ZapWizard's LAN PC -Custom Ammo PC -Completed Jan 18 '04

Zalman was at TXGF. I won a pair! The only thing I am not really liking about them right now is no hardware volume control(usb soundcard has 3 independant volume controlls). They are a bit heavy, but hey they have six speakers. All in all, nice headphones. They dont glow like Zap's though....yet! Have to get Zap to let me listen to his, so I can compair!

 

I do not think the Zalmans would have 6 speakers in them.

In your six speaker "home theater" you have a subwoofer that's got a very big cone that moves a air to give you better bass than main speakers can. That bass is as much felt as it is heard. In headphones a separate speaker for low frequencies in unnecessary, headphones don't need to have a lot of bass because you don't feel the bass like you do in the regular speaker setup. Headphone speakers are designed to be able to handle from around 100Hz to 20KHz or so. (Yes, I said 100Hz. Most headphone manufacturers lie about headphone bass. My dad bought these tiny Philips earbuds that were rated for 12Hz. My Sony V6s were rated for 5Hz. For comparison, a pair of 18" subwoofers in 12 foot long transmission enclosures does 20Hz at best, and that is rattling the entire house).

As for center, it is certainly mixed into the front channels.

 

Not sure... but I'm pretty sure there is...

 

Enlighten me to what the two extra speakers do, because the center and LFE are not stereo, the're most likeily omitted or mixed into the front and rear left and right.

 

i don't know.. but i have a vague memory about a picture of the inside with 3 speakers per ear...

 

They're headphones so they don't exactly have a lot of space for an 18" LFE speaker, so we're talking about a five channel set-up.

Thing is, you can't just have one centre speaker (well you could but for correct sound imaging it would have to be mounted on a loom in front of the headphones, which would look daft and be cumbersome ) so AFAIK the left side of the headphones has a main left speaker, behind which is mounted a rear left speaker and in front of which is mounted a centre speaker. The right side has the corresponding ones. So you have six in total (left, right, rear left, rear right, and two 'centres', which are wired in parallel to the same source) - thus five channels, six speakers. See this review on bit-tech: http://www.bit-tech.net/review/261/ if you don't believe me

 

What do you mean it would look daft? I think I look rather dashing with a single centre channel.

http://server6.uploadit.org/files/altronpics-Picture15.jpg

Personally, I think that stereo headphones are the way to go. Sure, they don't have surround sound, but the sound quality blows away the Zalmans.

Some ones to consider:
Sennheiser HD497
Sennheiser HD280
Grado SR-60
Sony MDR-V6 - I have these (I am wearing them in the picture) and they are awesome.

All of these are $60-$70 and are better than the Zalmans. Not just marginally better, "stomp the zalman headphones into the dirt, rip out their living guts, and use them to lubricate our speakers" better than the Zalmans.

And surround sound loses most of it's advantages in headphones, the sound comes from all around you with 2 channel and 5.1 channel alike, 5.1 channel headphones are useful for 5.1 movies and nothing else.

 

I'm no expert (and I know this is entirely off-topic), but is there really any point in having extra speakers for the centre channel?
If a sound is heard by both ears at exactly the same time, the brain assumes it's coming from somewhere on the plane that goes vertically through the middle of your head.
i.e. If the sound physically comes from a speaker level with your ear, or from a point an inch or two forward, it won't make any difference (assuming both ears recieve it together).

edit:

 

ROFLMAO@your pic

I agree, you can get better stereo headphones for less money, much better ones for the same money, or MUUUUCH better ones for more money - google "Sennheiser Orpheus" - hand built electrostatic headphones with matched pure class-A valve amp. Nnnice. Now, anyone got a spare £5k?

 

PS happy birthday for yesterday Altron

 

Hey folks this is a project log, there are already several threads about the Zalman headphones, please post in those.

And Altron please edit your image to a link, as it is not at all related to this project.
(Or better yet could a moderator please move the past few un-related posts to a new thread?)

 

Sorry for all the o/t stuff Zap. I have a couple of questions:

1) With the upgrades, have you noticed a significant increase in heat? I imagine the 9600SE runs quite a bit hotter than the 9200 you had before?

2) What's the noise like from the machine?

3) Any progress on that rifle hard case for the keyboard?

 

1) I did not notice an increase in heat when changing from the 9200 to 9600.
But I noticed a large increase in heat when changing from a Athlon 2500+ to 3200+

2) The machine is not very noisy, I would say as much as a normal PC with four fans.

3) If I happen on a case that will hold the keyboard I will probably get it, but it's not a priority now.

 

Perfection

 

Question about the keyboard...

That model seems to come completely translucent, like you said. That said, how did you get the black keys? Did you just get keys from another keyboard and stick them on?

 

The keys were black.
The backing behind the keys was translucent.

 

Question about the jackk

First off, Zap you are amazing

Now to my question: How did you connect the custom jack to the mother board, did you solder unsolder the old ones and solder leads, if so how did you get all the terminals of the connector hot enough to take them off without ruining anything on the motherboard

and second were did you get the custom jack that you use for the monitor?

 

I removed the network and audio jacks, then replaced them with headers.
The USB connects to a header on the motherboard.
I used a mini-torch to heat up the connectors.
(While putting allunimum tape and heatsinks around the rest of the parts to protect them)

The custom jack is from www.digikey.com
I looked through their catalog for a connector with enough pins and was all metal.

 

Here is a image of the PC totally completed and running at TXGF:

 

It's not fair! after seeing so much of your work nothing really surprises me anymore!!

Thats so damn cool