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X-Fi owners
- Thread starter dR.Jester
- Start date
Elderblaze
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2005
- Messages
- 212
eww turn that shit off
Disabled. What seems to be a fairly crude upsampler and the all-too-common "kwality enhancer" treble / bass boost does not equal higher quality to me. It does liven up the sound, but at the expense of quality. Just depends on how much all that concerns you I guess.
dderidex said:
I bet you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a really well processed 128 bit MP3 and real CD Audio anyway.
If you don't believe me go read this months MaximumPC Mag. Has a blind test where people bring their own CD's in, the CD's are ripped at three different bit rates and then blind listening test are done on their own music and on the other peoples music...there was nothing better than a 'guessing' success on picking the sources. Very low percentages of accuracy for ALL the people who participated.
(~edit: correct name of magazine)
Depends on the source entirely.BBA said:
For 'pop' music, alternative, modern country, etc - I'd agree entirely. It doesn't help that most pop music is terribly mastered, to begin with.
However, MP3, even at 320kbps, has a REAL problem with duplicating certain sounds - cymbals and cellos, for example, sound TERRIBLE in MP3 encoding, regardless of bitrate. Some higher pitches of vocals can be weak, as well.
Ergo, classical music and operas generally are pretty obviously compromised by MP3 compression.
dderidex said:
If you read the article, they used everything from vocal to classical to pop....the music the people brought in for the purpose of being able to tell.
They had the 'audiophile' who though he could tell every nuance...and all the way to the happy go lucky listener.
You would be surprised, and you should probably stop listening to poorly reorded MP3's if you don't agree.
The HD580s would have been underpowered straight from an X-Fi, so the headphones wouldn't be as revealing as they normally are. Also, the "blorp in the center of the head" effect would have been in full swing, which is why I love the Cardas replacement cable. Absolutely no blorp, and the soundfield sounds natural, as if from regular speakers. It allows me to use no crossfeed whatsoever.
To get back on topic... there would have been a loss of transients and droppage of background audio that would have normally been there.
At least MaximumBS tried to have a good blind test, but as usual, the Devil is in the details.
To get back on topic... there would have been a loss of transients and droppage of background audio that would have normally been there.
At least MaximumBS tried to have a good blind test, but as usual, the Devil is in the details.
BBA said:
To my knowledge, The only Cardas at HeadRoom are prefabricated for Senns... the HD 580, 600 and 650. If you can do all the soldering and crap, you could just buy plain wire and connectors do it all yoruself.
Browse here: http://www.headphone.com/products/cables/cables-by-others/
The replacement cables for the Senns works to an extent because what is shipped is quite inexplicably of a slightly poor performance (on the 580 / 600. 650 is better). The Sony V6 is a fairly rough phone to start with in hi-fi terms and is mated to a half-decent litz cable. It is unlikely you'll notice any particularly positive changes.
So you don't think it's worth it?
I have experimented with the Sony drivers in different headphones already. I even put them in a pair of noise cancelling headphones and recalibrated the noise cancelling to the Sony drivers. It worked but I realized I just don't like noise cancelling headphones so I moved them back.
Oh well...just wondered if it would make a difference. From what it sounds like here the reason it makes a difference on Senn's is the 580 used cheapo wires from the start.
Thanks
I have experimented with the Sony drivers in different headphones already. I even put them in a pair of noise cancelling headphones and recalibrated the noise cancelling to the Sony drivers. It worked but I realized I just don't like noise cancelling headphones so I moved them back.
Oh well...just wondered if it would make a difference. From what it sounds like here the reason it makes a difference on Senn's is the 580 used cheapo wires from the start.
Thanks
The cables issue stirs up a lot of debate on various forums, and replacement headphone cables causes equal debate on Head-Fi. In my case, I consider it on a case-by-case basis.
I had the Cardas cable for the HD600 and Cardas / Zu Mobius cables for my HD650. Both did have an effect on the sound but neither were the quantum leaps claimed by many people, especially on the HD650. The Cardas cable was a good match fo the HD600 though. The Moon Audio Black Dragons I got for my Qualia 010 sounded different for sure... but they seemed to be achieving their different sound through degrading the signal more than anything else. On the other hand a cable replacement on a Sennheiser HD497 made a noticeable positive difference (although no economic sense), as did a few others. It really depends on what they stick on your particular phone. Sony cables are usually suited to the task.
Cables will make a difference, and sticking a cable on the V6 which has an engineered sound shaping on it (a specific resistance, capacitance, etc) may change the sound subtly to something better for you. But of course there is no guarantee that this will occur with the Cardas, and it's probably not worth throwing ~$100 (the approx cost of unfinished Cardas headphone cable of a decent length) at a $70 phone.
I had the Cardas cable for the HD600 and Cardas / Zu Mobius cables for my HD650. Both did have an effect on the sound but neither were the quantum leaps claimed by many people, especially on the HD650. The Cardas cable was a good match fo the HD600 though. The Moon Audio Black Dragons I got for my Qualia 010 sounded different for sure... but they seemed to be achieving their different sound through degrading the signal more than anything else. On the other hand a cable replacement on a Sennheiser HD497 made a noticeable positive difference (although no economic sense), as did a few others. It really depends on what they stick on your particular phone. Sony cables are usually suited to the task.
Cables will make a difference, and sticking a cable on the V6 which has an engineered sound shaping on it (a specific resistance, capacitance, etc) may change the sound subtly to something better for you. But of course there is no guarantee that this will occur with the Cardas, and it's probably not worth throwing ~$100 (the approx cost of unfinished Cardas headphone cable of a decent length) at a $70 phone.
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2000
- Messages
- 6,348
I noticed that I had to back down the crystallizer from 100% to about 75 because I could hear noticeable distortion from my monitors and from my cans. The recordings were wavs that I ripped from vinyl. I noticed it did make craptacular mp3 recordings "sound" better.. but I wouldn't recommend it for better sources
Kevin Lowe
Gawd
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2004
- Messages
- 766
I turned it off. Sounds way too bright for me.
sorta off topic, I'm looking to replace my audigy 2 (before the zs revision :/) and I'm looking at getting the xi-fi, but I've read about bug and issues with alot of games, as well as not being able to use the digital speakers and a microphone. ( I will be using Z-5500's) Any suggestions?
You cannot use spdif out and mic in at the same time with Xtreme Music, but you can with all upper versions. Z5500 have analog inputs, too, anyway, so if you want all EAX effects rightly positioned in 3D you better off use them.
As for issues and bugs I have not experienced any. About two months ago some people with some of nForce4 mobos had difficulties but this has been sorted already by affected motherboard models manufacturers and creative.
Have not seen anyone with these problems here recently which is a good sign for you
End of OT.
Now, Crystallizer: For games I have it at 50% . For music - depends on what kind of music. Keep it at minimum with jazz and classical pieces, but go as high as 80% for The Clash or The Cure... Also depends on bitrate as someone mentioned here. The lower the bitrate, the more audible is the enhancement with Crystallizer.
As for issues and bugs I have not experienced any. About two months ago some people with some of nForce4 mobos had difficulties but this has been sorted already by affected motherboard models manufacturers and creative.
Have not seen anyone with these problems here recently which is a good sign for you
End of OT.
Now, Crystallizer: For games I have it at 50% . For music - depends on what kind of music. Keep it at minimum with jazz and classical pieces, but go as high as 80% for The Clash or The Cure... Also depends on bitrate as someone mentioned here. The lower the bitrate, the more audible is the enhancement with Crystallizer.