[BackwardPawn]

Hi all,
 
I have a couple related questions about my sound card.  First, when I have my sound card plugged into an amp, what should the volume be set to?  I know anything digital should be 100% or it'll mess with the bits, but the analog output seems like it should be set lower than 100 and I should let the better amp do most of the work (it would be nice if the driver writers told you where the 0 db point is).  On the other hand, I went to play a game and used the tube amp, since everything is running through that at the moment.  Even though my card has an EM shield, it was wedged between my video card and my CPU and picked up a nice hum.
 
Upping the master volume and lowering the tube amp volume took care of a lot of the hum, but I still wasn't sure where to set it.  Before bed, I moved the sound card from the 1x slot above the VID down to the 4x at the bottom to get it away from the extra EM.  I was still able to hear a little, but not as much.  I'm thinking I should up the volume more (currently at 40%) for a higher signal to noise ratio.  Maybe the 1x was where it belonged and I just had the volume too low?  Any thoughts would be welcome here.
 
And just so you know, the sound card is an X-FI Ti HD, and the amp is a La Figaro 339 with stock tubes (better tubes on the way).  Thanks for any help.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

Hi all,
 
I have a couple related questions about my sound card.  First, when I have my sound card plugged into an amp, what should the volume be set to?  I know anything digital should be 100% or it'll mess with the bits, but the analog output seems like it should be set lower than 100 and I should let the better amp do most of the work (it would be nice if the driver writers told you where the 0 db point is).  On the other hand, I went to play a game and used the tube amp, since everything is running through that at the moment.  Even though my card has an EM shield, it was wedged between my video card and my CPU and picked up a nice hum.
 
Upping the master volume and lowering the tube amp volume took care of a lot of the hum, but I still wasn't sure where to set it.  Before bed, I moved the sound card from the 1x slot above the VID down to the 4x at the bottom to get it away from the extra EM.  I was still able to hear a little, but not as much.  I'm thinking I should up the volume more (currently at 40%) for a higher signal to noise ratio.  Maybe the 1x was where it belonged and I just had the volume too low?  Any thoughts would be welcome here.
 
And just so you know, the sound card is an X-FI Ti HD, and the amp is a La Figaro 339 with stock tubes (better tubes on the way).  Thanks for any help.

I guess the idea is to get the volume on the sound card as high as possible and control the volume level using the external add-on headphone amplifier's volume knob.
So I guess if you can get 100% volume on the Titanium HD and it's does not cause any "problems", your good.

 

[BackwardPawn]

Quote:

I guess the idea is to get the volume on the sound card as high as possible and control the volume level using the external add-on headphone amplifier's volume knob.
So I guess if you can get 100% volume on the Titanium HD and it's does not cause any "problems", your good.

That's what I was thinking.  At one point I had it at 100%, but that didn't leave enough play in the volume pots.  I'll have to see how high I can get it and still be able to adjust the volume.  Thanks.