[Fathardie]

Hi everyone!
 
This is my first post and I am a complete untrained beginner when it comes to high-end sound. I am having a weird issue with my set-up and I was hoping the experienced community here could help me figure out what is happening
 
I recently purchased a Creative Sound Blaster Z soundcard specifically for the virtual surroundsound capabilities. I also purchased a set of Marshall Monitor headphones(love the sound ). When I hook the headphones up to the soundcard, the sound is awful, When playing a song, the singing is of really low volume while the instruments(guitar, drums and bass) are more audible but still sound very cheap.
 
If I use the headphones on my phone(Samsung Galaxy S3), laptop or Ipod Touch(1st generation), the sound is much better and sounds as expected.When I plug my speaker set(Logitech X-240) or my older headset (Roccat Kave 5.1) into the sound blaster z the sound is also fine and better than the onboard.
 
So it seems the card is working fine and the headphones are working perfectly but when you pair up the two the trouble starts. As both the Roccat Kave headset and the speakerset are externally powered, I tried listening to the sound card with my Roccat Kave's usb cord unplugged. The volume was really low but the sound was still much better and in balance than compared to using the Marshalls.
 
I called the store to ask if they knew what was going on. The employee told me that the sound card probably isn't able to deliver the power needed to drive the headphones even though the information about the soundcard says that it can drive headphones up to 600 ohm impedance. The Marshalls are 42 ohm impedance. He told me a headphone amplifier should fix things but I am doubting if this is the case.
 
My question for you guys and girls is if anybody can and is willing to give any more information, diagnostical tricks or recommendations to find out what is wrong. Any comments are welcome of course and much appreciated!
 
Thanks in advance!
 
Sebastiaan

 

[liquidzoo]

Just to satisfy a question I'm sure will be asked:
 
Are you plugging the headphones into the headphone plug on your Z?  I know the Z has both headphone and speaker outputs.  Secondly, have you switched the amplifier on?

 

[Fathardie]

Thanks for the quick reponse!
 
Yes I have plugged it into the headphone port. I also tried plugging it into the front speaker jacket but that yielded the same results. As far as I know, the sound blaster Z does not have a switch to turn the amplifier on? The creative forums said that the card switches itself between 33 and 600 ohm modus on the headphone jacket. The ZXR version of the code does have this feature, but the ZX and the Z do not.
 
EDIT: I just relistened to the headphone when plugged into the headphone jacket. Might have made a mistake on that the singing volume is out of balance with the volume of the instruments, but the entire performance sounds really cheap as if the song has a bitrate of only a few kbps but this isn't the case.
 
EDIT2: It seems the out of balance of volume between instruments and singing is present when listening to songs on my own pc and there is also a clear echo present. When listening to songs on deezer.com, those 2 aspects are not present but in both situations the songs sound really really bad.

 

[liquidzoo]

Sounds like your card may have an issue with the headphone port.  Have you tried another pair of normal headphones in that port to see if the same issue happens?  I know you said you tried the USB powered ones, but I was referring to non-powered.

 

[Fathardie]

Thanks again!
 
I just tried my Sennheiser in-ears and that worked just fine on the headphone port. Is it possible that the amplifier fails to kick-in when the Marshalls are plugged in and that is what is causing the issues? That all the other audio headphones I tried have such a low impedance that the amp is not needed for those? If it is possible, is there any way I can test this theory to be certain?
 
I don't know if impedance and volume can effect each other, but the card is way louder than my onboard card(which I shut off in the BIOS btw). If I put the windows volume above 20%, my ears get blown up, haha
 
EDIT: And if it can be the amp not kicking-in, is it possible that my laptop onboard, ipod and phone do provide enough power to overcome the impedance barrier?

 

[Fathardie]

Ok, two things about the following is going to sound very strange.
 
First of all, Creative helped me to figure it out. It seems they can be helpful even though the internet is full of info saying that their customer support is horrible. Second, the problem seems to be in the cable jack. The Marshall Monitor headphones has a mic integrated in the cable for phone conversations for when it is plugged in into a mobile phone. This results in a jack with 3 rings instead of the regular 2 for just stereo audio. The card seems to take up more contact space on the jack than the resulting ring on the Marshalls audio jack has for that channel so the entire connection gets screwed up and results in a horrid listening experience.
 
I tested this solution with with an Y audio splitter and nothing inserted into the other end of the splitter. The sound was as clear as expected.
 
So conclusion: If you want to pair up a Marshall Monitor headphone with a Creative Sound Blaster Z and you get cheap, flaky sound with, depending on the source even an echo, get a different cable for the connection from the headphone to the soundcard without any mics so the result is a cable with 2 jacks with each only 2 rings.
 
Thanks liquidzoo and anyone else out there who helped think about this issue!
 
The only thing left now is to figure out why the sound coming from the card is so loud. If Creative can give a constructive answer on that, I will be sure to post it here.
 
Cheers!