What is your opinion on high-end sound cards and enthusiasts speakers? - Page 3

Hi2u! Tw1TcH · 05-01-2012, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGreatGazoo

What sounds good is subjective, what sounds right isn't. Mastering is done for a reason.

Well, I meant within a reasonable context.

Think I'm done with the forums for today.

TangleFoot · 05-01-2012, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hi2u! Tw1TcH

Well, I meant within a reasonable context.

Any tips? A quick Google tells me I should leave the highs and lows alone.

TheGreatGazoo · 05-01-2012, 07:42 PM

Don't alter the signal at all. It isn't necessary unless you have bad equipment or a bad source. Send your source directly to a decent DA converter and then to your speakers. EQs do more harm than good.

TangleFoot · 05-01-2012, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGreatGazoo

It isn't necessary unless you have bad equipment or a bad source.

My speakers are pretty tiny - does that count?

ChocoboLIVE · 05-01-2012, 10:34 PM

Big different, some people are still blind from 5 or 7 o clock at 90 up to 180 degree. And some of them lack distant sounds.

masterchef341 · 05-02-2012, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TangleFoot

My speakers are pretty tiny - does that count?

you're not in the right category of hardware to be concerned. just try to make the music sound good, use whatever means necessary. if you get enjoyment out of setting the EQ, go for it.

There's a whole separate group of people who have high quality speakers hooked up to an amplifier with a digital input from their PC, and have put many hundreds or thousands of dollars into that hardware. Unless you're at that point, I wouldn't worry about it.

sfade · 05-02-2012, 01:04 AM

An EQ is for personal tailoring of sound, at least in my opinion. Sure it can be used for correction of a bad source, but most people just use it to tailor their listening experience to their own tastes.

Actually, you'd be surprised how many people don't care for a perfect studio replication. Most commonly they will want to crank the low end up for more bass and tweak the high end a bit also.

Whatever sounds best to you is best. I keep two different EQ setups that tweak a db here or there, one for my speakers (to adjust for the room) and one for my headphones.

borg_7_of_9 · 05-02-2012, 01:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Overclocker_

I am speaking mainly of the Realtek ALC8xx/9xx codecs. Stuff like MB X-Fi is still better than your normal codec, mainly because it's capable of hardware processing for EAX and such.

.

I was talking about the realtek ALC 8xx iirc it's not just the chip that makes for good sound there's the pre amp stage, amplification stage and the type of cap's used as well, even the quality of voltage requlation plays a role in sound quality..

Exploder · 05-02-2012, 02:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlecJ32

The fact is that as of Windows 7, all processing is done by the CPU as part of the new audio stack, unless you're using an 'exclusive session', which the vast majority of software (including games, music players, etc) do not use.

Except it's not, because all of that pre-processing is done in software now.

Clearly you can't be bothered to read posts before replying to them. Nowhere did I say that expert reviewers don't set up their EQ properly. My post was referring to consumers who purchase sound cards and then claim 'significant results'.

Furthermore, in the case of that review, that sound card has a built in headphone amplifier. It isn't the sound card producing the results so much as it is the headphone amp. Almost any output device will sound considerably better with a high end amplifier.

You slightly missed my point. I'm saying, that reviewers who knows how to setup a good EQ wouldn't praise modern soundcards assuming they also know how to tweak the onboard EQ. If EQ was such a big deal (I'm not saying it isn't), then soundcards such as the STX wouldn't be getting Gold awards all over the place like they do now.

I see how you're talking about regular consumers however and you have a point there. But I also presume a well setup onboard would be bested by a well setup discrete soundcard.

Regarding Windows and its sound-processing, it's as easy as using Foobar with ASIO if you want to skip the Windows sound-processing stage. The STX for example supports ASIO so you can avoid the whole issue with Windows "ruining" the sound altogether.

TangleFoot · 05-02-2012, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by masterchef341

Unless you're at that point, I wouldn't worry about it.

Fair enough. I'll just turn the volume up a bit.

AlecJ32 · 05-02-2012, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exploder

You slightly missed my point. I'm saying, that reviewers who knows how to setup a good EQ wouldn't praise modern soundcards assuming they also know how to tweak the onboard EQ. If EQ was such a big deal (I'm not saying it isn't), then soundcards such as the STX wouldn't be getting Gold awards all over the place like they do now.

I'm not saying the benefits are non-existent. If you have an expensive enough speaker setup and are enough of an enthusiast to be reviewing sound cards, you certainly will be able to find improvement in a better sound card.

For realistic use, however, even with decent speakers you're not going to receive a real gain over on-board, especially one worthwhile enough to justify the price. For someone who has already spent over $1000 on their speakers, a sound card is not so steep of an investment and the improved signal quality is more worthwhile to them, and that's usually who a lot of those reviews are targeted at: The enthusiasts.

Part of the STX's praise also comes from its built-in headphone amplifier. An STX with headphones will sound better than onboard with headphones by a much greater margin because of the amplifier. However, the difference between the two is much more slim when you put a good headphone amplifier between the onboard and the pair of headphones.

Ultimately, though, these tests are done with equipment of top quality. Equipment beyond the level of quality a $100 pair of headphones will deliver. If you want to dump $200 into getting the best possible sound, the vast majority of consumers would get considerably better results just adding that $200 to what they spend on their speakers or headphones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exploder

Regarding Windows and its sound-processing, it's as easy as using Foobar with ASIO if you want to skip the Windows sound-processing stage. The STX for example supports ASIO so you can avoid the whole issue with Windows "ruining" the sound altogether.

...If you really want to be bothered with using ASIO for music, go for it. I personally found it annoying because ASIO (at least when I used it a few years ago for instrument recording and processing) requires an 'exclusive' session in order to work. I'm not sure how, programmatically, this request gets handled, but I can tell you that using ASIO with one application will prevent other applications from being able to playback and record sounds.

In my experience, if you had an application open that had an audio session, it would need to be closed before the ASIO interface could initiate correctly, and any application that was opened while ASIO had its exclusive session would need to be restarted before it could playback and record sounds. This meant, for example, that if you were listening to music and wanted to watch a quick youtube video, you would need to close your music player and your web browser, then reopen your web browser before the audio would work. Then, to resume music playback, you would have to close your browser, reopen your music player and then reopen your browser again. This, I found annoying.

lawlorz · 05-09-2012, 02:53 AM

all im gonna say is i have an onboard realtek hd sound chip on my ex-58-extreme gigabyte mobo. going from this to a creative audigy 2 zs is an extremely noticable improvement when listening from alessandro ms-1 headphones. then further improving going from the audigy 2 zs to the creative titanium hd on the same headphones showed me further improvement. and then upgrading from the ms-1 headphones to the ms-pro showed me further improvement. this is all from my own listening. i am not going to quote technical specs to prove its better, i can hear its better.

borg_7_of_9 · 05-09-2012, 04:38 AM

finally found some test where on board is compared to dedicated card not what I was expecting..

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htm

and this THD test http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=...17&postcount=4

It would seam On board sound has come a long way.. Not that I use ether on board or sound card now..

tr4656 · 05-09-2012, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by borg_7_of_9

finally found some test where on board is compared to dedicated card not what I was expecting..

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htm

and this THD test http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=...17&postcount=4

It would seam On board sound has come a long way.. Not that I use ether on board or sound card now..

Do you just use a DAC/amp?

borg_7_of_9 · 05-09-2012, 06:40 AM

Using the HDMI from the video card to a 7.1Ch receiver, I get full 24b/192Hz 7.1ch that way so yeah..

Pic of setting's http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...soundsetup.jpg

05-09-2012, 06:40 AM	#45
borg_7_of_9 Join Date: Nov 2007 Reputation: 2604 Posts: 12,717	Using the HDMI from the video card to a 7.1Ch receiver, I get full 24b/192Hz 7.1ch that way so yeah.. Pic of setting's http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...soundsetup.jpg Last edited by borg_7_of_9: 05-09-2012 at 06:46 AM.

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05-01-2012, 07:42 PM	#33
TheGreatGazoo Join Date: Feb 2012 Reputation: 37 Posts: 331	Don't alter the signal at all. It isn't necessary unless you have bad equipment or a bad source. Send your source directly to a decent DA converter and then to your speakers. EQs do more harm than good.

05-01-2012, 10:34 PM	#35
ChocoboLIVE Banned Join Date: Aug 2010 Reputation: 27 Posts: 107	Big different, some people are still blind from 5 or 7 o clock at 90 up to 180 degree. And some of them lack distant sounds.

05-02-2012, 01:04 AM	#37
sfade Join Date: Jan 2009 Reputation: 933 Posts: 2,124	An EQ is for personal tailoring of sound, at least in my opinion. Sure it can be used for correction of a bad source, but most people just use it to tailor their listening experience to their own tastes. Actually, you'd be surprised how many people don't care for a perfect studio replication. Most commonly they will want to crank the low end up for more bass and tweak the high end a bit also. Whatever sounds best to you is best. I keep two different EQ setups that tweak a db here or there, one for my speakers (to adjust for the room) and one for my headphones.

05-09-2012, 02:53 AM	#42
lawlorz Join Date: Feb 2011 Reputation: 11 Posts: 75	all im gonna say is i have an onboard realtek hd sound chip on my ex-58-extreme gigabyte mobo. going from this to a creative audigy 2 zs is an extremely noticable improvement when listening from alessandro ms-1 headphones. then further improving going from the audigy 2 zs to the creative titanium hd on the same headphones showed me further improvement. and then upgrading from the ms-1 headphones to the ms-pro showed me further improvement. this is all from my own listening. i am not going to quote technical specs to prove its better, i can hear its better.

05-09-2012, 04:38 AM	#43
borg_7_of_9 Join Date: Nov 2007 Reputation: 2604 Posts: 12,717	finally found some test where on board is compared to dedicated card not what I was expecting.. http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htm and this THD test http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=...17&postcount=4 It would seam On board sound has come a long way.. Not that I use ether on board or sound card now..