[goodsguys]

Hi And thanks for reading this post.
 
I noticed the massive thread concerning hotrodding the x-fi soundcard so dropped my soundcard offf at the local pc shop to see if a pro could do the work.
 
I told the shop the card is a 10 year old soundblaster x-fi ellite pro (£250)
 
to which they replied a 10 year old card would probably be so outdated a modern £50 card would be just as good
 
would not be worth spending money to pay for new caps, op amps and service charges
 
Also the chips would probably be coming toward the end of their lives as soundcards are only designed to last 7 years.
 
Could you advise me is any of this true
 
Many thanks in advance. John.

 

[obobskivich]

Sounds like the shop just doesn't want to do the work - X-Fi Elite Pro is still very respectable, and even in "stock" configuration will measure exceptionally well, both by the standards of whenever it was new (2006 or thereabouts iirc) and today. It's a very good card. Driver support would be the only question I'd have - I'm not sure if X-Fi is supported under Windows 10 or is planned for later versions of Windows etc, but I know it works in Windows 7 (I have one running right now), so it's not like you can't use a modern OS with the card. A modern cheapo card would not be "just as good" - matching the Elite Pro for I/O alone is pretty hard, but doing it with the same quality and at such a low price? Unless you're buying used hardware I'd say that's probably impossible.

Why are you wanting the caps and opamps replaced though? Is something wrong with the card?

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Hi And thanks for reading this post.
I noticed the massive thread concerning hotrodding the x-fi sound card so dropped my sound card off at the local pc shop to see if a pro could do the work.
I told the shop the card is a 10 year old sound blaster x-fi ellite pro (£250)
to which they replied a 10 year old card would probably be so outdated a modern £50 card would be just as good
would not be worth spending money to pay for new caps, op amps and service charges
Also the chips would probably be coming toward the end of their lives as sound cards are only designed to last 7 years.
Could you advise me is any of this true
Many thanks in advance. John.

 
Creative just released driver updates less then 4 weeks ago, for this card.
So it's got a little life still left in it.
But i would say not to put any money into it.
If your into old games, then that is another reason for keeping the card.
 
Maybe plan on replacing the X-Fi Elite Pro with a Sound Blaster Z, or even a SB-ZxR, in the future.
If your really going to put cash into the audio ($300 or more), then maybe plan on buying a SB-Z (OEM is fine) and connecting an external DAC and headphone amplifier, to the SB-Z's optical output port.

 

[goodsguys]

Hi Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.
 
There is nothing wrong with the card just read the hotrodding thread and it intrigued me people reporting big improvements am thinking about recapping the entire board and replacing opamps as recommended in the thread
 
The guys at the shop said not to do any mods on the elite pro and buy the xonar d2x as a modern day replacement.
 
I actually have that card purchased about 5 years ago because of good internet reviews and word of mouth but when i compared against the elite pro, elite pro was much much better less distortion more true and realistic sound
 
The xonar sounded coloured in comparison. I used it for about an hour then took it out it has been sitting on a shelf for the past 5 years. That's why i found it difficult to believe too much of what the shop was saying.
 
I like the eax effects on the elite pro and am using it in a home cinema pc not really into gaming just movies and music.
 
Another problem which has been bugging me is i purchased an audiolab m-dac (£600) again because of internet reviews and word of mouth plugged it into my laptop (hp elitebook 8570p  £1.5k) and it sounded kind of boring
 
Plugged the m-dac into my desktop and there was a massive improvement in sound quality why is this
 
The laptop was £1.5k and the desktop £600 so would have expected to have paid £1.5k and should have got a decent graphics card sound card motherboard built in etc but has not worked out anything like that
 
Is it because laptops have reduced performance so they can run on batteries or tiny little power supplies and be portable, whereas desktops run on huge 1000 watts power supplies and may be engineered more towards performance.
 
And what do you think i should do with the elite pro, mod it, stick with the m-dac, or look for a modern day soundcard replacement
 
I heard that manufacturers are using " better " caps and opamps in their latest products to stop people doing mods so if i can get a card which is the equivalent of the elite pro with the full mods i would be very happy.
 
Many thanks. John.

 

[obobskivich]

Hi Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

There is nothing wrong with the card just read the hotrodding thread and it intrigued me people reporting big improvements am thinking about recapping the entire board and replacing opamps as recommended in the thread

I'm unfamiliar with that thread, but I'll go back to the old addage of "if it ain't broke...don't' mess with it." Especially on an older card that likely won't be easily replaced if something goes wrong.

The guys at the shop said not to do any mods on the elite pro and buy the xonar d2x as a modern day replacement.

Sounds like the guys at the shop want to sell a D2X.

I like the eax effects on the elite pro and am using it in a home cinema pc not really into gaming just movies and music.

"EAX effects" without gaming? :blink:

Another problem which has been bugging me is i purchased an audiolab m-dac (£600) again because of internet reviews and word of mouth plugged it into my laptop (hp elitebook 8570p  £1.5k) and it sounded kind of boring

Plugged the m-dac into my desktop and there was a massive improvement in sound quality why is this

The laptop was £1.5k and the desktop £600 so would have expected to have paid £1.5k and should have got a decent graphics card sound card motherboard built in etc but has not worked out anything like that

Is it because laptops have reduced performance so they can run on batteries or tiny little power supplies and be portable, whereas desktops run on huge 1000 watts power supplies and may be engineered more towards performance.

Impossible to answer as-is, and price isn't a good indicator of anything.

And what do you think i should do with the elite pro, mod it, stick with the m-dac, or look for a modern day soundcard replacement

Stick with the Elite Pro if it works properly as-is and does what you want. What's the problem?

I heard that manufacturers are using " better " caps and opamps in their latest products to stop people doing mods so if i can get a card which is the equivalent of the elite pro with the full mods i would be very happy.

Honestly, Creative has been using good quality caps for at least the last ten years, if not closer to twenty. But because of "cap snobbism" (I don't have a better term for this, sorry) in PC enthusiast circles, they've gone from using good quality stuff that works and lasts, to using absurdly high end stuff just to satisfy marketing needs. Many newer cards have socketed opamps to allow user customization - whether or not this is a recipe for significant improvements is a topic of debate. If the X-Fi is doing what you want and still works, why not just leave it be?

 

[PurpleAngel]

  There is nothing wrong with the card just read the hotrodding thread and it intrigued me people reporting big improvements am thinking about recapping the entire board and replacing op-amps as recommended in the thread
The guys at the shop said not to do any mods on the elite pro and buy the Xonar D2X as a modern day replacement.
I actually have that card purchased about 5 years ago because of good internet reviews and word of mouth but when i compared against the elite pro, elite pro was much much better less distortion more true and realistic sound
The Xonar sounded coloured in comparison. I used it for about an hour then took it out it has been sitting on a shelf for the past 5 years. That's why i found it difficult to believe too much of what the shop was saying.
I like the eax effects on the elite pro and am using it in a home cinema pc not really into gaming just movies and music.
Another problem which has been bugging me is i purchased an Audiolab M-dac (£600) again because of internet reviews and word of mouth plugged it into my laptop (hp elitebook 8570p  £1.5k) and it sounded kind of boring
Plugged the m-dac into my desktop and there was a massive improvement in sound quality why is this
The laptop was £1.5k and the desktop £600 so would have expected to have paid £1.5k and should have got a decent graphics card sound card motherboard built in etc but has not worked out anything like that
Is it because laptops have reduced performance so they can run on batteries or tiny little power supplies and be portable, whereas desktops run on huge 1000 watts power supplies and may be engineered more towards performance.
And what do you think i should do with the elite pro, mod it, stick with the m-dac, or look for a modern day soundcard replacement
I heard that manufacturers are using " better " caps and opamps in their latest products to stop people doing mods so if i can get a card which is the equivalent of the elite pro with the full mods i would be very happy.

 
Did you disable the motherboard's on-board audio, in the BIOS, when you installed the Xonar D2X?
Sometimes active on-board has a negative effect, with an add-on internal sound card.
The Xonar D2X does not come with a "true" headphone amplifier, so getting an external headphone amplifier might help improve audio quality (with headphones).
 
Why the Audiolab M-DAC sounded better plugged into the PC, then the laptop, is really speculation.
Audiolab should have sounded the same, plugged into either one.
Whatever software program on the PC that was feeding the M-DAC, might be better then the software program used on the laptop?
or the setting were just different.
 
If you like using the Elite Pro, you might consider connecting it to the M-DAC, using S/PDIF (optical or coaxial), so your using the Elite Pro features, but the M-DAC provides the sound quality.
On the Elite Pro's external box, there are ports labeled Optical and S/PDIF, technically they are both S/PDIF, but that's just the way those ports get labeled.
The Elite Pro should be able to send processed headphone surround sound out of the S/PDIF ports (optical/coaxial)
So no need to modify the Elite Pro.
Also make sure on-board audio, is disabled in the BIOS, when the Elite Pro is installed.
Disable the on-board before installing the Elite Pro or Creative software.

 

[Mike67]

I have a Xonar, one of the middle models, and the issue I have is that drivers have bugs that have never been fixed. I run W7 64 and use the toslink out to an old AV receiver with no HDMI, and the drivers have all sorts of flaky issues, enough so that I run a third party driver. Driver issues have been around for years apparently Xonar will never fix them.
 
Playing with component changes I am sure make differences, not in any magic way, just old fashioned bumps and dips in an otherwise flat frequency response, like a bad but expensive equalizer.
 
Audiophile magic never happens until you buy expensive external stuff like a DAC and headphone amp. If you need the magic to happen, skip the baby steps.

 

[goodsguys]

Hi. Thanks for the replies.
 
 I remember reading somewhere the screen of a laptop uses about 50% of a laptops power, cpu uses 20-30%, the rest is shared amongst the remaining components
 
I played a piece of music with the screen off,  in the hope that more power may be made available to the remaining components
 
Then played the same music with the screen on.
 
I worked!!
 
With the screen off the sound was more detailed, the bass especially seemed extended and had more kick and agility
 
With the screen off i lost a lot of detail and the bass especially suffered.
 
i'm thinking of getting a bigger power supply moving from 90 watts up to 120 watts and see what happens.
 
I have been running win 7 ultimate for about 5 years and am thinking of installing a light operating system perhaps linux or Openelec as this converts your pc into a media player
 
which is all i use the laptop for anyway
 
What do you think of open elec has anyone used it
 
Also I can't disable the audio in the bios, what if i uninstalled the drivers would that be the same thing
 
Many thanks. John.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Hi. Thanks for the replies.
 
Also I can't disable the audio in the bios, what if i uninstalled the drivers would that be the same thing

 
Windows will automatically download and install the drivers, as long as the on-board audio is enabled in the BIOS.
But you can disable on-board audio, in Device Manager, almost a good as disabling in the BIOS.

 

[Mike67]

  Hi. Thanks for the replies.
 
 I remember reading somewhere the screen of a laptop uses about 50% of a laptops power, cpu uses 20-30%, the rest is shared amongst the remaining components
 
I played a piece of music with the screen off,  in the hope that more power may be made available to the remaining components
 
Then played the same music with the screen on.
 
I worked!!
 
 

Funny how things that should absolutely make no difference in the sound, work when you expect to hear a difference. I don't think I would expect great sound out of a laptop audio circuit no matter what you turn off, maybe try an external USB DAC.

 

[obobskivich]

Funny how things that should absolutely make no difference in the sound, work when you expect to hear a difference. I don't think I would expect great sound out of a laptop audio circuit no matter what you turn off, maybe try an external USB DAC.

Actually there may be something to this, but not because of power consumption. That is, the computer will be designed to provide sufficient power to all of its components - screen and all. But the screen's inverter/power circuitry may be somewhat noisy, and may harm audio performance as a result. I'm not saying "this is the case" or "this is why this is happening" and it may absolutely be expectation bias at work, but OTOH it's plausible the screen could be creating noise. Same goes for running on battery vs wall power - I've observed many cases where hum or buzz goes away when the wall power is removed and the system goes over to batteries, because the charger is fairly noisy and/or creates a groundloop with whatever other equipment that the system is hooked up to.

 

[Badfish5446]

Actually there may be something to this, but not because of power consumption. That is, the computer will be designed to provide sufficient power to all of its components - screen and all. But the screen's inverter/power circuitry may be somewhat noisy, and may harm audio performance as a result. I'm not saying "this is the case" or "this is why this is happening" and it may absolutely be expectation bias at work, but OTOH it's plausible the screen could be creating noise. Same goes for running on battery vs wall power - I've observed many cases where hum or buzz goes away when the wall power is removed and the system goes over to batteries, because the charger is fairly noisy and/or creates a groundloop with whatever other equipment that the system is hooked up to.

+1 unless the product is poorly designed it will have sufficient power for all components.  The issue is more than likely noise, in the end it seems like a lot of work for something that can be far surpassed by just about any respectable dongle DAC out there.

 

[obobskivich]

+1 unless the product is poorly designed it will have sufficient power for all components.  The issue is more than likely noise, in the end it seems like a lot of work for something that can be far surpassed by just about any respectable dongle DAC out there.

Agree very much with the bolded part.

 

[goodsguys]

HI. Thanks for the replies. 
 
 i have an external audiolab m-dac  ( connected via usb ) which is supposed to be the best dac for under £1k according the the people at what hi fi that is and this also sounded better with the screen off i don't have enough technical knowledge of the product to explain why this is happening but it is
 
But enough of that i have solved all of my problems
 
Thought i'd share this because it really is very good.
 
I installed Openelec which turns your pc into a media player. Just copy the program onto external usb flash drive then boot from that flash drive,  that simple Takes seconds.
 
I noticed a big jump up in picture and sound quality with Openelec the difference is night and day multiplied by night and day,  when compared to the windows 7 i was running with j river media player and nero 2015
 
Playing full hd blurays through windows and nero media player / or j river  i was using 20% cpu and 30% ram
 
With Openelec it has dropped to 2% cpu and 2% ram
 
If anyone is using a htpc with windows mac or apple or whatever Openelec is most definitely worth checking out and it is a free OS as well Takes minutes to install and i promise you will never look back Totally blows windows jriver and nero out of the water.
 
In fact it is so good i may as well use the on board audio and dump the expensive dac as the sound is that good.
 
The on board audio from the laptop is being output to my amp via a 3.5 mm headphone socket This is the only connector. My amp has inputs via rca sockets only. Is this a safe connection?
 
The headphone socket is obviously for driving headphones but connected to rca inputs sockets is this compatible and safe
 
Many thanks for reading. John.

 

[Badfish5446]

Another thought, the Openelec is most likely completely bypassing windows audio control.  This is wholehearted a good thing as Windows has never (and probably won't) put an emphasis on proper handling of audio files.  For god sake they won't even support plug and play DAC's supporting sampling rates in excess of 96kHz, something Mac instituted quite some time ago.  (Not an applehead, actually loathe must of what they do, but they figured out usb-audio, gotta give them that)