M-Audio Audiophile USB has a good headphone out!!

[elrod-tom]

So I'm sitting here, listening to Rhapsody (man oh man, it's worse than crack!) tonight. Ryan Adams...my latest Rhapsody discovery.

I'm listening through my tiny little computer speakers, and it just doesn't do much for me after listening to my main rig earlier this afternoon. So I pick up some AKG K240S that I'm evaluating and plug them into the headphone jack.

Hey...this sounds pretty good. Not GREAT, mind you, but a LOT better than I was expecting. The bass is respectable, and the highs are clean without being harsh. The midrange is not bad...I wouldn't call it inspiring, but I'm pleasantly surprised.

I'll have to give this a listen with a couple of different cans and see what I think. In the mean time, I'm just enjoying a good listening session.

 

[Jasper994]

From what I hear, it gets even better if you replace the wall wart!

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

So why don't you stick your SR225 into that babe!

 

[elrod-tom]

Might have to try the SR225...but they are at work.

 

[fewtch]

Hmm... we need more posts like this that (even remotely) suggest that soundcards can be decent sources. Too much leftover prejudice over all the horrendous sounding consumer level cards on the market throughout the 90's, and not enough people who've heard today's higher end cards in a proper configuration, using the right software, etc.

 

[sacd lover]

The best of the newer soundcards are awesome.

Low jitter and much less noise make for very nice sound.

 

[lan]

I agree, expectations of these things are too low. But it's all a matter of perspective. I don't really like the AP USB's headphone outs or digital outs. It's still missing something. But for the price it's got a lot of bang.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by lan I agree, expectations of these things are too low. But it's all a matter of perspective. I don't really like the AP USB's headphone outs or digital outs. It's still missing something. But for the price it's got a lot of bang.

The good news is, it isn't hard to see improvements on the horizon with more people using PCs as a source. There's nothing stopping a major high-end audio company (home audio, not studio) from releasing a high end soundcard for music playback -- look at what Headroom's already doing with the Bithead amps. Once some of these companies see the potential crossover appeal with products like the ART DI/O and M-Audio Revo, who knows what might appear on the market?

For now, I'm pretty happy with my Delta AP 24/96 and upsampling 44.1/16 to 96/24.

 

[lan]

Thing is how many people actually use a computer as a source?

If a high end audio company makes such a product, I wonder how much it could possibly cost. Would we be willing to spend like $300-500?

BTW fetch, have you tried clocking your AP 24/96 externally? Just hook up the coax of a CD player or something to the digital input. You don't even have to have music playing as long as a clock signal is outputted. Then change the master clock to SPDIF IN in the control panel.

This works for any of the "pro" cards w/ digital input. I didn't hear as much of a differece when I tried this w/ AP USB.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by lan Thing is how many people actually use a computer as a source? If a high end audio company makes such a product, I wonder how much it could possibly cost. Would we be willing to spend like $300-500? BTW fetch, have you tried clocking your AP 24/96 externally? Just hook up the coax of a CD player or something to the digital input. You don't even have to have music playing as long as a clock signal is outputted. Then change the master clock to SPDIF IN in the control panel.

I'd say more and more people are using a computer as a source... whether at work, or "background music" at home while working on the PC (which always has the potential to become "foreground music"). But I'm just guessing. The advent of online digital music services and popularity of downloaded music and such seems to support my guess to some extent, however...

I haven't tried externally clocking the AP 24/96 -- I don't own anything to clock it with. I do have a DVD player that would be a possibility, but it's about 3 rooms and 50+ feet away from the computer. So far, the biggest improvement I've found has been to use a high quality upsampling algorithm which outputs in the card's native format (24/96) -- pretty impressive improvement, in my opinion. Somehow it's more relaxed sounding, much less constricted and "digital-y" and it seems I can hear deeper into the noise floor of the music.

 

[Jasper994]

Quote:

Originally posted by fewtch So far, the biggest improvement I've found has been to use a high quality upsampling algorithm which outputs in the card's native format (24/96) -- pretty impressive improvement, in my opinion. Somehow it's more relaxed sounding, much less constricted and "digital-y" and it seems I can hear deeper into the noise floor of the music.

What algorithm is that?

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper994 What algorithm is that?

SSRC (in my case, Peter Pawlowski's old Waveout v2.0.2a SSRC plugin for WinAMP running on Win98SE).

With Foobar2k it's essentially the same thing if you use the "Resampling" plugin at 96KHz in "slow mode," and set FB2k up to output at 24 bit (it's on a different property page... I don't have Foobar installed so can't tell you which one).

 

[Jasper994]

I for one would use my computer as a source a lot more if I could just get the damn ground loop to go away... My laptop works fairly well but still creates a little noise in the line. I use the AudioTrak Opto Play in either case. If I just use the internal amp on the Opto Play it sounds great except that it's not powerful enough to really push my 590's for DVD. I'd be willing to invest in a better soundcard except that I doubt that my ground loop issue will go away.

 

[Jasper994]

Quote:

Originally posted by fewtch SSRC (in my case, Peter Pawlowski's old Waveout v2.0.2a SSRC plugin for WinAMP running on Win98SE). With Foobar2k it's essentially the same thing if you use the "Resampling" plugin at 96KHz in "slow mode," and set FB2k up to output at 24 bit (it's on a different property page... I don't have Foobar installed so can't tell you which one).

Hey thanks! I'll check them both out.

 

[Jasper994]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper994 Hey thanks! I'll check them both out.

Well I just did (Foobar) wow! there is a big difference... I haven't decided yet if I like it better but there is a very noticeable difference.

-EDIT-

I've been using MusicMatch with the DFX plugin for so long that I'm very acoustomed to the sound... It really does sound pretty good (I use only low settings Fidelity =1, Ambience = OFF, 3D Surround = Off, Dynamic Boost = 2, Bass Boost = 2). DFX does all of it's DSP functions in 32bit and then dithers back down to 16bit. The real beauty here is that it basically works as an eq but doesn't cause distortion (I have found that using the eq on MusicMatch or Winamp forces you to lower the volume settings in the software to avoid distortion).