[DJINFERNO806]

If you read through the thread, everyone's saying that the ACM destroys audio quality, making it effectively worthless.

That said, I am extremely surprised that Creative no longer offers a 9-pin front panel audio header on the ZxR. The entire X-Fi Titanium line had one!

Maybe I shouldn't be, for Creative neglected to put AC'97 front-panel audio headers on their later PCI cards, perhaps to sell more front-panel audio bays.

Considering I am the biggest advocate of not using an ACM due to the sq loss(I have posted this in this thread and others countless times), trust me, I am aware more than most.

However if you are willing to use front panel outs which is rediculously worse and you still need an extension, lesser of two evils.

And once again why would creative need to add a front audio header when it includes the ACM which does just that with extra flexibility in volume control and its also a mic. Regardless of how crap it is, still miles better than a noisy front panel connector where there is a good chance that it doesn't even use the DAC or amp.

Just my two cents.

 

[SaLX]

I think vince only mentioned that he wanted his microphone on the front - surely that'd be OK?

 

[DJINFERNO806]

Ya i dont think that should be an issue lol unless he is using a yeti or something high grade.  For most mics I think the front/ACM should be fine.
 
I have never used the mic port on my ACM before I sold it so Im not quite sure how it behaved.

 

[SaLX]

Soon will be buying my external DAC/Amp to go with my SBZ OEM > there's a fair few options out there for instance the Aune X1: http://www.head-fi.org/t/623013/new-philips-fidelio-x1/2955#post_9884210 and other reasonably cheap alternatives. I think though I'll be sticking with the Audio-GD's. Whether they are as good as either the Z, or the ZxR in SQ soundstage etc etc (depending on price), it is incredibly difficult to tell. As long as my choice is on par.
 
Suck it and see; though when you look at all the HP's, Dacs and Amps that people here on Head-Fi inevitably recycle, sell, discard and upgrade from, it makes you wonder.  

 

[SaLX]

Oh and another thing..  regarding the 40 Ohm ZxR and low impedance headphones.. ie the Philips X1 and other 32 Ohm headphones.... the owner's in the know have said that the bass may have gotten to be a bit sloppy on their phones - they were however perfectly happy and didn't throw them out of the pram at all, but read into that what you will.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Considering I am the biggest advocate of not using an ACM due to the sq loss(I have posted this in this thread and others countless times), trust me, I am aware more than most.

However if you are willing to use front panel outs which is rediculously worse and you still need an extension, lesser of two evils.

And once again why would creative need to add a front audio header when it includes the ACM which does just that with extra flexibility in volume control and its also a mic. Regardless of how crap it is, still miles better than a noisy front panel connector where there is a good chance that it doesn't even use the DAC or amp.

Just my two cents.

 
Gah, I'm blind at times...Head-Fi often moves way too fast for me to keep up, even when I only monitor a few threads at most.
 
One thing I noticed about front-panel audio jacks is that they surprisingly turned out to suck a lot less than I thought they would have when connected to my sound cards, and the real problem in one case was in my old Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P's Realtek codec headphone mode implementation, which is noisy even directly from the rear outputs. Switch it to speaker mode, and it sounds much cleaner.
 
Still, I do wish there was a case manufacturer that took the front-panel audio wiring more seriously...though come to think of it, the highest-end case manufacturers like Caselabs don't even offer built-in front-panel I/O. (There's no need for them to do so, either, considering all the 5.25" bay devices that add front-panel ports.)
 
I still think people should have the option to choose, making Creative's omission there a bit baffling.

 

[Radical_53]

  Oh and another thing..  regarding the 40 Ohm ZxR and low impedance headphones.. ie the Philips X1 and other 32 Ohm headphones.... the owner's in the know have said that the bass may have gotten to be a bit sloppy on their phones - they were however perfectly happy and didn't throw them out of the pram at all, but read into that what you will.

 
Where did you read about this? I haven't had any (obvious) issues with my Ultrasones and they're 35 Ohm too.

 

[DJINFERNO806]

We have been talking about the zxr's quite high output impedance for some time now on here.

Taking from one of the review sites testing phase.

 

[Radical_53]

Yes, I know the talk about the high output impedance. I hadn't seen a single sentence mentioning anything about bad bass response on low impedance headphones.

 

[DJINFERNO806]

Yes, I know the talk about the high output impedance. I hadn't seen a single sentence mentioning anything about bad bass response on low impedance headphones.

Someone did mention on here a while back about what high impedence could do. Makes sense that the handling of low frequencies could be changed due to the impedence. This seems to fit the theory of impedence mismatch.

But I think some people have not heard their headphones with a different source so they don't know what that difference would be.

 

[SaLX]

Radical - don't sweat it seriously - what we've gleaned is that it really isn't anything to worry about especially if you have good headphones. However the effect, though marginal does seem to exist. Any chance you could check out your 'sones with your smartphone at the same volume and see how they do?? May not be at all noticeable in your case.

 

[Radical_53]

I can try that, sure, although I have no idea how its headphone out is specced. On earlier cards I used to have desktop amps to help me with my phones and, while the difference wasn't huge (as in "jumps in your face right away"), it was very easy to spot in comparison. The sound got flatter, less "volumetric", and especially the bass had far less detail and contrast.
I'll give it another shot though as volume has never been an issue with this impedance.

 

[SaLX]

Yeah - maybe it's an unfair test seeing as your SB is amped. As I say don't worry about it!!!

 

[Evshrug]

Someone did mention on here a while back about what high impedence could do. Makes sense that the handling of low frequencies could be changed due to the impedence. This seems to fit the theory of impedence mismatch.

But I think some people have not heard their headphones with a different source so they don't know what that difference would be.

It depends on the impedance curve of the particular headphone being used... that one objectivist guy who got banned wrote a long article about the effect of impedance, but he assumed most headphones would be like the Sennheiser HD650 — which HAS a rather large spike in the bass range of it's impedance curve. InnerFidelity and Headroom have a rather large catalogue of impedance curve charts. I was surprised to realize that almost all my headphones have very very level impedance curves, nothing like what a lot of the Sennheiser's have. That doesn't make Senns bad, just a little more picky.

The other thing to note... If you connect an "an amp to help out," it has a dampening factor like plugging in a headphone with impedance in the thousands. And then the amp's output impedance becomes the only ohms affecting a headphone.

 

[SoFGR]

Is sbx surround "100%" that bad or is it just me ? 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxO9cd-sYA