[Reck45]

Well I thought I might get one since I seemed to have been able to work out the pci slot space problem. I just have a few questions about it...how much of an improvement would it be over my current soundcard? How much power does the headphone(or lineout) supply and what's the power output compared to the audigy 2?

Is anyone else here running dual soundcards with the sblive here?

Oh yea can it even drive the 555s?

 

[proxops-pete]

Well, I hope I can shed some light for you here...
I own 535 and even w/o my Zmoy amp, it is rather easily driven. I used to have SB Live in there as well along with the Chaintech. No problem there... I just didn't think it necessary to leave both in there so I took Live! 5.1 out. It's still in static bag now!

If your 555 is similar to my 535, it shouldn't be a problem.

I think the line out gives only small amount of power but I don't recall the actual number.

 

[Reck45]

What is the impedance of the 535? The 555s are 120Ohm...

Anyone here use 120ohm cans with that card unmamped?

 

[Mr.Radar]

Because the AV-710 uses a line-out that is matched to high impeadence I'd say that it'd do pretty well with the HD555, though it probably won't go very loud (there isn't any opamp on the high quality output). Without an amp, my 32-ohm Beyerdynamic DT440's don't have any bass, but my 60-ohm PortaPro's have plenty of it.

You should have no problems running it with an SB Live or Audigy.

 

[Imyourzero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar Because the AV-710 uses a line-out that is matched to high impeadence I'd say that it'd do pretty well with the HD555, though it probably won't go very loud (there isn't any opamp on the high quality output).

I wasn't aware that the AV-710's line-out was matched to high impedance...how do the line-outs on the 0404/1212M compare to the AV-710 as far as being matched to a certain impedance?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar Without an amp, my 32-ohm Beyerdynamic DT440's don't have any bass, but my 60-ohm PortaPro's have plenty of it.

Could that be simply due to the nature of the headphones? The PortaPros are known to have good bass from pretty much ANY source...so it might not necessarily have to do with the line-out of the card.

 

[Reck45]

Whelp just placed my order with zipzoomfly. It was 25.50 including shipping. Not too shabby for a card based on the envy chipset. I couldn't use newegg because my last name was too long to fit on the form....What...? I can't believe there is a big space and you can only use a few spaces.

 

[proxops-pete]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reck45 Whelp just placed my order with zipzoomfly. It was 25.50 including shipping. Not too shabby for a card based on the envy chipset. I couldn't use newegg because my last name was too long to fit on the form....What...? I can't believe there is a big space and you can only use a few spaces.

Odd little problem...

But still $25.50 is a great price. You won't be disappointed! Now, just to make sure, this investment won't mean much unless you use Foobar2000 or Winamp that can bypass kmixer. Do you know of these programs? If not, search on those here and learn about them before you get your AV-710.

 

[Mr.Radar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Imyourzero I wasn't aware that the AV-710's line-out was matched to high impedance...how do the line-outs on the 0404/1212M compare to the AV-710 as far as being matched to a certain impedance?

AFAIK, all line-outs are high impeadence because amps (Pre, Headphone and Power amps) have resistors on their inputs. Of course I'm no expert so I may be wrong.

Quote:

Could that be simply due to the nature of the headphones? The PortaPros are known to have good bass from pretty much ANY source...so it might not necessarily have to do with the line-out of the card.

Maybe, though I notice much less of an increase with an amp vs. without an amp in the bass of the PortaPro's.

 

[Reck45]

Whoo hooo it ships tomorrow. God I hate waiting for things...looking around it's pretty much equal to the m-audio revolution. Sweet...

I know how to install hardware and all but what drivers should I use? Seems like everyone uses something different. I have xp pro. Hopefully I won't have any irq problems... oh yea when I install it it won't take over as the primary sound device will it? Also what about the software for it? Like the equalizer program? How will I get that if I don't use the cd to install?

FYI I use Shibachs MPG123(superior to mad) and direct sound outputSSRC for winamp...

Can someone who is running with the audigy 2 please tell me how the power output of this card compares so I know what to expect? The a2 is definitely not lacking in output power, that's why when people use an amp with it the barely notice a difference...that's why I want to know.

Oh yea and one more thing my system is a athlon 1.2/geforce 3,256 megs of ram, is there anything I should know about system usage?

Edit

h yea is there any way to get dolby digital with this card? Oh yea another newbie question, what's the point of enabling digital out with headphones?

Yea and of course my monitor is starting to crap out now...that I've decided to spend more money. God I really am the unluckiest man alive. Now I have to spend the last of my money on a new monitor. Ah well thank god I didn't buy the headsave classic...amazing coincidence...*sighs*

 

[Mr.Radar]

Whoo hooo it ships tomorrow. God I hate waiting for things...looking around it's pretty much equal to the m-audio revolution. Sweet...[/quote
One comparison of this vs. the Revo said that this card isn't as bright and is a bit funner than the Revo, so you're actually getting a slightly better card.

Quote:

I know how to install hardware and all but what drivers should I use? Seems like everyone uses something different. I have xp pro. Hopefully I won't have any irq problems...

Check out the AV-710 setup guide linked in my sig.

Quote:

oh yea when I install it it won't take over as the primary sound device will it?

I'm not sure, but you can change the default sound device in the Sounds & Audio Devices control panel.

Quote:

Also what about the software for it? Like the equalizer program? How will I get that if I don't use the cd to install?

It doesn't really come with any software besides the bare bones Via drivers (and the ones included on the CD are way out of date, use the ones for Envy24HT-S cards on Via's website instead).

Quote:

FYI I use Shibachs MPG123(superior to mad) and direct sound outputSSRC for winamp...

You should check out the ASIO output for Winamp (set to 96KHz TOP resampling) and ASIO4All to bypass Kmixer. Or you could use Foobar2000 instead of Winamp.

Quote:

Can someone who is running with the audigy 2 please tell me how the power output of this card compares so I know what to expect? The a2 is definitely not lacking in output power, that's why when people use an amp with it the barely notice a difference...that's why I want to know.

The AV-710 is a line-out only card (if you use the good DAC) so you'll need an amp unless your headphones are very easily driven.

Quote:

Oh yea and one more thing my system is a athlon 1.2/geforce 3,256 megs of ram, is there anything I should know about system usage?

Unless you do a lot of gaming with the AV-710 I don't think you should have any performance issues.

Quote:

Edit h yea is there any way to get dolby digital with this card? Oh yea another newbie question, what's the point of enabling digital out with headphones?

This card has Dolby Digital passthrough to the digital output, but it doesn't have any Dolby Digital encoding or decoding abilities. You don't need to enable the digital output in the 3.10a drivers unless you want to use a DAC, but with the 1.43d drivers it doesn't enable the option to use the good DAC unless the digital output is also enabled.

 

[Reck45]

Well I just got it...when I open a song there is a popping sound in the background. I think occasionaly there is one in the middle of a song as well but it's faint. Anyway to fix that? Also isn't there any equalizer?! Yea did I miss something or is there no equalizer? When I click on speaker test in the audio deck there is no sound but I have sound in everything else.

Also resampling to 96Khz is a no no. It takes up 50% of power of my athlon 1.2. I am running it in 24 bits though.

This card blows my old one away though. I noticed before that it couldn't even do the bass guitar right, it was just a murky mess. It's easily better than the audigy 2 as well...even fully tweaked. I'm noticing a lot of things the creative cards can't even catch.

yup I'm watching movies and it's simply amazing. The fidlelity of this is too awesome. It sounds so much more realistic than any creative card. Gone are the murky vocals that sound like like there's just a space that they are coming out of. The crappy thing though is the headphone jack is a little iffy. Guess that's why it's so cheap...

 

[Reck45]

Yikes I tried to use the newest drivers and it cause my system some major instabiltity...

Why is my cpu usage so sporatic btw? I dunno but when I got up today, resampling did not seem to take up as much power as I realized. So this is how I should set it up then?

Digital out with high sampling, plugged into the alt out, resampled to 24 bits/96Khz

Damn the drivers are still buggy...ah but I guess ya get what you pay for...also wth isn't there any equalizer?! That's like unheard of...

 

[Ph34rful]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reck45 Yikes I tried to use the newest drivers and it cause my system some major instabiltity... Why is my cpu usage so sporatic btw? I dunno but when I got up today, resampling did not seem to take up as much power as I realized. So this is how I should set it up then? Digital out with high sampling, plugged into the alt out, resampled to 24 bits/96Khz Damn the drivers are still buggy...ah but I guess ya get what you pay for...also wth isn't there any equalizer?! That's like unheard of...

Honestly I think the card resamples on it's own to 96Khz so if you can't spare the CPU cycles then I wouldn't worry too much. Also you might try the PPSH resampler; it uses much less CPU power.

Regarding the EQ... I suppose it is a bit odd not to have an EQ built into the drivers. But certainly not at all unheard of. Plus most people here are anti EQ. However, couldn't you simply use the built-in EQ of whatever media player you are using? (FooBar, WinAmp, Etc)

 

[Reck45]

Well see the problem is that when resampling is enabled, it makes the sound a little murky...but it increases the bass. When it's not, it sounds cleaner but the bass is too light...see I use media player classic for my movies and it has no equalizer....naturally movies need bass. It's not a big deal for winamp though since it has a built in one. Are there any third party equalizers that won't muddy the sound?

Edit:gah the bugginess is killing me! There seems to be a bug with winamp, the volume is up all the way in the audio deck yet the volume in winamp is really soft. Also with media player classic when I open new windows it crackles. Winamp does the same thing but not as bad. I've never seen suck a buggy device and I've used computers for many years now. Please help me fix this!

 

[Mr.Radar]

Which version of the drivers are you using?