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Advice Needed! - Page 3

post #31 of 41
5/27/04 at 8:11pm
Reck -

Where did I say I was comparing the Audigy against "professional" grade sound cards? Did I advocate a dual sound card setup? He never mentioned gaming as a factor in his purchase. All he wants is advice on equipment that will sound good.

For music reproduction, the Audigy is not a good card - plain and simple. In suggesting ways to improve his overall equipment setup, I was merely stating that if he plans on going for a "top of the line" sound card, going with the Audigy is, as my dog does frequently, barking up the wrong tree.

I'm sorry you had such a hard time grasping this fairly simple concept.

Good try, though.
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post #32 of 41
5/27/04 at 8:29pm
I think it really over-generalizes when people say the Senns can't do rock or the Grados aren't for classical.

Soooooo much depends on how much your source/amp/headphones like each other. With my setup, the Senns are capable of rocking. Really. It depends on the recording. There are other recordings where the Senns are so bored they barely find the willpower to tell you anything, and the ms-1's then become more suitable.

Kinda like my first setup, the Grundig 4100 pcdp, Porta Corda II and Beyer 990s. Sure, the source couldn't take full of advantage of the 990s, but they sounded better that way. Any more information, and the faults of the dt990 became glaring.

But excuse me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the Turtle Beach card be significantly better than the Audigy for music-listening? That was always my understanding, but I've never heard either one. Just know that the more it costs, doesn't neccesarily mean it's better.

I don't think you have to jump into this with the XP7 amp. Although, I'm sure you wouldn't be dissapointed in it, especially if you did your homework on a good soundcard for it first.
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post #33 of 41
5/27/04 at 8:58pm
for the price of the hd650 you could buy two or three headphones. I suggest something in the $100 to $200 US range to start off. Then hook up a few receivers to your soundcard and see which one sounds best with certain headphones. They are usually cheap and will 'pinch hit' for a much better amp which you can buy in the future (after auditioning them at local headfi meets). Some people like the Marantz 1065, I believe, as a good headphone amp. Chances are you can find a top notch Luxman, et. al., for little money from someone who switched from 2.0 to 6.1.

If you want to know what an amp does, just connect a receiver to your sound card and listen with the headphones you now have. Just plug your sound card into the AUX or Tape-In of your receiver. Hopefully the headphone section will be up to 'snuff' and produce less distortion, more viseral bass, less hiss and clearer midrange than you are listening to now.
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post #34 of 41
5/28/04 at 12:39am
Let me put in my $.00002 (that's right, two millicents) worth:

Plain and simple, even with a mid-fi amp, the very top-of-the-line Senns are way overkill with either the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz or any of the Sound Blaster Audigy2 series soundcards. I'd like to think of the entire Sound Blaster series of soundcards these days as "high price without the high performance", as far as music is concerned. Think of the HD650, in particular, as a $2000 headphone as far as matching up with sources is concerned (I agree totally with Geek on this one). In fact, if you must buy Sennheiser, and you're looking for an upgrade from the HD497, I wouldn't recommend anything higher than an HD555 if you're going to use a typical amp, or HD580 if you're going to use an expensive dedicated headphone amp.
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post #35 of 41
5/28/04 at 1:00am
If you want the best sound out of your computer,get the EMU 1212m,its only $200 at the cheapest seller on the internet,it sounds way better than Audigy Platinum,and does games without problems (only u cant hook the surround sound multimedia speakers to it,and it has no headphone binaural emulation,only plain stereo).
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post #36 of 41
5/28/04 at 5:31am
Thread Starter 
Is that the best soundcard I could buy? How much of a performance increase would I see?
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post #37 of 41
5/28/04 at 8:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AudiophileBill
So are the HD580/600/650 no nos for my kind of music?
I wouldn't say that at all. I love rock on my 650's. I think people exaggerate how laid back they are and make a big fuss over it. I think the 650’s are a very good headphone for all types of music and they are very unfatiguing. Personally I prefer the 650's for rock than Grado/Alessandro headphone, guess that makes me a freak.
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post #38 of 41
5/28/04 at 8:59am
http://productsen.terratec.net/modul...35ea494f3f5c24

That's what I'd get. Doesn't support Dvd audio tho. If you do game though it will take a few more clock cycles off your cpu. Shouldn't matter if you have a decent computer.
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post #39 of 41
5/28/04 at 9:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kush_
I wouldn't say that at all. I love rock on my 650's. I think people exaggerate how laid back they are and make a big fuss over it. I think the 650’s are a very good headphone for all types of music and they are very unfatiguing. Personally I prefer the 650's for rock than Grado/Alessandro headphone, guess that makes me a freak.
people likes different aesthetics of sound to merge with their musical preferences. that's true, many people like rock on senns, and i can see why.
the senns are very laid back, next to grados, but it doesn't meen that it won't fit one's will.

if it's much more comfortable for a person to listen to the senns for along time then grados, then it's great, because he actually makes a longer session and absorves more music. if you have a musical session of a few hours of complete concentration on music, then it's great. the mind state and the form of listening in the later hours is unique.
in that regard, senns are very good headphones, if you like how they sound!
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post #40 of 41
5/28/04 at 1:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Reck45
http://productsen.terratec.net/modul...35ea494f3f5c24

That's what I'd get. Doesn't support Dvd audio tho. If you do game though it will take a few more clock cycles off your cpu. Shouldn't matter if you have a decent computer.
Emu is much better than that one.But 6-fire is a good value i think,if u get the LT version without the break-out box for $99 - thats what I bought it for.
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post #41 of 41
5/28/04 at 2:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by AudiophileBill
Is that the best soundcard I could buy? How much of a performance increase would I see?
From peoples' reviews of the EMU, it would probably be a good deal better than your current card.
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