Quick sound source question

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Mr. K6

Supreme [H]ardness
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Mar 23, 2005
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I honestly almost feel cheeky posting this in the Computer Audio forum, but bear with me. :p I'll preemptively say I'm not an audiophile, maybe I'm tone deaf, maybe I just don't care. In short, I've been using a broken (duct taped) pair of Plantronics Gamecom 367's and finally had time to get a new pair. The Gamecom 777's I got for $25 connect to a USB dongle that gives a digital Dolby 7.1 surround sound (fwiw). However, when I tried them out in games and music, I noticed that while directional sound was better, the sound quality overall was noticeably worse, being tinny and with lesser range. I initially thought "damn open-ear cups," but when I tried them directly connected to my mobo's audio, the sound was actually better than my 367's (dunno if because they're new, not broken, open-ear, or a combination of that). My Z68XP-UD4 has an onboard Realtek chip (surprise) with "Dolby-Enhanced" sound which I imagine is digital manipulation and improvement.

The question: Any way to improve the USB dongle so I can get the best of both worlds ("7.1 sound" and also the better quality of the onboard chip?). There's no software that comes with the headset. Or am I simply seeing the limits of the USB dongle and the mobo sound is just better?
 
As mediocre as onboard sound chips are, it can always be worse. It seems like you found one that is worse. The usb dongle most likely houses a DAC and surround processing, but with such an inexpensive item corners were definitely cut. You could try an inexpensive, but pretty good quality sound card from the Asus Xonar line like the DG (pci) DGX (pci-express)
 
shadow_419 said:
As mediocre as onboard sound chips are, it can always be worse. It seems like you found one that is worse. The usb dongle most likely houses a DAC and surround processing, but with such an inexpensive item corners were definitely cut. You could try an inexpensive, but pretty good quality sound card from the Asus Xonar line like the DG (pci) DGX (pci-express)
Click to expand...

Yes to that. It will give you much better sound and a headphone amplifier. Under $30 too.
 
Thanks guys, good to know. I'll eventually look into amps and better headphones when I have the time to shop around and listen to different offerings. For now, an amp would have limited effect as I definitely don't need louder sound (I usually keep these at <25%) and I'm not sure the hardware in this headset can take advantage of the better signal.
 
Music is usually recorded in 2-channel stereo, surround enhancement always makes it sound pretty bad in my opinion, unless it was recorded in surround(pretty rare).

Surround is just a DSP effect, enabling it on the motherboard chipset, and just plugging straight in will have the same result as going through USB to an external DSP, if the DSPs were of the same quality and ran the same algorithm.

Just download the software available for the onboard sound, enable surround, and plug straight in.
 
its the DSP effects in the 7.1 chip. personally i hate all of 'em includng the lauded Dolby headphone. get a dolby headphone soundcard and a stereo headset is my reccomendation. no need to spend tons of money.
 
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