[demuli]

Setup:
Sennheiser HD-600 headphones
Yamaha RX-v673 / RX-V620RDS av receiver
AMD 7950 GPU / Onboard realtek / X-Fi titanium sound card
550W Corsair PSU
Windows 8
Foobar2000 w/ WASAPI
 
Currently getting the best sound by connecting headphones directly to the sound card rather than the receivers. Maxing bass from creative drivers and EQ'ing bass up from foobar. Any other combination results in less bass and less clarity. I have no idea why. The newer receiver, the 673, through HDMI sounds good and clear in certain games and has nice surround sound, but again completely lacks in bass in Dota 2 for instance. The receiver doesn't let me up the bass too much. If I use pure direct mode, it sounds like a C-cassette (like everything else if I don't pretty much max out the bass). In Black Ops 2 the sounds are good through HDMI, however. Music lacks bass, however. Movies sound the best out of any other combination, though.
 
My older receiver has more bass settings to fiddle with and generally sounds better in games. I still need to EQ the sound with drivers or Razer's headphone surround program (definitely doesn't improve sound quality), but atleast I can get some bass out that way. To use Dota 2 as an example, if you have a tower destroyed and there's hundreds of tons of stone coming down, it needs to rumble, not crack like a tree branch.
 
Playstation 3 sounds good through HDMI, or optical for my old receiver for that matter. Makes me think I need a new sound card. Can someone offer me help on how to set this thing up? Should I take the 673 back and get a Asus STX sound card with a headphone amp? What is the problem with the PC being so shy with the bass? Oh yeah, and my budget is about 200€, so don't tell me about 1000$ amps. I expect a ride to the moon with that kind of money.

 

[sientobente]

Not familiar with the 673 settings but doing pure direct mode isn't really a good idea. It bypasses the internal processing of the AVR which includes the internal DAC, DSP and bass management. If your yamaha does not let you adjust the bass, is there an option to disable YPAO and make the adjustments manually? And is there a stereo mode on your Yamaha that you can use when plugging your headphones in?

 

[stv014]

Did you ever get enough bass from the HD600 for music listening using any source, without EQ/bass boost ? Maybe you just need different headphones.

 

[Tablix]

Could it also be that neither are driving the headphones with enough power, 300 Ohms is not massively demanding but the cans are more than capable of reproducing low frequencies.

 

[demuli]

Quote:

Did you ever get enough bass from the HD600 for music listening using any source, without EQ/bass boost ? Maybe you just need different headphones.

Playstation 3 sounds fine, movies from PC/PS3 also sound good.
 
 

Not familiar with the 673 settings but doing pure direct mode isn't really a good idea. It bypasses the internal processing of the AVR which includes the internal DAC, DSP and bass management. If your yamaha does not let you adjust the bass, is there an option to disable YPAO and make the adjustments manually? And is there a stereo mode on your Yamaha that you can use when plugging your headphones in?

 
I never run any YPAO. It does let me set bass tone up +6db but it's not nearly enough. It does have 2ch music mode but it sounds exactly the same as normal mode.
 
 

Could it also be that neither are driving the headphones with enough power, 300 Ohms is not massively demanding but the cans are more than capable of reproducing low frequencies.

 
Why would movies and PS3 sound good then?

 

[stv014]

Quote:

Playstation 3 sounds fine, movies from PC/PS3 also sound good.

 
That's OK, but have you ever heard your music (which was likely mixed and mastered differently than the audio in games and movies) on the HD600 with enough bass without using some kind of bass boost ? Did you try all possible sources and headphone outputs ? Did you buy the HD600 recently, and used something else before ?
 
Assuming there is really a problem, check the mixer and DSP settings of your sound card. For example, some people reported lack of bass when using an incorrect speaker configuration that tried to route bass to an LFE channel that did not exist.

 

[sientobente]

This is what I think. Probably the input selector isn't set right on your Yamaha when playing music. While when playing movies, your software like vlc player automatically feeds the information on what was being decoded( DTS, Dolby Digital/AC3 etc.) in which the AVR by itself will switch into.

I'd also ask, in Foobar, output is set to WASAPI what exactly?

 

[demuli]

Quote:

 
That's OK, but have you ever heard your music (which was likely mixed and mastered differently than the audio in games and movies) on the HD600 with enough bass without using some kind of bass boost ? Did you try all possible sources and headphone outputs ? Did you buy the HD600 recently, and used something else before ?
 
Assuming there is really a problem, check the mixer and DSP settings of your sound card. For example, some people reported lack of bass when using an incorrect speaker configuration that tried to route bass to an LFE channel that did not exist.

 
I've had these headphones for years. Music from PS3 sounds nice. I don't think music played on PC has ever sounded special at all, though, without EQing. In games there is a huge difference if I select stereo rather than 7.1 signal in windows settings, though. Black Ops 2 sounded like a joke when it wasn't 7.1. It's the only game so far that has bass in it with just the receiver's settings. As far as music goes, stereo/headphones/7.1 doesn't make a difference. Headphone settings lowers the volume by a lot and takes away a lot of bass that no EQing can bring back anymore. The setting sounds terrible.
 
Quote:

This is what I think. Probably the input selector isn't set right on your Yamaha when playing music. While when playing movies, your software like vlc player automatically feeds the information on what was being decoded( DTS, Dolby Digital/AC3 etc.) in which the AVR by itself will switch into.

I'd also ask, in Foobar, output is set to WASAPI what exactly?

 
WASAPI (push) RX-V673 is selected. Yamaha is displaying PCM when playing music.

 

[cel4145]

Focus on the Windows side first and make certain that is optimal. How do you have the "configure" speaker configuration setup in the Windows sound control panel for your HDMI connection?

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

Setup:
Sennheiser HD-600 headphones
Yamaha RX-v673 / RX-V620RDS av receiver
On-board Realtek / X-Fi Titanium sound card

Is it the Titanium (non-HD) or Titanium HD?
If your using the T-HD (Titanium HD), I would think the best PC audio quality (with headphones) would be to run a RCA cable from the T-HD to the RCAs on the Yamaha receiver and HD600 plugged into the Yamaha.

 

[demuli]

Quote:

Is it the Titanium (non-HD) or Titanium HD?
If your using the T-HD (Titanium HD), I would think the best PC audio quality (with headphones) would be to run a RCA cable from the T-HD to the RCAs on the Yamaha receiver and HD600 plugged into the Yamaha.

 
Non-HD version here.
 
Playing mp3 from my harddrive through PS3 and it sounds great when it comes to classical/orchestral music but I'd like to have significantly more bass in brutal hardcore death killer metal. I think there's a difference in clarity here in comparison to PC. 
 
 

Focus on the Windows side first and make certain that is optimal. How do you have the "configure" speaker configuration setup in the Windows sound control panel for your HDMI connection?

 
7.1, now unchecked all the speakers so it shows 2 left. Then checked full range speakers and surround speakers after that.

 

[cel4145]

Try it first with stereo and full range. Definitely full range whatever you do, because if you were using speakers and a sub, you would want the receiver to handle that via its bass management features. And I suggest stereo first to see how that sounds.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

Non-HD version here.

Sound Blaster Titanium (non-HD).
So try running an 3.5mm to RCA cable from the Titanium's line-out/headphone jack to the RCA input on the Yamaha.
Optical from the Titanium to the Yamaha might be about the same audio quality.
But you want to let the Titanium do game audio processing and then send the Yamaha a 2-channel PCM Headphone Surround Sound signal.
 
For movies, using HDMI from computer to Yamaha (bypassing Titanium) should offer the best movie audio quality.