garbulky
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2005
- Posts
- 274
- Likes
- 149
Having bought the Xenos 3HA headphone amp, I have spent an extensive time trying to tweak it to my liking. I found that the details were veiled the voices seemed unnatural etc.etc. on my HD600 refurb bought from Amazon for around $200
However, I did notice that the amp had plenty of power. So here were my notes. At reasonably loud volumes (louder than normal listening) the quality of the soundstage isn't there. The mid range seemed muddy and the highs just not as clear.
Anyway, first thing I did was replace the cable connecting my audigy 2 Zs sound card to the amp. A very notable difference considering that the replacement cable cost a maximum of $7 in the US. (In fact I paid under $2 for it in Ceylon).
Now here are the music settings I set it at.
On the Creative Surround Mixer, the bass is set at 60%, the treble at 56%
The main volume is between 43% to 50%
The wave volume is between 43% to 50% (this is the volume of winamp)
The 3HA controls are set all at the neutral position with the treble turned maybe approx 1% more than the treble.
The player I use is winamp 2.71.
The later versions I discovered seemed to do a worse job at decoding audio naturally.
The muddled sound I got before this was because of a lack of treble and lack of low end bass. It just didn't feel like the 3HA was doing a good job...therefore these settings.
These settings are working just great! Remember that the HD600's are normally attached to an amplifier adaptor, and you just have to pull it off to expose the 1/8 '' jack below. Don't waste money buying a 1/8'' convertor.
Something I also got enjoyment out of was CMSS 3d ver 2 found in EAX settings on the audigy 2. However, I felt it slightly muddied the bass up and overamplified the ambience around the voice therefore I don't use it that often. However, it is one of the better free SOFTWARE headphone crosstalk emulators. If you know of any other kind of software emulator free or not, POST HERE PLEASE!!
Good luck!
However, I did notice that the amp had plenty of power. So here were my notes. At reasonably loud volumes (louder than normal listening) the quality of the soundstage isn't there. The mid range seemed muddy and the highs just not as clear.
Anyway, first thing I did was replace the cable connecting my audigy 2 Zs sound card to the amp. A very notable difference considering that the replacement cable cost a maximum of $7 in the US. (In fact I paid under $2 for it in Ceylon).
Now here are the music settings I set it at.
On the Creative Surround Mixer, the bass is set at 60%, the treble at 56%
The main volume is between 43% to 50%
The wave volume is between 43% to 50% (this is the volume of winamp)
The 3HA controls are set all at the neutral position with the treble turned maybe approx 1% more than the treble.
The player I use is winamp 2.71.
The later versions I discovered seemed to do a worse job at decoding audio naturally.
The muddled sound I got before this was because of a lack of treble and lack of low end bass. It just didn't feel like the 3HA was doing a good job...therefore these settings.
These settings are working just great! Remember that the HD600's are normally attached to an amplifier adaptor, and you just have to pull it off to expose the 1/8 '' jack below. Don't waste money buying a 1/8'' convertor.
Something I also got enjoyment out of was CMSS 3d ver 2 found in EAX settings on the audigy 2. However, I felt it slightly muddied the bass up and overamplified the ambience around the voice therefore I don't use it that often. However, it is one of the better free SOFTWARE headphone crosstalk emulators. If you know of any other kind of software emulator free or not, POST HERE PLEASE!!
Good luck!
