Those beauties are not "very" effcient, 90db will require a good 50W amp ... it will quickly costs arms, legs and probably a lung or two with mcintosh valve amp. A friend has a pair of Klipsch RF83 on a McIntosh amp ... that heavenly !!
Its all about the external DAC's though. Tempting to try this from the soundcard with my Bit-1 inbetween. should be fun wiring it down to 8Ohms from 4 Problem I find with most onboard sound is they are pretty close to the power circuitry so you pick up interference and the separate cards try to over process the signal. I very much doubt we will see a true audiophile motherboard. I would like to see a motherboard with shielded RCA ports though ideally with something like a 4V level so a nice clear signal
Creative X-Fi Crystalliser, just boost Treble and bass and the Volume. It's a silly marketing feature. I don't like it. When you play a game, or movie I have to kill the bass volume by 50%, before my desk stop shaking abstrusely, destroying my experience. With garbage Windows 7/Vista drivers, which prevents my computer to wake up properly from sleep. Plus, I can't wait for Win8... what it will be now Creative, we have to buy new sound cards, like we were supposed to do for Vista (despite having on the BOX saying Vista ready), and again with Win7. Than BAN people on their forums via IP, because they nicely and calmly ask for the ETA of the new drivers? Thanks but no thanks. As an X-Fi user, I am planning to buy a new sound card. X-Fi will go in bin. I don't even want to curse someone with this card by selling it.
I've noticed the Crystalizer does have a 3db boost when enabled, but I'd say it does help fill in the gaps for lower bitrate MP3's and the like. No substitute for properly encoded High bitrate MP3's but still nice to have the option. Strange that it affects your sub so much, where do you keep it, on the desk? I've got a logitec sub too, probably a different model but i can have crystaliser enabled, the sub on full, +15 DB boost (crossover enabled @70Hz) and still add 12DB to 31Hz and 8DB to 62Hz (boosts the low end frequencies that it can't reproduce at the same volume to effectively give me an extra 10 Hz in the low end) and still nothing vibrates noticeably.
It's under my desk, which has a back thing in wood. My desk is not made in Particle board or fiberboard.. in fact I have no idea it's made of what... I looks like hardwood, but the table was too cheap to make that fact true. It's a freaking solid table that survived build and un-build 3 times between moves. So I have no idea.... Anyway, the "boost" the bass a lot. It resonates the bass, I should say.
Ahh it could be more to do with resonant frequencies then, could just be that enabling the crystaliser accentuates frequencies that are in tune with your desk. Edit: much like the bridge in this link.
HAHA! Most likely yes. (don't you wish you did a speed run with your car while the bridge does that Ahh if only life was like a video game, where they are 0 consequences for your actions. )
Had an Asus Xonar DS, with my sharkoon headphones, the sound was much crisper, and the bass more pronounced. However a few months later the soundcard randomly started picking up a buzzing/statiky interference from the gpu so I binned it, going back to integrated was noticeable at first, but then I guess you just get use to it and stop noticing the slightly inferior sound quality after a while.
Dedicated sound card all the way, I own an X-Fi Fatal1ty Edition, the sound improvement you get with EAX enabled games is just mind blowing.
Alright so iv bitten the bullet and bought a Xonar DX. AU$85 bks.....absolute bargain. Cant wait to hear the sound quality. Hopefully you all havnt pumped em up so much its a big letdown, but I will come back in a few days and tell you all my thoughts. Sometimes Bit-Tech is annoying cause it costs you money Damn them and there good reviews.
I sincerely doubt you'll be disappointed Although it ultimately comes down to the speaker/headphone quality (or external amp if you go that way). I've played my sexy shiny Ibanez through a mates cheapo 'Starfire' (ugh) amp and it sounds awful, no amount of uber pick ups and effects can save it. Same goes with PC audio in my opinion, no amount of amazing sound card can help if you run it through 5W speakers built into a monitor. You will be praising these guys come install day, i guarantee it
My Speakers are Logitech Z2300's & Headphones are Sony MDRXD200's. Hopefully they are good enough to notice a difference
Once you install the sound card. Open the Sound Panel found in the Control panel. Double click on your speaker source (usually simply called Speakers), a panel will now open. On that last panel, go to the Advanced tab, you will notice a drop down box. Set the value of that drop down box to the highest possible, and click OK. Now you are ready to enjoy your sound card.
I think it really depends on just how much you use sound etc. For the casual user, surfing, using the pc as a tool etc, onboard sound is fine. Gamers will probably want to take things further, usually using capable, but reasonably priced sound cards. Media centres will probably go a step further, to using more capable sound cards. For myself I listen to a lot of music, outputting from my pc to a audiolab and denon, pre power, amplifier combination. I'd tried different sound cards, creative especially, which I found to be great, ideal etc, until I heard a friends Asus Xonar Essence, which pushed the sound envelope several notches further than anything I had heard. So, its horses for courses.
I'm using them with an old (10 years) 200 watt Yamaha amplifier, plenty of juice. Enough to kill them! Back to the sound card... I used a Maya 44 USB for a couple of months, and now I have a Native Instruments Audio 4 DJ plugged in. Yes, you can tell the diference, easily. 192kbps MP3 do sound terrible! The signal is a bit too hot, though. You can even tell when the music producer sampled something from an .mp3 file in the .wav promos I get.
So thanks all for your advice got the card today and my god the difference is emense The clearness and deepness of the bass and just so much more crisp. Didnt notice much to start with but then set it to mosic mode and game mode and the used some better quality testing (mass effect 2) SO much more life. Thankyou all for your help. THere not wrong when they say the Audio center is a bit of a beast to work around. Also +1 for Good bytes that tip to up the quality worked a treat.
Are you happy with your ESI card ? Never tried them and I'm looking to change my M-Audio. 200W is plenty of juice : ) ... and I like good'ol amplifier (vintage Marantz, Sansui, etc.). I'm looking for a valve amp, but it's kinda expensive (may it be ready to use or DIY).
Got the Xonar DX. Still trying to work around the audio center to find settings I like. And I have no idea what the smart volume thing does. It sounds like it just makes things louder. hmmm. Sounds epic thou.....just keeping the speaker setting for headphones to, love the deeper tones.
