp is TA-SP55. It's got a proper headphone jack, and everything (unlike both my PC and the sound blaster connect)!

From my reading, I understand that some stereo systems do act as an amp to headphones (have special power/equipment behind the jack), and some don't - I may as well just run it right from the sound blaster connect. I know the TA-SP55 is long discontinued, and there seems to be a black market on the internet for selling its user manual for 10$... But if anyone has any chinese manual buying connections or general idea, I'd be grateful.

Here's two photos of the particular amp (guaranteed to be useful...)

http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/1164/frontamp.jpg
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/8462/frontamp2.jpg

Did I just cheese an amp out of my cupboard, or a paperweight, basically!

Once again for being so clueless, flame away!
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post #2 of 3
11/10/09 at 9:56am
If it sounds good to your ears, then why not?

Seriously, you may use RMAA to measure the performance of your gear: http://audio.rightmark.org/
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post #3 of 3
11/10/09 at 11:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Burrell View Post
Hello all..

...Ok, after 2 years of HD201s and much lurkage here and elsewhere, I purchased a pair of HD595s for use with my computer a few days ago.
Welcome. I too spent a few years lurking before posting.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burrell View Post
I had been planning on using a Sound Blaster Connect! external card with my headphones, but I've come to the conclusion they're pretty much a sidegrade to my motherboard's new-ish ViA onboard. It was sent by Amazon as a replacement for my old, broken, Sound Blaster Live! It's pretty much, it seems, for connecting pc to speakers etc (has the connections for it). Anyway, it's discontinued, and my audiophile-ish friend tells me early sound blasters (which I assume this is, with extra connections) were pretty awful, and modern onboard is better.

That's sort of question one - would you say this is true? Happy to go anywhere and find out whatever information is needed about my particular ViA chip/drivers to this end (would have posted, but don't know what's needed or where to find it)
The early soundblasters were not really designed for hi-fi quality playback, but were mainly for games. The original ones (late 80's) let you have proper sound (in 8-bit if I remember correctly) from a computer rather than 'peep' noises. They carried this on until fairly recently when they started to make them more suitable for music. Creative's background is in sound for games and fancy environmental effects rather than pure music reproduction and I think this is still where they target their products (this doesn't automatically make them bad for music though). In recent years on-board sound has become very good and it's not normally worth adding in a sound card. The next step up is now seen to be an external DAC. The SB Connect would most likely be a side-step, but could be worse as it's limited to 48kHz, 16-bit because of the USB interface it uses (on board sound should do 96kHz, 24-bit - if you have high-res files).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burrell View Post
The plot thickened today, when I remembered my old stereo system that's been collecting dust for 8 years, quite a nice Sony (for its time), and I realised that the Sound Blaster Connect would let me connect to the amp through it. Anyway the model number of the Sony amp is TA-SP55. It's got a proper headphone jack, and everything (unlike both my PC and the sound blaster connect)!

From my reading, I understand that some stereo systems do act as an amp to headphones (have special power/equipment behind the jack), and some don't - I may as well just run it right from the sound blaster connect.
If it's got a headphone jack it will act as a headphone amp. The difference people normally talk about is whether the jack has a dedicated headphone amp or uses a chip/cut down speaker output. Obviously a dedicated headphone amp is what you ideally want. As to whether you should use the SB Connect output or the Sony one you should just listen to them and see which one you prefer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burrell View Post
It's certainly prettier than a SB Connect. If you can get a line-out signal from the computer then personally I'd send that to the Sony rather than use the SB Connect.
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