[krazygluon]

Ok, so I figure this is a computer-as-source question because I just love my computer (and its relative upgradeability,) and its upgradeability and have used one as my source for the last 6 years anyway.

Currently I'm sitting on a P4 system with plenty nice specs outside of the audio spectrum. I put an oem-grade Audigy2 in recently (OMG the difference 24bits makes!) and I currently play everything out of iTunes (it runs my iPod and i've got some stuff I bought which doesn't play anywhere else to my knowledge) This all goes (unamped) into a pair of Panasonic in-ear headphones (about $50 when I bought them.)

My guess is the direction I need to take this is to get an amp and better cans.
I really like the in-ear design in part because of its noise cancelling (the fans on my computer probably dump a good 20dB minimum into the room and its a 2nd floor room in an old house which means nearby window air conditioner.)

I was mostly interested in knowing what a good entry-level (< $300US) amp is.

I'm thinking I'll go with either the etymotic ER-6i's or the Shure e3c's (any guidelines on which is better?)

Also, what is the general consensus regarding software players? I had some guy on Anarchy-Online give me crap for 30 minutes on how much iTunes sucked.

 

[Trogdor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krazygluon Also, what is the general consensus regarding software players? I had some guy on Anarchy-Online give me crap for 30 minutes on how much iTunes sucked.

No matter how you slice it, the iTunes application is a very nice piece of software. And from what I understand, its mp3 encoder is also very good (LAME is what I believe most use in this forum).

However, for multi-format playback, my favorite and I think a lot of Head-Fiers is Foobar 2000 on Windows. Tons of options, tons of plugins, support for almost every significant codec and both kernel streaming and ASIO support. You really can't go wrong with the Foo!

Trogdor

 

[TheReds]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krazygluon Ok, so I figure this is a computer-as-source question because I just love my computer (and its relative upgradeability,) and its upgradeability and have used one as my source for the last 6 years anyway. Currently I'm sitting on a P4 system with plenty nice specs outside of the audio spectrum. I put an oem-grade Audigy2 in recently (OMG the difference 24bits makes!) and I currently play everything out of iTunes (it runs my iPod and i've got some stuff I bought which doesn't play anywhere else to my knowledge) This all goes (unamped) into a pair of Panasonic in-ear headphones (about $50 when I bought them.) My guess is the direction I need to take this is to get an amp and better cans. I really like the in-ear design in part because of its noise cancelling (the fans on my computer probably dump a good 20dB minimum into the room and its a 2nd floor room in an old house which means nearby window air conditioner.) I was mostly interested in knowing what a good entry-level (< $300US) amp is. I'm thinking I'll go with either the etymotic ER-6i's or the Shure e3c's (any guidelines on which is better?) Also, what is the general consensus regarding software players? I had some guy on Anarchy-Online give me crap for 30 minutes on how much iTunes sucked.

I am not too knowledgable on the iem's

you're refering to, so somebody else will have to help you out with that

. As for the amp, would you be using it as a home and portable amp? if so, and if $350 is present (its always just a little more than you want, isnt it? lol) i would suggest the AE-1. Anyone else got some recommendations?

Im sort of in the same situation as you, except i have a pair of cans i really like, some HF-1's. I too have an audigy 2, and just need to find a suitable amp. Havnt decided if i want home or home/portable. After you get your IEM's and Amp sorted out you might want to think about a dac ($ just adds up here).

Oh, and welcome to headfi by the way.

dos mas questions:
- What have you encoded all your music to in iTunes?
- ........i forgot.

 

[TheReds]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trogdor However, for multi-format playback, my favorite and I think a lot of Head-Fiers is Foobar 2000 on Windows. Tons of options, tons of plugins, support for almost every significant codec and both kernel streaming and ASIO support. You really can't go wrong with the Foo! Trogdor

I concur

. Be one with the Foo and it will treat you well. WARNING: Steep learning curve though. So many options, customizable EVERYTHING, a little bit of coding needed to get it really set in.....but once you got it going and set up how YOU like it, i believe there is no match. Plus, it uses almost no resources in windows, so i can easily run fb2k, and ut2004 without my system lagging at all.

check out: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...p?showforum=28
^^^ best place to go for fb2k

Cheers!

 

[krazygluon]

Thereds: I encoded in mp3, as I originally planned on migrating back to linux. sadly some of the recent hardware additions I've made make booting any copy of it impossible, so I'm going to live in windows 'till its time for my next motherboard upgrade (at least january or sometime after p4 dual cores go down in $$ or the athlon goes dual core...not sure which)

I think I may re-encode my particularly favorite albums into alac or flac, partially as a way of seeing just how sensitive my ears are.

Regarding a dac, what would adding a dac to an audigy do? It seems slightly redundant, although I guess it makes sense in terms of having the audigy do all the 5.1 decoding, pumping that out the digital out and using the dac's presumably better d/a's to make the final analog sounds?

This is starting to give me high temptation to talk to the diy people and start building some of these things. (Bachelor's degree in physics, entering Elec. Engineering grad-school)

I've done some looking around and think I may have had my ears opened regarding the iem thing. For the money, a pair of Grado's looks like a good way to improve on my current headphones.

Thanks for all the advice

 

[IstariAsuka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krazygluon Regarding a dac, what would adding a dac to an audigy do? It seems slightly redundant, although I guess it makes sense in terms of having the audigy do all the 5.1 decoding, pumping that out the digital out and using the dac's presumably better d/a's to make the final analog sounds?

Yes, you're correct, a DAC would be good because it would do a much higher quality digital to analog conversion than the Audigy. The Audigy is quite poor as a source--I upgraded from one to a E-Mu 1212m, and the difference was immediately apparent. Once you pass the $200 mark or so, however, you've mostly hit the wall with soundcards, and are better moving up to a DAC (many opt for the DAC1 or similar, ~$1000). This rather large gap could be filled by modding your sound-card, or by DIYing yourself a DAC, or perhaps modding a cheaper DAC.

Note, though, that if you do ever pick up an exteranal DAC, you'd want to pick up an AV-710 or similar to output the digital, instead of using your Audigy. This is because the Audigy cannot output a bit-perfect digital stream; it resamples everything, lowering the quality.

 

[TheReds]

I just asked about the encoding becuase as your source (and cans) gets better and better the imperfections in a low quality encoding will become more apparent. Lucky i checked out hydrogenforums before i really got going on burning all my cd's to my computer. So now i have 1 collection of all my music in flac (backup) then i have another Lame preset insane collection (flac -> Mp3) for my x5.

IstariAsuka, i was wondering, do any creative cards have a bitperfect dig out? i game a good amount and if i could just find an audigy *maybe x-fi* that has a bit perfect dig out, then i could attach a dac to that and my "music" cans to it and my gaming headphones to the analog out for EAX and such.

 

[IstariAsuka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheReds IstariAsuka, i was wondering, do any creative cards have a bitperfect dig out? i game a good amount and if i could just find an audigy *maybe x-fi* that has a bit perfect dig out, then i could attach a dac to that and my "music" cans to it and my gaming headphones to the analog out for EAX and such.

All the x-fi are capable of outputting bit-perfect.

As far as I know, none of the other flavors can, including the A4, the A2, the A, the Live 24bit, etc. Only the X-Fi.

However, you could run 2 soundcards. You could use a 2nd soundcard which has both a digital in and a digital out. Connect the digital out of the Creative to the digital in of the other, and then you can simply output everything--whether game or music--through the digital out of the 2nd card. This way you don't have to deal with having 2 set-ups, each connected to a different card. You would, however, have to set-up everything to use the appropriate card, which could be more trouble than it's worth, compared to just picking up an x-fi.