[macmania]

Hello all,

I recently bought a sennheiser HD650+musical fidelity Xcan v3 w/ mullard tubes to use for listening to music. Source is my PC with a audigy sound card.

Problem is... the sound is miles away from what i tested the setup with previously, the HD650 + xcanv3 + a roksan cdp.

What can i do to improve my source other than to use a CD player? Will I ever reach the same standard if I use the PC as a source? Thinking of getting the EMU 0404USB.

Comments?

 

[Bjornboy81]

Quote:

Originally Posted by macmania /img/forum/go_quote.gif What can i do to improve my source other than to use a CD player? Will I ever reach the same standard if I use the PC as a source? Thinking of getting the EMU 0404USB. Comments?

check out this article: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/nugent.htm

There's also a thread in this section regarding PC as being a decent (or possible one of the best) source.

Adding a DAC will help quite a bit. I'm sure some other guys with better experience can help on which one, but a DAC would be your best bet.

 

[diego]

I am pretty sure the Audigy is causing your bad sound quality. I started my pc sound system with an Audigy also and the quality was really bad. I also bought good headphones and amp and the sound was still bad. When I installed a USB transport (Trends Audio UD-10) and a Bel Canto Dac 1 the sound improved significantly. Now I replaced the UD-10 and Bel Canto for a Stello DA100 which has USB output and the sound quality is even better.

I don't want to enter the pc vs cdp debate but I can tell you that if you feed a good dac with your pc you will have very good sound quality (using the right software and settings).

By the way, I still have the audigy installed that I use with external speakers for games and there are no conflicts with the Dac.

Regards,
Diego

 

[kamal007]

definitely get an emu 0404 usb or if you have more money go for a higher end dac

 

[agile_one]

You didn't mention what quality audio files you use, so there may be room for improvement there. Specifically, if your source audio is 128 or 192 mp3 or aac, etc, you should see huge improvement by going to a lossless format (flac, wav, alac, wmp lossless), or at least try to get to a high variable bit rate or to 256 or 320 fixed.

If you already use lossless files, then chuck the audigy for a good usb dac such as a Stello DA100 already memntioned.

 

[Zorander]

The Roksan electronics are generally forward-/agressive-sounding and are a good match to the HD-650. The Audigy on the other hand is a cold-/sterile-sounding source that really does not sound good for music at all. You'd do yourself a favour by replacing it with something better; most recent soundcards will easily trump the Audigy for this purpose.

Cheers!

 

[Jay B]

Quote:

Originally Posted by macmania /img/forum/go_quote.gif Problem is... the sound is miles away from what i tested the setup with previously, the HD650 + xcanv3 + a roksan cdp.

One thing I noticed when I got my 650's is that they really bring out the 'bad' in bad recordings. The lack of sound quality may be due to the fact that a lot of the music you're listening to has actually been poorly mixed/recorded and you didn't notice before because you didn't have a setup that would bring it out. Try getting the CD you demoed and see if it sounds like it did when you tested the setup.

That being said, an upgrade to the sound card would probably be beneficial. I have a MF X-DAC on order and hope it will bring a good improvement.

 

[epaludo]

Can you define your budget?
That'll help quite a lot for us to define a good DAC which will make a night and day difference in your music playback experiense ...

 

[riceboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bjornboy81 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Adding a DAC will help quite a bit. I'm sure some other guys with better experience can help on which one, but a DAC would be your best bet.

A DAC will make a huge difference. Right now I have a Benchmark DAC1 and let me tell you that the music from my PC sounds amazing. I had a microdac before this and although the Microdac is great product for the money, the DAC1 really brings the sound home. I've been wondering how I didn't have a good DAC all these years listening to MP3 and FLAC files. I've had MP3s since 1995, so it's been a while

. But seriously, I didn't think it would make that huge of a difference, but out of all the amps, whether it be from a GCHA, EC/SS or the other's I demo and owned, it didn't make that much of an impact as a good DAC. Like most on head-fi say that upgrade cans -> source -> amp. I went the cans -> amp -> dac. If I could do it all over again I would definitely have upgraded my source before the amp. Overall the music sounds 2 to 3 times better. I'm not sure what your budget is, but if you want improvement in sound a DAC is the way to go. Good luck on your search.

 

[macmania]

thanks for all the comments guys.

ordered a 0404usb, hope this will improve the sound

 

[macmania]

this is bad...

tested the 0404 on 2 systems:

System 1 is a dual-core E6400 with 2GB ram (home)
System 2 is a lowly P4 with 1GB ram (office)

tested the 0404 on my system 1. playback using:
FLAC> Foobar > ASIO> RKR Rokit 5

sound is fantastic! so i brought the 0404 to my office (system2) and playback using:
FLAC> Foobar > ASIO> Xcan v3> senn 650

and there is static !!! and the playback is intermittent, sometimes got sound sometimes no sound...

Qn: is there a PC system requirements for this thing? What are my options? External DAC like a MSB link DAC for my office?

My fellow head-fis, pls give me advice

 

[yale.reinstein]

Few things you should do regardless, disable windows sounds, screen saver and power saving (you'll have to disable usb power saving within device manager). Mute anything you don't use.

Sounds like it's usb noise? I'm not 100% sure, but try disconnecting every other usb device, and try different usb ports. If not perhaps its a bad power supply or motherboard.

Goodluck on figuring it out!