Gonk
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2011
- Posts
- 4
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- 0
Hi all,
I have a Xi-Fi HD and a pair of Grado SR80i. I love the sound of the Grados on my hi-fi seperates, but on the xi-fi HD, the sound is very electronic and the treble far, far too harsh. I am looking for a warmer sound for my FLAC rips.
I work in IT and was finding I am spending far too much time in front of my pc, meaning im not having as much time as i'd like in front the hi-fi. To attempt to remedy this, I did a bit of research on soundcards, and the Xi-FI HD came up as pretty good for music listening and games.
The problem I have is that I have had to use the built in Creative Equalizer to drop the 8khz channel to basically -12db due to the harshness of the treble. This annoys me as I feel it's a cardinal sin - I am messing with the intended product of the music artist.
My questions are:
1) Is it just the nature of PC soundcards that the sound is electronic (not so bad) and the high end treble very harsh (VERY annoying, makes me wince)?
2) Is 1) caused by the combination of my headphones and soundcard?
3) Are their warmer soundcards out there, or do I need to resort to swapping out this op-amp, which i really dont want to do, as I have just paid over £130 for a soundcard....i dont create music, and i dont see why Creative can't just get it right first time.
The reason i'm asking is because I KNOW the SR80i's are top notch, my Seperates show them as such. I am wondering whether I need to just swap the Xi-Fi HD for another card, or if i'm simply expecting too much from PC audio, despite only listening to FLAC.
Many thanks
(PS the SR80i are epic on a proper hi-fi!).
I have a Xi-Fi HD and a pair of Grado SR80i. I love the sound of the Grados on my hi-fi seperates, but on the xi-fi HD, the sound is very electronic and the treble far, far too harsh. I am looking for a warmer sound for my FLAC rips.
I work in IT and was finding I am spending far too much time in front of my pc, meaning im not having as much time as i'd like in front the hi-fi. To attempt to remedy this, I did a bit of research on soundcards, and the Xi-FI HD came up as pretty good for music listening and games.
The problem I have is that I have had to use the built in Creative Equalizer to drop the 8khz channel to basically -12db due to the harshness of the treble. This annoys me as I feel it's a cardinal sin - I am messing with the intended product of the music artist.
My questions are:
1) Is it just the nature of PC soundcards that the sound is electronic (not so bad) and the high end treble very harsh (VERY annoying, makes me wince)?
2) Is 1) caused by the combination of my headphones and soundcard?
3) Are their warmer soundcards out there, or do I need to resort to swapping out this op-amp, which i really dont want to do, as I have just paid over £130 for a soundcard....i dont create music, and i dont see why Creative can't just get it right first time.
The reason i'm asking is because I KNOW the SR80i's are top notch, my Seperates show them as such. I am wondering whether I need to just swap the Xi-Fi HD for another card, or if i'm simply expecting too much from PC audio, despite only listening to FLAC.
Many thanks
(PS the SR80i are epic on a proper hi-fi!).