[Kal525]

I currently own Sennheiser HD600 headphones and a self built META42. Unfortunately I also own an M-Audio Sonica and it really sounds like complete crap. So much so that my iPaq serves as a better source than the sonica. Ever since I discovered this I have been discouraged from investing any more money on anything and basically put my headphones to rest for many months. After seeing the review for this $25 sound card my hopes are renewed. If this will give me the sound quality the raves and reviews says it will then it will be the best $25 spent. My question is, how will it pair with my setup? I also have a Hercules Game Theatre XP in my computer and I plan to run them simultaneously, will this cause any problems? Thanks.

 

[proxops-pete]

Well, I've had both SB Live! 5.1 and Chaintech in at the same time w/o any problems. However, with such hi quality phones, you should really get better sound card than the Chaintech. Consider the E-mu 0404 which can be bought via Zemo for $85.

 

[Kal525]

Is it really worth the extra money? What are the differences? I'm someone who had a very hard time trying to tell the difference between an amped connection and unamped connection so if this doesn't make a noticeable difference to me it might not be worth it.

 

[lan]

It's easier to tell differences between sources compared to amps in my opinion. I think it'll be worth it over the chaintech.

 

[dowxp]

what is the url for zemo? a quick google revealed nothing.

 

[Kal525]

Great.........time to spend more money. If guitar center has it i will probably just pick it up from there since I can just walk down the street to return it if need be. It better be worth $100 though, I could have built myself an entirely new computer with the money I've spent on headphones by now.

 

[kyrie]

Get the E-MU. You won't regret it. It's that big of a difference, and besides...good headphones really are wasted if your source is bad.

 

[Kal525]

The only thing I'll need to interface this card with my META42 is a 1/4" to RCA cable correct (my meta42 does have RCA inputs). Any recommendations? And i'm not spending more than $10 on this one so save the hand built stuff made of diamonds and gold

 

[Mr.Radar]

RadioShack has an adapter that will allow you to use standard RCA cables with your 0404/1212m. Be sure you get two (one for the right channel and one for the left).

 

[Kal525]

Ok, just purchased the goods. Any special setup instructions that I should know about or is the software that comes with the 0404 sufficient?

 

[Kal525]

Well, I think I need to say thank you to those who recommended this sound card. All I can say is what I'm hearing is nothing short of amazing compared to the crap I used to put up with. I played some Elton John APE files and for the first time I was able to A/B compare the differences between the emu and the game theatre xp. The game theatre seems to blend everything together and you really can't differentiate some of the instruments. As soon as I switched to the emu card it felt like switching from a 64kbps mp3 to a cd, just perfect. Very dynamic and everything is well pronounced. The treble seems to scratch a little on higher notes with guitars and such, but maybe that's how its supposed to sound. I can definitely say it was worth the money, and it works perfectly with my game theatre xp, so I'm happy about that as well.

I just have a few questions about the setup since I'm completely unfamiliar with mixers such as the DSP program included. All I installed was the DSP software and opted out of installing the bundled extras. Would I have any need for the extra software included on the cd? I'm not sure if I need to change anything in the settings. Currently the wav input bar is what shows activity when something is playing. I keep hearing a lot about ASIO and there's also a bar for that with no activity. Should I set something up so that it uses ASIO (I really have no idea what this is)?

Lasty I'd like to see if anyone thinks the cables I'm using might degrade performance in any way. I'm usually not worried about this but I bought a 12 foot gold RCA cable from radio shack and was curious if added length affected the music quality at all. These are the cables/adaptors that I purchased and am currently using:

2x http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...t%5Fid=274-884

1x
http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...t%5Fid=15-2422

Thanks for the help

 

[Imyourzero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal525 Well, I think I need to say thank you to those who recommended this sound card. All I can say is what I'm hearing is nothing short of amazing compared to the crap I used to put up with. I played some Elton John APE files and for the first time I was able to A/B compare the differences between the emu and the game theatre xp. The game theatre seems to blend everything together and you really can't differentiate some of the instruments. As soon as I switched to the emu card it felt like switching from a 64kbps mp3 to a cd, just perfect. Very dynamic and everything is well pronounced.

Great, that's it, my mind is made up...I am definitely getting a source upgrade! I'm currently using an Audigy 2 and a Chaintech AV-710 is supposed to be a considerable step up in quality, so I'm sure the E-MU 0404 or 1212m would be like night and day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal525 The treble seems to scratch a little on higher notes with guitars and such, but maybe that's how its supposed to sound.

Hmm. I wonder if the 1212m would reduce/eliminate that scratching you describe, or if it's part of the original recording. Does it happen on various material or just a few select songs?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal525 I keep hearing a lot about ASIO and there's also a bar for that with no activity. Should I set something up so that it uses ASIO (I really have no idea what this is)?

I too would like some further insight into ASIO and what exactly it is/does.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal525 Lasty I'd like to see if anyone thinks the cables I'm using might degrade performance in any way. I'm usually not worried about this but I bought a 12 foot gold RCA cable from radio shack and was curious if added length affected the music quality at all.

Just curious, did you buy any kind of RCA-to-mini adapter? It looks like you have to get two of the 1/4-to-RCA adapters and then you'd have to get either an dual RCA to stereo mini adapter (if they make such a thing), or two RCA to mono mini adapters and plug those into a dual-mono to stereo mini adapter. Man that's a lot of adapters just for hooking up a set of headphones!

 

[Kal525]

If you're thinking about getting this card as an upgrade to an AV-710 you probably won't be disappointed, although I've read many good things about the AV-710 and I generally find it extremely hard to find differences between setups so I'm not sure how well defined the difference will be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Imyourzero Hmm. I wonder if the 1212m would reduce/eliminate that scratching you describe, or if it's part of the original recording. Does it happen on various material or just a few select songs?

I'm not really sure if it was the recording, but it's definitely a possibility. Someone who has had this card longer or is better at picking up things like this would better be able to answer this question. From what I've been hearing the treble is a little high overall (maybe it's just the dynamics of the card?), but I just got the card so I need to listen to it some more.



Quote:

Originally Posted by Imyourzero Just curious, did you buy any kind of RCA-to-mini adapter? It looks like you have to get two of the 1/4-to-RCA adapters and then you'd have to get either an dual RCA to stereo mini adapter (if they make such a thing), or two RCA to mono mini adapters and plug those into a dual-mono to stereo mini adapter. Man that's a lot of adapters just for hooking up a set of headphones!

All I bought were the things you saw in my previous post. Just plug the 1/4-to-RCA adapters into the sound card, and the RCA stereo cable to the RCA jacks. This cable then plugs directly into my META42 amp which has RCA inputs so there are no other adapters required, it all depends on your setup though. If you're connecting your headphones directly just get a dual male mono 1/4-to-1/8 stereo female mini adapter if your headphones have a stereo mini connector, or a dual male mono 1/4-to-1/4 female stereo adapter if your phones have a 1/4 stereo connector.


I'm still wondering about the ASIO thing as well, so hopefully someone can clarify that.

 

[Mr.Radar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Imyourzero I too would like some further insight into ASIO and what exactly it is/does.

ASIO is a professional audio interface that has lower latency than Kernel Streaming, DirectSound, and WaveOut, and like Kernel Streaming it also bypasses kmixer in the vast majority of cases. Also, with the current drivers from EMU, on EMU cards you need to use ASIO for 96KHz and 192KHz playback.

 

[Imyourzero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar ASIO is a professional audio interface that has lower latency than Kernel Streaming, DirectSound, and WaveOut, and like Kernel Streaming it also bypasses kmixer in the vast majority of cases. Also, with the current drivers from EMU, on EMU cards you need to use ASIO for 96KHz and 192KHz playback.

Can you use ASIO with Winamp (it's my preferred music player) or do you have to play songs through a certain application in order to take advantage of ASIO?

Also, does the AV-710 use ASIO or is it just something that the E-MU cards use?