[mrwinick]

I answered that one for myself. It does. Now, does it matter if I use the mini jack or the two 1/4" jacks? Any noticeable difference? Thanks.

 

[Sir Nobax]

No difference if the amp isn't balanced, both carry the excact same signal.

 

[sejarzo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrwinick /img/forum/go_quote.gif I answered that one for myself. It does. Now, does it matter if I use the mini jack or the two 1/4" jacks? Any noticeable difference? Thanks.

By that, do you mean you bought one and are using it now?

As Sir Nobax replied, no big difference.

 

[mrwinick]

yes. I ran to guitar center to buy one and then hooked it up immediately. It's been hard to get anything done that doesn't include sitting in front of my computer.

Every time I make a change lately it seems like I'm taking a step closer to the music. It's pretty amazing what a relatively small investment (time and money) can do.

I bought the 1/4 to rca adapters before I read the answers to my question. My rca cable is higher quality than my mini-to-rca cable, so there seems to be an improvement, but as you suggested, nothing too substantial.

Now, of course, I'm wondering if I should try another amp. No complaints about my current setup (I actually think it's great), but I keep looking at pictures of the little dot mk iv and the darkvoice 332 and wondering.

 

[SuryA]

Ok i'm prolly going to buy this as an external dac for a speaker setup and also for my headphones. Just one stupid question: the trs or rca outs that I would use for my speakers are not amplified by the emu, are they?

 

[sejarzo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrwinick /img/forum/go_quote.gif yes. I ran to guitar center to buy one and then hooked it up immediately. It's been hard to get anything done that doesn't include sitting in front of my computer. Every time I make a change lately it seems like I'm taking a step closer to the music. It's pretty amazing what a relatively small investment (time and money) can do.

I just love it when I see responses like yours from new users of the 0404 USB. The value in the thing is astounding. On well-recorded orchestral material, it reveals details that I never heard from my Musical Fidelity CDPre24, Cambridge Azur 640C, or other dedicated players. The only downside is that it shows badly recorded pop/rock to be exactly that!

 

[sejarzo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuryA /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ok i'm prolly going to buy this as an external dac for a speaker setup and also for my headphones. Just one stupid question: the trs or rca outs that I would use for my speakers are not amplified by the emu, are they?

Yes, but not in the way you are thinking if I interpret your question correctly.

The output of the DAC chip itself needs to be fed to another gain stage to drive other components, so it is amplified, but not to a level that drives unpowered speakers.

The output of the 0404 USB at the jacks is equivalent to that of a typical CD player, or an internal soundcard, when the Main Output Level is set at max clockwise (+ 0 dB).

You can feed that output to an integrated amp or receiver, and use that to drive speakers and control the volume on that other device; feed the output directly to a power amp and use the main level on the 0404 USB to control the level--or likewise, to powered speakers, with or without volume controls.

If your set up has a volume control "downstream" of the 0404 USB, you should normally run the 0404 USB level at max and control the listening volume on the other device.

 

[SuryA]

Perfect thanks a bunch, that's exactly what i meant, plus you awnsered another question about what level to set it at.

 

[Exocet85]

Hi all,

Today I bought my 0404 USB for a nice 120 buck bargain so I'm quite pleased. On install, the manual sais to remove all other soundcards / disable onboard sound. I currently use onboard sound on an ASUS motherboard, however I'm stuck with a problem: I don't seem to get into my BIOS, everything just freezes when I hit the 'Del' button. Besides this, my pc works fine. I have tried many thing including Bios flash and CMOS reset, and asked others but no luck so far.

Anyway, I know most guys here are more into audio then the die-hard pc stuff, and I just want to listen to my EMU, so let's stick to that:
Does anyone have experience with using an EMU 0404 USB next to an onboad soundcard? I can image it might run into issues concerning the windows mixer bypass. Are there any special means/methods to install such a configuration?
I can ofcourse uninstall the drivers and remove all my onboard soundcard software (without disabling in bios), but will this do the trick?
Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[scompton]

You disable it through the control panel, not the bios.

 

[Exocet85]

You can disable the drivers / remove drivers through the control panel, but if you would really want to bypass all hardware you should disable an onboard soundcard from your Bios. Otherwise your system will give the messase 'new hardware found, please install.. blabla'.
But I'll try disabling it through control panel and hopefully it will just work fine then.

 

[sejarzo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exocet85 /img/forum/go_quote.gif On install, the manual sais to remove all other soundcards / disable onboard sound. I currently use onboard sound on an ASUS motherboard, however I'm stuck with a problem: I don't seem to get into my BIOS, everything just freezes when I hit the 'Del' button. Besides this, my pc works fine. I have tried many thing including Bios flash and CMOS reset, and asked others but no luck so far. Anyway, I know most guys here are more into audio then the die-hard pc stuff, and I just want to listen to my EMU, so let's stick to that: Does anyone have experience with using an EMU 0404 USB next to an onboad soundcard? I can image it might run into issues concerning the windows mixer bypass. Are there any special means/methods to install such a configuration? I can ofcourse uninstall the drivers and remove all my onboard soundcard software (without disabling in bios), but will this do the trick? Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

There is NO problem at all with running my 0404 USB with my onboard Realtek sound on my Presario desktop or the Conexant HD Audio onboard my Presario notebook.

I strongly suggest that you don't disable anything in either the BIOS or in XP's Control Panel>Sounds and Audio Devices, or goof around in Device Manager, just ignore that comment in the install instructions.

On either of my systems, if I boot them without the 0404 USB powered up, they default to onboard sound. When I power up the 0404 USB, it becomes the default WDM device.......when I shut it down, XP transparently reverts to the onboard sound as the default device.

That makes it nice and easy to leave my cheap old Yamaha PC speakers connected to the onboard for Windows sounds, and only use the 0404 USB for hi-quality music apps. If I want to compute silently, the speakers are off. If I want to hear Win system sounds, I turn them on--or if I want to listen to some lo-fi web audio clips without powering up the 0404 USB, I just turn on the speakers.

My Foobar is configured to run via ASIO, so no Windows sounds make it to the 0404 USB if Foobar is running (it has exclusive control of the device that way.) My only problem is that if I run the output of the 0404 USB to my monoblocks and speakers to listen to music via Foobar, but then forget to turn down the volume knob when quitting Foobar and opening some other app that generates a system sound......ouch, some of them are pretty loud compared to music.

I never have had any recurring, annoying "new hardware found" issue when connecting or powering up the 0404 USB. When my machines boot, I see the 0404 USB icon in systray is "dim" with a red "!" on top; when I power it up, the "!" disappears and the icon "lights up".

 

[scompton]

I had to disable my AV710 to get sound from my 0404 USB. And to get the AV710 to work before, I had to disable my on board sound, which had developed a loud buzz anyway.

At work I use a Silverstonetek EB01 which is recognized as USB speakers. I had to disable the on board sound to get the EB01 to work.

On my laptop, both worked without touching the control panel.

I guess it just depends on the computer. BTW both my work and home desktops are old, so that may have something to do with it

 

[sejarzo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scompton /img/forum/go_quote.gif I had to disable my AV710 to get sound from my 0404 USB. And to get the AV710 to work before, I had to disable my on board sound, which had developed a loud buzz anyway. At work I use a Silverstonetek EB01 which is recognized as USB speakers. I had to disable the on board sound to get the EB01 to work. On my laptop, both worked without touching the control panel. I guess it just depends on the computer. BTW both my work and home desktops are old, so that may have something to do with it

Assuming you are using XP, even if your desktops are "old"........did you first make (or attempt to make) the 0404 USB the default device under Control Panel>Sounds and Audio Devices, or is your work computer possibly a Win2k machine (I'm guessing that could make a difference)?

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sejarzo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Assuming you are using XP, even if your desktops are "old"........did you first make (or attempt to make) the 0404 USB the default device under Control Panel>Sounds and Audio Devices, or is your work computer possibly a Win2k machine (I'm guessing that could make a difference)?

My work machine is W2K. My home desk top is XP and I tried to make the 0404 USB the default first but still got no sound. The only difference between the laptop and desktop XP machines is that the desktop was bought the first year XP came out and has had all of the patches and SP2 applied. The laptop came with XP SP2 OEMed. Another sound (sort of) difference between the 2 machine's behaviors is WMP 11. It does not run well on the desktop. It hangs up and has to be killed though task manager. On the laptop, it runs fine.

Another, non-sound related, piece of software that won't run on the desktop is IE7. Thankfully, IE7 was easy to back out, otherwise I would have had to reinstall XP.