[derbigpr]

Quote:

I ordered two LM6172's. Should I have ordered 3 and replaced all the opamps on the STX? I have an HD650 and HD600 and hoping the LM6172's give me more focused sound stage (right on stage with musicians), warm sound and high extensions. At least that is the op amp I am looking for. Any recommendations anyone? Should I get a tube amp? Little Dot III or DarkVoice 336.
 
beepover@aol.com
 
Victor

 
I have the ST and recently got the Little dot MKIII.  Its...meh...ok I guess, I don't like it very much.  Used with K701, HD650 or T1, it lacks resolution and fidelity compared to the STX output. It doesn't sound as clean and natural. Its soundstage is slightly bigger, but whole tonality of the sound is shifted. I would not call it warm exactly. In fact, to my ears, its highs are quite prominent, it sounds brighter than STX headphone output.  In my opinion its now worth the money. Its just not as good as the STX technically. Now, if you'd like to tube roll and find a darker sounding tube...might work for you, but don't expect miracles. A cheap tube amp is always a hit and miss.
 
IMHO entry level SS amps sound far better. Like the Musical Fidelity V-CAN MkII for example...nice smooth, non-fatiguing sound, but still very clean and detailed.

 

[foreign]

I have the ST and recently got the Little dot MKIII.  Its...meh...ok I guess, I don't like it very much.  Used with K701, HD650 or T1, it lacks resolution and fidelity compared to the STX output. It doesn't sound as clean and natural. Its soundstage is slightly bigger, but whole tonality of the sound is shifted. I would not call it warm exactly. In fact, to my ears, its highs are quite prominent, it sounds brighter than STX headphone output.  In my opinion its now worth the money. Its just not as good as the STX technically. Now, if you'd like to tube roll and find a darker sounding tube...might work for you, but don't expect miracles. A cheap tube amp is always a hit and miss.

IMHO entry level SS amps sound far better. Like the Musical Fidelity V-CAN MkII for example...nice smooth, non-fatiguing sound, but still very clean and detailed.

I could be wrong but the little amp mk3 takes a bit of burning in the elements. Had it running for 8hrs a day for just over a week. I find it clean and adds a bit of warmth to the sound. Soundstage is bigger the only time it didn't impress me was the first day or so. Now it wasnt me adjusting to the sound from the tubes as it was left playing while i was at work for 9 days. Then when I put the headphone back on it was a nice little suprise waiting for me. I do prefer the stx for gaming though and think its a fantastic soundcard. But I think tubes aren't for everybody just because I enjoy the sound doesn't mean its for everybody. For example The senns hd650 for me are phenomenal but I have had other people audition the senns and just weren't impressed with them.

 

[beepover]

Thanks for writing about the STX derbigpr. I was not sure the Little Dot would be an upgrade over the STX. I guess I will always be intrigued by a tube amp sound just because I do not have one.

 

[beepover]

Do you have a link of where you can buy LME49720's? I ordered some LM6172 op amp from ebay, but not sure if I got the right ones. I want to make sure I get the correct op amps.

 

[bearpc100]

Thank you for your thread, I have got a lot of help.

By the way, can u check the volt of the 2 Caps located right in front of RCA output?

I have changed these 2 Caps into Nichicon Muse KZ 50v 1000 uf from the backside of PCB. And I can check "0 V" from them while the card is operating. Other Caps show me between 5 to 12V.

Well..I can hear the music with 2~3 times of "click" sound at the beginning. a while later, I get to be able to keep listening different musics without any problem.

Do you think there's some problem with "0V" of those 2 Caps?

Please let me know what show from your Caps right in front of RCA output.

 

[sssboa]

Quote:

 
I have the ST and recently got the Little dot MKIII.  Its...meh...ok I guess, I don't like it very much.  Used with K701, HD650 or T1, it lacks resolution and fidelity compared to the STX output. It doesn't sound as clean and natural. Its soundstage is slightly bigger, but whole tonality of the sound is shifted. I would not call it warm exactly. In fact, to my ears, its highs are quite prominent, it sounds brighter than STX headphone output.  In my opinion its now worth the money. Its just not as good as the STX technically. Now, if you'd like to tube roll and find a darker sounding tube...might work for you, but don't expect miracles. A cheap tube amp is always a hit and miss.
 
IMHO entry level SS amps sound far better. Like the Musical Fidelity V-CAN MkII for example...nice smooth, non-fatiguing sound, but still very clean and detailed.

I have ST and MKII. I find some headphones sounding better from ST (Beyerdynamic DT990 600ohm) and some better from MKII (DT880 600ohm). Rolling tubes gives better results than rolling opamps though most tubes sound too warm to my taste (so I use the Russian ef95 and Mullard's military EF92). With opamps it was that some of them spoilt the sound by muffling it and destroying soundstage (Burr Brown, most AD) and some were just natural and crisp with good soundstage (National Semi. LM4562 and its descendants, the original opamps). I don't like listening on MKII from my PC, ST does it better from PC, I feed MKII from DVD/CD player, sat receiver etc. and through a good DAC with crossfeed.         

 

[germanium]

Quote:

Thank you for your thread, I have got a lot of help.

By the way, can u check the volt of the 2 Caps located right in front of RCA output?

I have changed these 2 Caps into Nichicon Muse KZ 50v 1000 uf from the backside of PCB. And I can check "0 V" from them while the card is operating. Other Caps show me between 5 to 12V.

Well..I can hear the music with 2~3 times of "click" sound at the beginning. a while later, I get to be able to keep listening different musics without any problem.

Do you think there's some problem with "0V" of those 2 Caps?

Please let me know what show from your Caps right in front of RCA output.

These caps are coupling caps, not power supply caps & they have very low D.C. offset (2-3mv). A meter in many cases may not be able to measure this low voltage if setting is not changed to a lower setting after measuring power supply voltages  Auto ranging multimeters will generally have no issues with this.

 

[balancebox]

we need to start an opamp group buy :/ I would love to try some opamp but don't want to spend so much to find the right ones for me...

 

[Simcon]

I recently moved my stx up from the lower pci-e x16 place to a pci-e x1 spot (which unfortunately happens to be just between the upper pci-e x16 spot and the cpu cooler). An unfortunate consequence here is that the card reaches the same temperatures (I assume, since it gets really hot) as the graphics card, which can range up to 70 °C. Would there be any danger for the card to operate at these temperatures? What temperatures could be deemed safe?

Reason for moving it was that it caused my graphics card at running at x8 instead of x16 (2.x), and although not a big difference with a 7970, it's always buggered my mind.

 

[bearpc100]

Quote:

These caps are coupling caps, not power supply caps & they have very low D.C. offset (2-3mv). A meter in many cases may not be able to measure this low voltage if setting is not changed to a lower setting after measuring power supply voltages  Auto ranging multimeters will generally have no issues with this.

Thank you for your answer. But when you say "These caps are coupling caps.", does this mean Nichicon Muse KZ is the coupling Cap? or the spot is for the coupling caps? 
 
Because the reason I had to change these 2 caps was that old caps (Nichicon Fine Gold 16v 220uf and STX has these kind caps basically) swelled. If the spot (in front of RCA ouput) is for coupling cap, how come those 2 caps got swelled earlier than other caps on the board?
 
I have replaced the caps beside the opamps into the same Nichicon Muse KZ 50v 1000uf, and I can check 12V from these 2 caps.
 
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[KonaBear]

Hi everyone,
 
I just decided to purchase a blu ray drive for my pc so that I could start watching movies using my favorite cans and xonar essence stx.  I really want to watch 1080p movies with 5.1 support through my dolby headphone setup.  Are blu ray disks DTS or dolby or are both supported?  If the blu ray is DTS will my xonar stx still be able to perform Dolby Headphone quality audio using the 5.1 source of the movie?
 
Cheers

 

[germanium]

Quote:

Hi everyone,
 
I just decided to purchase a blu ray drive for my pc so that I could start watching movies using my favorite cans and xonar essence stx.  I really want to watch 1080p movies with 5.1 support through my dolby headphone setup.  Are blu ray disks DTS or dolby or are both supported?  If the blu ray is DTS will my xonar stx still be able to perform Dolby Headphone quality audio using the 5.1 source of the movie?
 
Cheers

Look here http://www.soundadviceblog.com/blu-ray-audio-explained/

 

[KonaBear]

Quote:

Look here http://www.soundadviceblog.com/blu-ray-audio-explained/

thank you!

 

[foreign]

I have the ST and recently got the Little dot MKIII.  Its...meh...ok I guess, I don't like it very much.  Used with K701, HD650 or T1, it lacks resolution and fidelity compared to the STX output. It doesn't sound as clean and natural. Its soundstage is slightly bigger, but whole tonality of the sound is shifted. I would not call it warm exactly. In fact, to my ears, its highs are quite prominent, it sounds brighter than STX headphone output.  In my opinion its now worth the money. Its just not as good as the STX technically. Now, if you'd like to tube roll and find a darker sounding tube...might work for you, but don't expect miracles. A cheap tube amp is always a hit and miss.

IMHO entry level SS amps sound far better. Like the Musical Fidelity V-CAN MkII for example...nice smooth, non-fatiguing sound, but still very clean and detailed.

I had the opposite experience I thought the littledot mk3 was a viable upgrade. But an external dac was also purchased as driving the little dot mk3 from the stx sounded the same. But with an external dac and little dot mk3 I'm quite pleased. Tube rolling is fun aswell as an added bonus.

 

[Mondraker]

hi to everybody, i can't read all pages, maybe anybody know what i can do with 2xLT1361 2xLT1364 2xLT1469 without any tweak?