Optimal computer volume? - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kukuk 

Ahaha, silly me. I just realized I have the bass turned up on the card. With it turned down there's no distortion at max volume. Buuuut, I'm using the K271's, so I need every bit of bass I can get. lol.

The key when it comes to EQ is to subtract what you don't want rather than trying to add on what you want.  If at any point, any part of your EQ is above +0 dB, you're doing it wrong.

Example:

Originally Posted by GotNoRice 

subtract what you don't want rather than trying to add on what you want.  If at any point, any part of your EQ is above +0 dB, you're doing it wrong.

As long as you attenuate the volume to avoid clipping you'll be fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kukuk 

Ahaha, silly me. I just realized I have the bass turned up on the card. With it turned down there's no distortion at max volume. Buuuut, I'm using the K271's, so I need every bit of bass I can get. lol.

Ah, now I know what you mean by 'distortion' at 100% volume. 

With eq. turned on, I imagine the sound distortion is BAD.  Like my Cowon, when I take the eq-ed headphone out to my Mustang, it's distorted ugly-ly, I have to set to flat then 100% volume is clean.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kukuk 

I don't know if it makes any difference or not, but I'm not using an actual equalizer, I'm using this.

 

 

Don't you want more control than that? Anyway the answer is use 100% but APPLY REPLAYGAIN. If you don't want to use RG then I think 90% should prevent clipping given the replaygain values I have seen. Someone correct me if this is wrong!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kukuk 

I don't know if it makes any difference or not, but I'm not using an actual equalizer, I'm using this.

 

Oh, din't know Windows has that?  I never use that personally, but my guess is middle setting should be the 'no equalizer' option, but I'm just guessing.

I would try setting those to the middle settings, volume at 100%, and using the EQ in winamp or foobar2000 (I like foobar better) to tweak the bass/mid/treble. Then use the amp to set the volume. Using foobar2000 with ASIO4ALL will bypass all the windows and sound card tweaks such as the bass boost and windows EQ. Check these threads for more info:

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/221237/asio4all-explanation

Get foobar2000 here:

http://www.foobar2000.org/

Then check this thread for other downloads for ASIO4ALL (the program) and the foobar plugin (you have to get both).

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/402765/eac-foobar-asio4all-wasapi-settings-pictorial

Skip to the ASIO4ALL part after WASAPI.