[leeperry]

and I can't stress enough how cool the drivers look!

ESI - Driver Technology

"auto" samplerate, clear indication of the current rate...support for directwire so you can internally route any renderer to any renderer/output.

the STX drivers are as wonky as can get in comparison

 

[Slash47]

For anyone interested in changing the caps on this card:

You'll want to change:

Yellow: PCI noise filter and 5V caps.

3,5mm lead spacing, 8/10mm diameter. If you use non-solid electrolytes 5mm lead spacing should be ok.

Change these for low ESR caps with a 10V or 16V rating, like Rubycon ZA (discontinued but widely available), Sanyo Oscon SP or Nichicon PLG. 470uf is a nice rating.

Blue: input caps

2,5mm lead spacing. Use 25V 100uf Panasonic FC or 10V 100uf Rubycon ZA. I like both although according to most the Panasonic FC should be better.

Red: +- 9V caps

5mm lead spacing, 10mm diameter

Use whatever you want, as long as it fits, it's 16V and 470uf or higher. I like Rubycon ZL(H) and Panasonic FC. They're cheap and small and as good as anything. A 470uf/16V Black Gate is 12,5mm in diameter, as well as most Elna's in this rating, but you might get them to fit, I'm not sure.

The other caps are just to stabilize the circuit basically, you won't really hear a difference I think.

 

[thoppa]

I see the spec sheet says it uses a 4580 as a headphone amp ? Anyone got any comments about how this sounds ? It doesn't seem like a 'great' choice on paper.

 

[leeperry]

.

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thoppa /img/forum/go_quote.gif I see the spec sheet says it uses a 4580 as a headphone amp ? Anyone got any comments about how this sounds ? It doesn't seem like a 'great' choice on paper.

to my greatest amazement, it sounds really great! it's a nice contrast to the AK4396+LME49722...the bass is great on my cd1k, the 4580 can drive headphones for a change(and THD is quite low)

"tuby" as they call it, but the HD2 is known to be a "warm" source apparently(even on the line-out) in this thread: Prodigy 7.1 / LT / HiFi / HD2 Fan Club

a far cry from the "whining in the trebles" Essence cards...yet still very detailed, just not ear-splitting screaming in the mids. needless to say, I'm very happy w/ it so far

and Slash47 told me that the third op-amp is not used when you go JRC4580, so I only have 2 op-amps to roll. on that lowyat.net thread, ppl recommend the LT1469/LT1361/LT1364...and I happen to have samples for all of these, apparently the 1469 is great! but first I'll try the THS4032, which is said to be great too. the LME49722 is also really nice

I wanted to try the bypass trick, but it can only be used for op-amps used as buffers apparently...and shouldn't be done on LPF op-amps?

PS: also, the AK4396 doesn't need any I/V, and many op-amps work better as buffers than I/V?

 

[leeperry]

if there must be only one

 

[Hookem]

@ LeePerry

I see you have 3 LME4970HA's on BrownDog adapters.

How does it sound ???

I have 2x OPA2604 + AD8022 on a BrownDog as recommended by Majkel here at Head-Fi (props to majkel) I tried many different combinations after installing the OPA2604-AD8022 combination only to go back.

Kinda getting opamp fever again and would like your impression of the 3 LME's you have on your card.

 

[ROBSCIX]

If you look at the pic a bit closer you can see they are jammed into the sockets.
You could install them like this for a quick test but other then that this method is sloppy and would probably lead to oscialltion..excess heat.etc.
Adapters are the right way to use theses opamps for extended use.

The LME49720HA's are not too bad if used properly.
If you do some tests, post your results in the opamp thread.

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hookem /img/forum/go_quote.gif Kinda getting opamp fever again and would like your impression of the 3 LME's you have on your card.

nope, no adapters needed. I simply bent them...they would supposedly sound better on adapters, but well something's not right in the mids(some nasty resonance?) on these 49720 parts(whatever NA/HA) and the SS is dull IMO...it's cutting the SS in lotsa thin layers, but they don't match...there's too many of them to make any sense. but the first impressions are impressive, it just dulls out overtime.

atm I'm using 2*LT1364 on the HP out(I took out the third op-amp, so sound has less gain and seems less agressive)....I'm liking it *a lot*

LT recommended it to me as being a top choice for audio. it doesn't try to impress you, everything's very natural including the SS...which is wider than the 49720/4562 and not artificial. the low end bass is great, the mids carry lotsa details and the trebles are a bit dark.

I still got a lot of op-amps to roll, but I might very well settle down on this set up for a while

I've spent a lot of time working out a good EQ to kill my ear resonances, and the result is spot-on! I use it in foobar & ffdshow for movies: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/how...ml#post6026141

 

[leeperry]

yup, the LT1364 is definitely a keeper

BTW, Audiotrak gave me some older drivers that act differently from the newest 5.40f generic VIA drivers...I need to listen carefully whichever one I'd prefer

the old one has KS totally bit-perfect!(automatically bit-matched of course, you can see the sample rate in the drivers)...no volume control works *whatsoever*, not even the master volume. the only way to control volume is the 64-bit attenuator in foobar(but Reclock doesn't have one...so that's annoying, maybe I can hook something up in ffdshow)

the new one can control KS through the master volume, which is a lot handier....as master volume is supposed to be hardware controlled anyway ?! that's what the KX drivers engineers say, it'd be mandatory in the WDM design.

also the old one doesn't support 24bit KS, only 16/32(like the EWDM drivers), but the new ones support 16/24/32(24 is nice I guess?)

 

[moriez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif and I can't stress enough how cool the drivers look! ESI - Driver Technology "auto" samplerate, clear indication of the current rate...support for directwire so you can internally route any renderer to any renderer/output. the STX drivers are as wonky as can get in comparison

Where did you get these beta drivers mate? V0.978 from the Audiotrak site are a bit buggy with my setup.

 

[ROBSCIX]

The drivers for this card are known to be quite buggy.

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriez /img/forum/go_quote.gif Where did you get these beta drivers mate? V0.978 from the Audiotrak site are a bit buggy with my setup.

yeah the EWDM drivers look pretty buggy, I didn't try them...and don't plan to

actually these 1.0 drivers are older than the 0.978

my HD2 Advance has a different firmware, that's compatible w/ the VIA generic drivers(they support 16/24/32bit KS on XP, fully bit-matched at that!).

if you're brave enough, you can prolly crossflash your card to be compatible w/ the VIA drivers: AUDIOTRAK - User Community

 

[ROBSCIX]

How do drivers "look" buggy?
Many people say the drivers for these cards "ARE" buggy..
May be just certain versions...

 

[FasterThanEver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriez /img/forum/go_quote.gif Where did you get these beta drivers mate? V0.978 from the Audiotrak site are a bit buggy with my setup.

What is your configuration? (OS, player, output plugin, ASIO, Kernel Streaming or DirectSound, upsampling, etc.)

For many months, I have used ASIO through the 0.978 drivers on Win XP with the J. River Media center 11/12/13/14 players. I listen to music through the AudioTrak for several hours most days. The AudioTrak drivers have been flawless for me.

I don't play games or play any 5 channel material so I don't know how the AudioTrak works for those uses.

Bill