[tr4ck]

Hi. I have a pair of sony 7506 headphones running of a sound blaster live card. What are the best settings for headphones for the soundblaster live?

 

[Magicthyse]

Dare I suggest the Headphone setting?

 

[jms007bnd007]

try all of em, and see which one sounds the best to you. My guess is the headphone setting would sound the best, but maybe not.

 

[MTRH]

If you use Winamp 2.x for playback:
DS SSRC Output plugin From Pete's homepage.
SSRC is made to solve the Creative cards resampling issue.
While you're at it, get this update also

Other suggestions, no EQ, no loudness...
If you must use EQ, use it on a "lower all, except" basis, don't raise.
also suggested is: Naoki Shibata's parametric EQ.

Cheers,
David

 

[Duncan]

Going down a different, much more costly route... if you have the live! and not the live! value (ie you have the one with the daughterboard) I would say you should try the route I take, which is the digital output of the Live! into my DAC, out into my META42, and into my headphones... Great

Standard listening though, I always have everything on flat settings...

 

[MTRH]

that's nice, but keep in mind tho that all outs from Creative cards (except SB128, but that's another manufacturer) are affected by the resampling issue.
So SSRC is also an option for you

 

[Chastity]

I would use 2-speaker mode as opposed to Headphones since the headphone mode will compress the audio.

If you want to use SSRC for resampling, you get better results using a program like CoolEdit to do it, and encode it afterwards, assuming you are ripping from source. If not, you are stuck with the resampling plugin.

Another option is to not use a Live. Replace it with a TBSC. You won't be sorry. On the TBSC, Headphone and 2-spkr mode won't matter.

 

[MTRH]

Chastity; you are mistaking resampling for something else

 

[Duncan]

Thanks for the tip MTRH... kindly appreciated, although I personally am not too keen on the WinAmp GUI, nor its sound quality (I thought that the Fraunhofer MP3 codec was supposed to be the best, I guess Nullsoft need to do more work on it....)

Personally, I'm still glued to WMP8/9 (9 on XP Home and 8 on XP Pro... don't ask why I have both on my PC

) One thing that Micro$oft have seemed to have done right is their audio codecs, i'm most impressed... and once the sound has been through my DAC, and META... it does genuinly sound pretty credible

If WinAmp produce a better looking GUI (even the skins look poor to me, but that could be because I've been brought up on a diet of Microsoft products)... and sort out their mundane sounding player... They'll have a new number 1 fan

 

[Magicthyse]

Quote:

Originally posted by Chastity I would use 2-speaker mode as opposed to Headphones since the headphone mode will compress the audio.

I tried it on the games PC's and the sound does get much wider - but the hiss goes up a notch, maybe? Any benefit for games?

 

[MTRH]

Quote:

Originally posted by Duncan Thanks for the tip MTRH... kindly appreciated, although I personally am not too keen on the WinAmp GUI, nor its sound quality (I thought that the Fraunhofer MP3 codec was supposed to be the best, I guess Nullsoft need to do more work on it....) Personally, I'm still glued to WMP8/9 (9 on XP Home and 8 on XP Pro... don't ask why I have both on my PC ) One thing that Micro$oft have seemed to have done right is their audio codecs, i'm most impressed... and once the sound has been through my DAC, and META... it does genuinly sound pretty credible If WinAmp produce a better looking GUI (even the skins look poor to me, but that could be because I've been brought up on a diet of Microsoft products)... and sort out their mundane sounding player... They'll have a new number 1 fan

Dang.. you should listen to some high quality MPC or AAC then... hehe.. if you like WMA you'll die when you hear this.

 

[Toe]

A Soundblaster Live is best set right in the middle of a nice red bullseye.