[zhopudey]

Hi,

Not about headphones, but then this is the best place on the net to solve any doubts about soundcards.

I got my stereo setup yesterday. 0404 PCI > Passive Preamp > McCormack DNA 125 > Dynaudioacoustics BM6. Playing mainly flacs or ape. Now, while the highs and mids sound excellent, there is no bass at all!

This, even when the speakers are close to the rear wall, and placed on super heavy granite stands.
A friend of mine thought that the sound card is probably not powerful enough to drive the amp directly. Can this be the problem? I've read about so many people directly connecting their sound cards to their amps.

I don't have any money left to buy an active preamp

 

[TheVinylRipper]

You might try bypassing the passive preamp and plug the power amp straight into the 0404's analog outputs.. Make sure to turn the software volume control all the way down before you do this..

If the mids and highs sound really good it's unlikely that the soundcard is not putting out enough, if it were overloaded you would likely hear distortion in the mids and highs.

Bypassing the preamp will give you a better idea of where the problem might lie.

Another thing to do would be try another soundcard or even the onboard sound if your motherboard has it.

Anything you can do to eliminate component after component as the culprit.

 

[TheVinylRipper]

One other thing comes to mind.

Are the speakers phased properly?

Even massive speakers will sound thin if out of phase, the bass frequencies cancel out..

I'd check that out first before trying anything else.. All you have to do is reverse the wires on just one of the speakers..

 

[zhopudey]

I did try w/o the preamp. Had to set the EMU's volume to -30dB. I'll check my onboard audio, and the phase.

 

[zhopudey]

Tried the onboard audio. No change, (except it sounds much worse). Checked the phase as well, and its proper. Red goes to red, and black to black.

Now what do I do?

 

[TheVinylRipper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zhopudey /img/forum/go_quote.gif Tried the onboard audio. No change, (except it sounds much worse). Checked the phase as well, and its proper. Red goes to red, and black to black. Now what do I do?

Just for grins, try turning the balance control all the way to one side and then all the way to the other..

Listen to the speakers while doing this and see if the sound changes in any way (except the obvious).

 

[zhopudey]

No change that I could make out. Say, do cables also need break-in? They're the only new components in my setup.

 

[TheVinylRipper]

Not to my knowledge...

Have you tried listening to your files on another system?

Are you sure there is no graphic eq or something similar in your computer playback software?

Foobar, WinAmp, QMP.. etc..

 

[poo]

Cables shouldn't have any influence here.

Sounds like one of those 'obvious' things that you kick yourself for when you find it.

Test the 0404 on other speakers or headphones to ensure it isn't at fault. This will remove it from the equation. Make sure another music source (like a cd player) plays OK via your amp, forget the pre for now and test it later.

As far as I'm aware it should have nothing to do with the 0404 not being able to 'drive' the system - it really isn't a power issue so much as a device that sends a signal...

 

[zhopudey]

I'm using Foobar without any EQ.

I had the Altec Lansing MX5021 earlier. Got decent bass through those (though very boomy and muddled).

 

[TheVinylRipper]

If you got the same results with the onboard soundcard then that means the soundcard is almost certainly not the problem.

Given that the problem also shows up with no preamp in the signal channel that lets the preamp off the hook.

As Sherlock Holmes once remarked, when you have eliminated the impossible, what remains, however improbable, is the answer.

If you can, test the setup with some different speakers.

Test the amp and speakers with an mp3 player or something like that..

 

[sejarzo]

It could be an impedance mismatch with the exact type of passive pre that you are running, if I understand correctly that you can get adequate volume without it in the system by attenuating the 0404 PCI via the software control.

What passive are you running?

 

[zhopudey]

I use an Alps Blue Velvet pot. But even connecting the sound card directly to the amp gives the same problem. Now I'm trying to borrow an active preamp to test it out.

 

[zhopudey]

Ohh damn! I got some bass when I stood in the corner! So maybe its a problem of room nodes. I'll buy a mic tomm, and check freq and impulse response at my sitting position. Then I'll try out the DRC thing.

 

[Drewpy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zhopudey /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ohh damn! I got some bass when I stood in the corner!

You should have discovered this when panning the audio hard left and right. With the sound coming from one speaker, there's virtually zero chance that you'd still be sitting in a node that practically eliminates all the bass.