Just got the TBAAM.

[dieselzaf]

Well I don't know how I feel about this. I installed the included drivers on one usb slot and used generic windows drivers on the other usb slot. First off there is no background "hum" or "hiss" that was there before with the headphone jack (it was never really annoying, but present)

Sound Quality

- (Both) drivers have no hiss which is good.

- (generic windows) Sounds the same as the headphone jack, just minus the hiss. I seriously can't tell. Went back and forth a bunch of times. It is just annoying going back to the TBAAM that the volume is on full blast which is scary and might be damaging to the headphones(hd595). Same sound.

- (TBAAM driver) Sounds very flat. BY THE WAY I DO NOT HAVE ANY CRACKLES AND POPS. Anyways, the sound is totally flat and sounds really bad compared to the windows driver, the treble is gone. You have to mess with the eq to make it sound better, but I'm not sure how to get the best sound. If I tried, it would be so time consuming.

So I'm not sure what the hype is about the TBAAM besides it doesn't have the constant hiss associated with laptop stock soundcards. The quality of the music doesn't sound any better, meaning no extra clarity. Maybe I am missing something. I use Dell's jukebox and winamp, I think I will get foobar and that asio plug-in. Maybe this will make the card sound better, but if that was the case I should of just installed asio and foobar with my onboard soundcard.

Is there something I am doing wrong?

 

[theexec]

Aren't you happy that you only paid $30 and you got rid of the hiss?

Also the TBAAM can provide more volume for harder to drive headphones. My laptop can't drive the AKG k701 to loud volume even at max. I'm sure there are harder to drive headphones that can be made more listenable with the TBAAM.

The main reason I got it is that I needed an optical out. The fact that it sounds better out of the headphone jacks compared to my laptop is a bonus.

 

[slinger1182]

I donno, I've always felt that TBAAM sounded a little twangy and metallic. I still use it exclusively but I am saving up for a good DAC.

EDIT: Maybe it sounds the same because TBAAM too resamples everything to 48 KHz?

 

[dieselzaf]

Ok that the fact that there is less hissing is nice. So what's up with the TBAAM drivers, people on this board said that either they got pops and crackles or not, but either way the TBAAM drivers sounded better while the windows generic drivers sounded worse. I am having the opposite effect with the windows driver sounding much better than the supplied drivers.

 

[dieselzaf]

Forget it, I am trying to use foobar for the first time and use the asio plug-in. OMG!!! I just wasted and hour and have gone nowhere. Is there a simple way to get asio to work with foobar or winamp or any other media player with TBAAM. The thread with asio+tbaam is sooooo confusing, please!!!

I wound up installing foobar 0.8.3 and asio4all, but the asio isn't in the foobar component list. Do I have to install another asio in there. It is soo confusing. Can someone please help me out?

screw it. This is a pain. On top of that the music is blasting the crap out of my headphones when I mess around with the settings, it's just pissing me off.

 

[theexec]

When I first got my TBAAM, i had a lot of pops and crackle. I was about to return it. However, it went away after a few days.. for no apparent reason and never came back again

I tried both the drivers and conclude that the windows ones are much better.

I use ASIO as well.

Now, everyone says the TBAAM resamples to 48khz. The turtle website says that the optical out only supports 48khz. However it doesn't say anything about the headphone output is resampled to 48khz. I have done testing with udial.wav, foobar and ASIO and my conclusion is that the normal headphone out is not resampled to 48khz. Prior to testing I had blindly been using the foobar resampler plug in and thinking that I got better sound quality, however I was in debelieve when it seemed like directsounded was noticeably better. Now I run foobar with ASIO and leaving the sampling rate at 44.1khz

You can download udial.wav and test this for yourself.

 

[slinger1182]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dieselzaf I wound up installing foobar 0.8.3 and asio4all, but the asio isn't in the foobar component list. Do I have to install another asio in there. It is soo confusing. Can someone please help me out?

Yeah you need to put the ASIO component in your Prgram Files/Foobar2000/components folder. ASIO4ALL will just install the driver. Foobar needs the component to recognise the driver.