[ooheadsoo]

Anyone use this combo and hear distortion when pianos (in particular) play really loudly?

 

[morsel]

Soundblaster products are not high fidelity.

 

[grinch]

turn anything up loud enough and there will be distortion. turn your **** down and get a cd player and some outlaw interconnects.

 

[ooheadsoo]

I'm not talking about the volume on my amp/headphones, I'm talking about when the performer plays loudly. Btw, I've noticed this in many of my cds, classical and jazz. Popular music doesn't seem to break up as much, having less dynamics, I suppose.

I'm not going to get a cdp right away because I'm at my computer for long amounts of time each day. Paying money to create an inconvenience seems a bit ironic to me. I need my phones plugged into my computer to hear the other forms of entertainment I derive from the computer, and the music I need to stream from school for my music classes.

Do you guys think changing a soundcard to an audigy 2 or the new m-audio revolution would help? Or is this an inherent flaw built into having a computer driven source?

 

[ssblood]

Screw anything sound blaster for hi-fi, get the revolution

 

[morsel]

Are you playing real CDs or MP3s?

Do you have your CD hooked up via the analog or digital cables? Ironically, using the digital output of your CD drive with a Soundblaster card can get you poorer sound quality than using the analog output. The reason for this is because Soundblaster sound cards do not handle SPDIF at the original 44.1kHz sample rate, they resample to 48kHz and then back to 44.1kHz at the output. This multiple resampling degrades the sound quality of the CD. The CD drive analog outputs may in fact be higher quality than the Soundblaster, although this varies depending upon the drive.

Try using the output on your CD drive as the source for your amp instead of your Soundblaster output.

You will get better sound quality from an Echo or M Audio card.

 

[morsel]

Caveat emptor.

While M Audio makes good professional cards that do not resample SPDIF, I can not vouch for the new consumer grade Revolution model. I took a quick look at the website but saw nothing that indicates whether this card handles SPDIF properly.

 

[ooheadsoo]

Indeed, these are cds I'm listening to, not mp3s. My cdrom is hooked up through the standard analog cable. My headphones are hooked up to the analog front stereo out. To tell you the truth, I don't know how to play a cd with the headphone out of my cdrom drive. It makes no sound as far as I can tell, when playing a cd through it and the volume on the drive turned up to max. But I do know that I get no infernal electric interference out of the drive when i turn the amp up.

I assume I'd have to use a receiver to use the spdif output with my headphones. Right now I use the spdif output with my cambridge megaworks 510d, so it all works out very conveniently.

I'm eagerly waiting for some reviews of this new m-audio revolution soundcard

 

[dokebi]

I hate using my sblive. So much hiss and random artifacts in the sound.

 

[Duncan]

Lets not forget that with XP (I didn't see which platform you're using) that the signal from the CDRom comes through the IDE cable, and NOT the Analog/Digital cable attached to the CDRom by default...

Also, I don't have any problems at all with my SBLive... especially now, 1 - i've upgraded to the Audigy 2 drivers, and 2 - I listen to it through my DAC...

Not as good a sounding as my CD Player.. but, what do I expect?

 

[ooheadsoo]

I think the key in the revelation of these flaws is either the meta42 or the homegrown interconnects. Unfortunately, I don't have another set of IC's to test with.

You know when XP is using the IDE cable

It can't even play smoothly and it sounds awful.

 

[Duncan]

Quote:

Originally posted by ooheadsoo It can't even play smoothly and it sounds awful.

How are your DMA settings?

Running in PIO mode??

The only reason I ask... I suffered that exact same symptom, until someone told me about the DMA settings...

caused by a conflict between my DVD-Rom and my CDRW...

Just a thought

 

[ooheadsoo]

I'm running in either ultra dma mode 4 or 5, depending on which of my 3 ide controllers/6 channels we're talking about. I'll doublecheck to make sure my cdrom isn't hooked up to my RAID card, I can't remember

One thing I noticed: I had windows using digital cd playback

I switched that back now. Now if only I remembered at what points the music would distort :\ It only happens once in a long while when the music peaks, you see...

 

[dd3mon]

Quote:

Now if only I remembered at what points the music would distort :\ It only happens once in a long while when the music peaks, you see...

this is often in recordings, sometimes it means a bad recording, sometimes it's intentional by the artist or producers. however I wouldn't rule out the possibility of these distortions being the soundblaster's fault.

BTW - find the thread about upgrading to Audigy 2 drivers for your live.. I have an Audigy 1 and WOW - big difference. Games are 1000% better, and music seems alot better too.. Definitely less fatiguing and much more musical than before, and I'm not missing any detail I had before.

-dd3mon

 

[ooheadsoo]

I've posted in that thread