[kdaq]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sinetwo (Oh and by the way, i just tried the MS-1s with my integrated Realtek AC '97 - and surprisingly it gives WAY too much volume (i.e. no amp needed, playing at 50% and almost blowing my ears off)

Makes sense - Grados are low impedance (32 Ohm), and fairly efficient, which means they don't need a lot of power to be loud. I can get more than enough volume off my teeny Zen Micro DAP.

A good dedicated headphone amp will make them sound better not because of increased power capability, but rather due to the way it treats the audio signal.

 

[Sycraft]

The X-Fi rules. Hands down the best soundcard I've ever owned. I previously had an Audigy 2 for games and an M-Audio Firewire 410 for pro work/critical listening. I've dumped both of those for an X-Fi. So as to the things you want:

Gaming: Cannot be beat. Unlike, well any non-Creative sound card, it has an actual DSP on board, a very powerful one. That means all the EAX, DS3D and such are decoded in hardware. It yeilds better effects and much less CPU load. Also, Creative drives the EAX standard, so their support is always cutting edge.

Music: Again superb, particularly for headphones. Why? Well they have a thing called CMMS, it's their version of Dolby Pro Logic or any of the other stereo-to-multi channel decoders. However it is truly top shelf. It also works the other way and does HRTF for headphones. Net effect is the best headphone listening experience I've had. Of course, if you don't go for that, you can set it to creation mode and it'll disengage all DSP effects unless you add them and give you bit-accurate playback.

HTPC: It has a digital out on one of it's jacks, you'll need to purchase a cable to go from mini-jack but those aren't expensive. However personally, I'd get an amp with a multi-channel in like a Yamaha HTR series and let the X-Fi do it's processing.

Amp It does have a headphone amp on it's output. Not sure of the quality, I've not used it, but you can certianly plug headphones right in to it. It adapts to headphones or line, depending on how it's configured.


Now two other things to consider:

--Offers real, full 24/96/6 and 24/192/2 DVD-A playback. It supports the crappy encryption the RIAA requires and thus is allowed to reproduce the full signal. Comes with all the software you need, too.

--Pro and consumer functionality in one card. Only card I know that gets it so right. In game mode, all the audio is resampled (with a good resampler) and upmixed for your speakers, EAX is applied, and so on. However switch it to creation mode and all the extras go away and it handles bit accurate capture and playback, ASIO 2, and all the reast you'd expect from a deceant pro card.


All in all, it's the card I really recommend to everyone. I bought an Extreme music orignally as an upgrade to the Audigy 2, I like iit so much and it works so well, I'm selling it and getting an Elite Pro to get the extra inputs and the better converters. The two major complaints that applied to Creative cards in the past, that their resampling was poor and that you couldn't turn it off, no longer apply. The resampling is first rate and is way below the noise floor, and creation mode turns it off anyhow.

 

[sgrossklass]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kdaq The prodigy (7.1 at least) has a built in 'headphone amp'. You click a button via the software control panel, and you hear a relay click, and now output 1 is running through some extra headphone amp circuitry.

AFAIK this merely changes the gain on the output opamps, so you can drive higher-impedance cans to satisfactory levels. Nothing more. Now that I think of it, I should try my HD420SL (600 ohm) straight out of the AureDigy...

 

[sinetwo]

i might just go with the x-fi then... but how's the digital out on that one? it's a minijack? and would there be any decrease in quality if i use a minijack -> toslink adapter?

And, doesn't x-fi music bundle up A LOT of software? or is most of it optional?

 

[Sycraft]

I don't know that the X-Fi does TOSlink straight from it's mini-jack, might be Coax only. To get TOS you'll either need to get the bay addon, or the Digital I/O Module. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't see any optical hardware looking at the board.

However unless you have an external DAC you want to use, there's little point. Remember that there's only 2-channels of output on S/PDIF, be it optical or coax. Surround output is done with a compressed format like Dolby Digital or DTS. The bitstream is actually encoded in 2 channel PCM, and the decoder sorts it all out later. The thing is the X-Fi doesn't do encoding for those, just decoding, for a number of reasons. So if you hook it digitally to a reciever, you'll get surround when you watch a movie, since the X-Fi will just pass the bitstream along, but not when you play games. The way to do it is to get a reciever with a multi-channel analogue input, for example any Yamaha reciever from their HTR or RX-V lines. In that way, the X-Fi does all the decoding and processing, and just uses the reciever as an amplifier.

The X-Fi bundles a ton of software, nearly all of it is optional. All I think you really need to install to make it work is the drivers. It would also behove you to install it's control panels, volume controls, mode switcher, SoundFont manager and so on so you can control all the features of the soundcard. The MediaSource DVD-A player is a good idea, if DVD-A playback is something you want. The whole Mediasource program is unnecessary and indeed I don't use it, but you might want if you want to try it as an audio player.

 

[sinetwo]

Ah ok, I think you've made my decision then

Goodbye impossible-to-get-prodigy, hello x-fi

just need to get those yellow senn pads, cause the high's are incredibly piercing, even though i've fiddled around with the EQ...

But I've been reading about ASIO2 etc, is there a FAQ on all this? Sorry to keep asking questions... but I just want to get the best possible sound

 

[Sycraft]

What about ASIO 2 do you need to know? Do you want a FAQ on what it is, or on how the X-Fi works with it?

 

[sinetwo]

Basically what ASIO is, and how to get the best sound off the x-fi on my grados... I.e. EQ on winamp (any plugins?) - what type of compressed music sounds best (obviously uncompressed but you get my point) - i've also heard of FLAC etc?
Just wondering if there's a general faq on this so i dont have to ask loads of annoying newbie questions

Thanks!

 

[Sycraft]

I don't know if there's a general FAQ but I don't mind answering questions.

ASIO is Steinberg's professional audio interface spec. Basically, back in the day there' wasn't a good API for pro soundcards so Steinberg developed one. It provides low latency, no-frills access to all a soundcard's inputs and outputs. Though OSes do that natively now (WDM KS in Windows, CoreAudio on Mac) ASIO has become a real standard and nearly all pro cards and apps support it. In relation to the X-Fi, when you set the X-Fi to creation mode, which makes ASIO available, and use ASIO, you can be gaurenteed that the sound input or output it bit accurate.

Now as to if that gives you the BEST sound, well that's subjective. Best and accurate are two different things. I personally find that the best sound, on my system, comes from using CMMS (a feature the X-Fi has in entertainment and game modes) to upmix stereo signals to all 4 speakers. This is not accurate playback, however it sounds good. I switch to a different mode if I'm doing recording to get accurate sound.

When it comes to good sound, Duke Ellington said it best: "If it sounds good it IS good." It's all about what YOU like. Don't let some audiophile snob tell you that you need to listen to sound in some certian way to get the "pure" sound. You listen to it how you want to get the sound you like.

EQs are a personal choice. I don't like them much, but then I have a reasonably good setup. You set the EQ how it makes you happy. The X-Fi has a built-in global EQ you can use. If I EQ things, I personally use the Waves Linear Phase EQ, but that's a pro plugin, and you don't really want to know the cost.

For compressed formats, depends on what you are going for. FLAC is a lossless encoder. That means that it is the same quality as uncompressed audio, just smaller. It is a pure mathematical compression so that the signal is recreated exactly. However, it only compresses maybe 2:1 at best, and there's no way to make it better.

For lossy stereo music I like OGG Vorbis. It's free and sounds good. Winamp supports it, and you can install free codecs to make Media Player and such support it too. Like MP3, it's lossy and you can control the quality. I find that 256k is overkill, and is still 5:1 compression or so.

For lossy multi-channel, I like Windows Media Audio or DTS. WMA is again free and sounds good per bit. DTS sounds great, but it's real large and the encoder is expensive.

If you are talking about ripping CDs, there are two considerations:

1) How much space do you have?

2) Do you want to use the files with a portable?

If you want to use the files with a portable, go MP3 and use LAME. MP3 is old and not great quality per bit, but all portables support it. 192kbit gives very good sound and 256kbit is essentially CD quality with most music.

If size is important, but you aren't going portable, use OGG. Pick a quality setting that sounds good to you. Quality 4 (128k nominal bitrate) sounds pretty good. Quality 8 (256k nominal) is nice and overkill, even works well for 24-bit sources.

If you've space to burn, just go with FLAC and call it good. It's a waste, but hey, that way you never need to worry if in the future you get better gear, since your files will be an orignal copy.

 

[sinetwo]

Wow, that response was overwhelming!

I didn't expect such a lenghty reply

But i've currently got my grados on the integrated AC 97's....

Can't wait to disable this and get the xfi music going

I'll read up more about the ASIO etc. And i might have to rerip my music collection lossless, i'm sure i'm going to notice the difference with the new soundcard and ASIO.

Also, i'm using somewhat of a modified techno preset in winamp: looks like this: \--_--/

But had to lower the high's a little bit as they're currently piercing :\

And then i need to get the sennheiser pads, but sennheiserusa doesnt ship internationally at the moment

and then i reckon i should get a wired jack -> minijack, as i've heard of problems breaking with a regular converter...

Just one question though... If i decide to use the optical out with TOSLINK or COAX, the minijack to phono or minijack -> toslink would work just fine out the digital out on the x-fi?

Thanks for the info, appreciate it!

EDIT: Oh yeah, regarding the last part of your post. Well, i've got 900GBs, so i'll be sorted if i decide to re rip it in FLAC or 256-320k

 

[Sycraft]

ASIO isn't likely to make much difference one way or the other with sound quality, MME is perfecly capable of accurate stream transmission, some peopel are jsut confused by what the kmixer can do. Regardles of the API, it should sound good.

The mini jack is probably Coax only. While there are optical mini jacks, I don't think the one on the X-Fi is one of them, I see no optical hardware looking at the card.

When you do get the X-Fi I recommend turning off the Winamp EQ and see how you like the sound. Then, if you feel it needs adjusting, adjust the X-Fi equaliser so that all programs get the sound you like.

 

[sinetwo]

Ah ok, that might be a good idea. I've always thought of trying that out with my ac'97, using the global software EQ...

Are there better software EQs avail. than the ones integrated? Or are they all roughly the same?

 

[Sycraft]

There are definatly better EQs. My favourite is the Waves Linear Phase EQ. It's an extremely high quality EQ that doesn't mess with the phase of the sound (most EQs do to some degree). It's a superb EQ, and you find you can use it to correct recording problems that you can't with normal EQs. Just wonderful. The problem? Well if you want it, you have to get at least the Waves Master's bundle, and that's $900 normally.

As for ones that are cheap, no sorry can't help there. Like I said, I don't do much with the EQ, I like the way my system sounds.

 

[sinetwo]

That's a VST plugin isnt it? is it possible to use a vst plugin globally in windows i.e. the EQ?

 

[Cage]

Not sure if it will work, but you could try this http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm

It allows you to run VST(i)'s standalone in Windows.