Looking for Sony XB500 & Creative SB Audigy (2/4) soundcard users
Feb 12, 2011 at 12:54 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 19

RPGWiZaRD

Headphoneus Supremus
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I'd hope I can find at least some1 with a Sony XB500 headphone and Audigy sound card. What I'd be curious about to get feedback about how great it really sounds like to your ears with my kX Audio driver configuration. So if you still got an Audigy card lying in a drawer somewhere in case you're not using it as your main device anymore now's the time to dig it out! I've told several times I think XB500 together with the config I use make it sound like $200 worth equipment without any kind of exaggeration, I'd wanna find out if it's only my personal opinion or others would also concider it to be great for the price.
 
I would fill in interested ones with the details through PM.
 
What I think is that kX Audio drivers are excellent choice especially for bassheads as the bass quality sounds very great and the EQ included works better than any EQ I've used by far. Basicly you can use it as a software amp, boosting all frequencies even by like +20 without adding distortion or the sound would get "muted"/muffled etc, it stays very true to the original signal only boosting or reducing the volume of the different frequencies. I would provide 2 different configs, one with minimalistic EQing only to provide better balance and another with all frequencies greatly boosted adding more warm/forward sound and more bass while still keeping a somewhat decently balanced frequency response and would be also interested in hearing what you think between those 2 configs.
 
Feb 12, 2011 at 2:38 PM Post #2 of 19
I am extremely enjoying the sound of these XB500, haven't turned them off since they were delivered.
 
I am running them through my hotrodded xtrememusic though, since I've given away my audigy 2 zs when I upgraded a few years back. I wonder if they have the kx drivers for my x-fi?
 
Anyways I am looking at the graph at headroom and they show a large dip somewhere in the midrange frequency but I can't seem to pinpoint the location of the dip according the to scale used on the graph... is it around 3.5 or 5.X khz. I want to play with the eq a little bit.
 
http://www.headphone.com/headphones/sony-mdr-xb500.php
 
 
Feb 12, 2011 at 4:02 PM Post #3 of 19
You can click on the pic to get a bigger picture of it which makes it easier to read. :p
 

 
It's at 3.5 kHz or very close to 4kHz and yes it's important to boost 4kHz (if we're talking the typical 10-band EQ) and also 16kHz quite a bit on this headphone, I did boost 8kHz a bit too but ofc not as much as 4kHz and 16kHz, those are crucial parts when EQing XB500 to sound better with any genre you throw at it and also reduce the upper bass 125 - 250Hz a bit.
 
By boosting I may even mean the opposite to lower everything else, it'll depend on the EQ how great it works etc, on kX Audio drivers it works just as good if not better to boost the values than go the opposite direction of lowering everything else except what you want to be stronger. But on typical software EQs, going with the technique that reducing instead of boosting usually works best, can't comment on the X-Fi EQ.
 
Feb 26, 2011 at 11:13 AM Post #7 of 19
Cmon there gotta be some1, I've finetuned the settings for like 8 months by 0.1 accuracy on every slider I can adjust for the best possible results so it would be worth trying at least. :p
 
Feb 28, 2011 at 7:15 AM Post #8 of 19
Bump.
 
The Audigy 2 ZS card especially seems to have awesome synergy with these headphones, for example AKG K 518 DJ sound quite crap from this source while those sounds a lot better from my TV, possibly even better than XB500 but it's the total opposite when comparing from the computer soundcard.
 
Jun 9, 2011 at 12:09 PM Post #10 of 19
Bumpage, don't you want to experience the ultimate budget basshead experience for a total cost of mere ~$65 (if getting a Audigy 2 ZS for ~$15)? :D
 
Jun 11, 2011 at 3:30 AM Post #11 of 19
RPG: Ive been toying with you eq settings but wanted to say it works very well quite interesting sound pending upon active dsp configs, anyways I know you were looking for people with audigy cards but I do run foobar off of my creative xmod external card  and your settings help for more tweaking on my end:)
 
Jun 11, 2011 at 3:53 AM Post #12 of 19


Quote:
RPG: Ive been toying with you eq settings but wanted to say it works very well quite interesting sound pending upon active dsp configs, anyways I know you were looking for people with audigy cards but I do run foobar off of my creative xmod external card  and your settings help for more tweaking on my end:)


So does the Creative xmod card work with kX Audio drivers ? I kinda doubt it though. :p
 
 
Jun 12, 2011 at 1:24 AM Post #13 of 19
Hmmm I never tried, let me look into it tommorow:)
 
Dec 13, 2011 at 8:48 AM Post #14 of 19
LOL @ the millions of bumps xD btw rpg, I was googling xb500 sound card and ure name pretty much appears on any zb500 google search lolxD
 

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