Need suggestions

[cc2096]

I bought a Cmoy from MisterX and I am looking to get a nice set of cans to go with it. Currently I am using a pair of Sony V300's. I am looking at the Senn HD595's, but I am also looking for suggestions on other cans in the same price range and quality. Will the Senn's sound good with the Cmoy, or should they be unamped? What would sound good with the Cmoy? I have already spent the money on it and would perfer not to upgrade the amp that quickly (my wallet and wife would be very unhappy with me). Any help would be very much appreciated.

I should mention my sources...

PC = Mostly 192-320kbps MP3's => SB X-Fi XM.
Portable = Apple iPod 5G 30gb

 

[Mister X]

The output buffers means it will play nice with just about anything you throw at your Cmoyish amp.

(so much so that is can even drive efficient speakers when powered by an external power source)

 

[Elderblaze]

Economical>Upgrade

SR60>>SR125 (Extremly Forward, in your face, detailed) (rock cans)

595>DT880 (Forward,(but not to much) detailed, airy) (classic/music)

580>650 (Laid back, DARK) (hmm??)

DT770>DT990 (BASS) (gamer cans, hip-hop)

any of the above will suit you, at various price ranges, the first choice is the economical one, the second choice is the upgraded version.

They are all about the same general "Quality" but have very different sound. Make sure the 595 is what your looking for.

The X-fi will clip past 77% volume if driven high enough. (so keep it below 77%)

You should also resample to 48 KHZ in foobar for optimal quality.. Testing done with udial

Regards,
Mike

 

[Chastity]

"You should also resample to 48 KHZ in foobar for optimal quality.. Testing done with udial"

I did some udial testing today, and I don't share in your results. Here are my reults as posted on 3DSS:

FB2K: 16bit, KS Output / DirectSound HW, RG off, no DSP

Mixer: Wave and Master 100% (Volume controlled by headphone amp), Speakers set to Headphones

Speakers : HD580 (not blowing more tweeters again!)

Game Mode: No sirens
Entertainment: No sirens
Audio Creation (BitPerf Play enabled): No sirens
Audio Creation (BitPerf Play disabled 48KHz): No sirens

Any mode with CMSS-3D, Crystalizer, or EQ enabled: sirens detected

 

[Elderblaze]

Everyone's setup is different.. With my system there is a siren+Clipping at extreme volume levels. When I set to resample to 48 Khz the siren disppears but the clipping remains.

I've tried to "Troubleshoot it" can't seem to figure this one out though. It's not my AMP or Headphones, because i've tried it with another amp and other headphones with the same result. It could be bad power or interferance I don't really know. At any rate it only happens at extreme volume levels (unlistenable) so it's not to big a deal.

I also dont' really know what this thing is "Supposed" to sound like. I know about 1/3 thru I can pickup a really high frequency coming in, and with it comes some "noise". Much like Hiss on a poorly mastered CD or old recording. From what I can tell the "noise" is not supposed to be there.

Regards,
Mike

P.s. if you can recomend a "Fix" for this that would be awsome. Though im not so sure it's not "Normal" when under such high volumes. The "noise" That comes in with the high frequency effect like triples in volume level once I hit that threshold.

 

[Chastity]

" I know about 1/3 thru I can pickup a really high frequency coming in, and with it comes some "noise". Much like Hiss on a poorly mastered CD or old recording. From what I can tell the "noise" is not supposed to be there."

Correct, there isn't suppose to be noise. There is suppose to be a high level of high freqencies watermarking the audio. That is what you hear at the 1/3 point on.

I've talked with some other owners with the Xtreme and Platinum editions, and they don't report the issues you have. I'll keep checking with others.

Now I had some weirdo issues initially, with some old legacy pieces from the A4 Pro drivers still lingering. I would suggest you do a full uninstall of the drivers and apps, use ctzapp.exe to do a full removal of drivers, and then follow with a fresh install.

 

[Elderblaze]

You have an elite so your test are not directly comparable to mine. Did the people you talked to have high end headphones with an amp? I don't hear these sounds at modest volumes. It's got to be damn near maxed on both amp/drivers. I also get noise when I don't have the line-in muted.

 

[mustang_steve]

Here's a way to debug for hiss:

First listen to your setup with no actual sound being input...powered up but not playing anything. Run the volume knob around a bit and see where the noise starts.

If the noise is at all volume levels, unplug the input cables from the amp and see if the problem goes away. Repeat this with the cables on the amp, but off the computer as well. If it's only hissing when the cables are attatched, it means a shielded cable is needed.

Now, hook up the headphones directly to the computer, no amp and see if the hiss is still there....if it is, then it's either a sound card or inductive noise issue within the PC.

If not....then it's either the amp itself, or the power supply for the amp has poor noise filtration. For noise filtration, you can get powerstrips with built-in attenuation for pretty reasonable prices. I'm rather apprehensive of Monster, but I got a good deal on a SL-Waber unit on ebay for around $60 a while back that has 110dB filtering.

I only get some noise at the 60% up point...that's well beyond what I normally listen to...and I know it's not the amp, and I run double-shielded cables, so I'm pretty sure it's my Audigy2 ZS being a pain in the rump.

IMO, sound card makers like CL need to get with the times, and start shielding their cards.

 

[Elderblaze]

Thanks mustang.. but you misunderstand. I have no noise at all with my windows volume max and my amp volume max with no sound file playing. Or with sound playing.. if the source is clean. I only experiance noise when I play Udial. And only thru the second half of the file, and only at max volumes. I've tried all sorts of things, but im just gonna delete Udial evil little file that is. It's giving me a damn headache too.

I know it's not my amp or headphones. IT's the source.. the x-fi is doing it. It's not power related either. Cause I tested my amp with batteries. made no differnce. I've also tested this with my speaker's headphone out and still hear the noise on the second half of the file. It's definatly source related. It could be somthing on my mobo is causing interferance with the x-fi, or perhaps it happends to everyone on this particular model of Xfi and no one else has ran it at the required volume levels to hear it. It's pretty moot anyways as i'd go deaf if I listened at the volume levels that's required to hear it.

Regards,
Mike

 

[Captain Al]

Economical>Upgrade

595>DT880 (Forward,(but not to much) detailed, airy) (classic/music)

580>650 (Laid back, DARK) (hmm??)

I've tested various Senn, Sony, Bose (ick) Cans, and I can say, best overall sound you can get for all genres or music are the 580's.... But, depending on amount of money you'd want to spend - Senns are great as they are, but to get the most of them, you'll be upgrading cables as well... which if you go all out, some cables can exceed the cost of the cans themselves...

 

[mustang_steve]

Thanks mustang.. but you misunderstand. I have no noise at all with my windows volume max and my amp volume max with no sound file playing. Or with sound playing.. if the source is clean. I only experiance noise when I play Udial. And only thru the second half of the file, and only at max volumes. I've tried all sorts of things, but im just gonna delete Udial evil little file that is. It's giving me a damn headache too.

I know it's not my amp or headphones. IT's the source.. the x-fi is doing it. It's not power related either. Cause I tested my amp with batteries. made no differnce. I've also tested this with my speaker's headphone out and still hear the noise on the second half of the file. It's definatly source related. It could be somthing on my mobo is causing interferance with the x-fi, or perhaps it happends to everyone on this particular model of Xfi and no one else has ran it at the required volume levels to hear it. It's pretty moot anyways as i'd go deaf if I listened at the volume levels that's required to hear it.

Regards,
Mike

Sorry bout that, I for some reason thought it was a hiss thing. If it's the X-FI then gut it...CL is pretty bad about supporting their hardware in any semblance of a timely manner. Interference would not be with just one program...it would be pretty consistant.
Like hearing your mouse through your speakers or headphones...that's interference.

here's a link where a guy killed off quite a few tweeters thanks to a udial problem http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=764268#post764268

 

[Chastity]

Sorry bout that, I for some reason thought it was a hiss thing. If it's the X-FI then gut it...CL is pretty bad about supporting their hardware in any semblance of a timely manner. Interference would not be with just one program...it would be pretty consistant.
Like hearing your mouse through your speakers or headphones...that's interference.

here's a link where a guy killed off quite a few tweeters thanks to a udial problem http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=764268#post764268

That "guy" would be me. I was having a blonde moment.

The "hiss" he is getting is some intermodulation distortion from the resampling of udial. It doesn't always sound like sirens. It can also sound like static.

 

[mustang_steve]

Ahh...now I see said the blind steve as he picked up the hammer and saw...

I read up on that diyaudio thread, and it seems it is a problem with the X-fi, but also that specific test is crap...don't use it, since the test is pretty much designed with no regard to driver safety.

My own personal test....music....find songs that work on treble, mids, and bass, and go through them all. I like my Edvard Grieg collection for this, as various tracks cover it all.

Sadly there is some hiss in the discs, but I can deal with that.

edit: by the way, for music listening, you can use foobar2000 and upsample the audio so that the card's converters don't have a chance to screw it up...that's how I have to listen to music on my Audigy2 ZS

 

[Chastity]

edit: by the way, for music listening, you can use foobar2000 and upsample the audio so that the card's converters don't have a chance to screw it up...that's how I have to listen to music on my Audigy2 ZS

But the X-Fi's resampling is better than SSRC's, as per digit-life's testing.

 

[Elderblaze]

Yeah I'd rather not use software resampling.. reading reviews of x-fi finding out they devote 70% of the damn thing to resampling it seems like such a waste to not use it. Though, I get like 0% cpu usage with foobar when resampling.. even to 96 khz. Pretty weird. I can't tell any noticeable differnce in my music with resampling.. only Udial. and the differnce is small then.. it removes a slight "siren" from the "noise" pattern. But the worse problem is the noise and it's there no matter what. I tried reinstalling drivers, changing pci latency, changing pci slots, using direct wall power for my system (as opposed to APC Battery Backup). Removing my TV Tuner card, dosent matter the noise remains. Only in udial though. I can turn my volume to max on amp/windows and listen to a quite well mastered peice of classical and there's no hiss or distortion that I can detect... Like I said, Udial is teh debil.

Regards,
Mike

 

[Chastity]

Window's CPU Usage monitor is somewhat broken, as it is not always accurate. Using SSRC always has some sort of CPU hit. This is a known issue during the development of these DSPs.