ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:PSPkiller Wrote: [ -> ]If they'd had an optical connection you'd have wasted your $37 on the X-Fi. The optical out from a cheap-donkey motherboard is exactly the same as the optical out on a $300 card. When you buy an expensive sound card you're paying for the D/A converters and all the analog circuitry that goes after. If you use a digital output then you're bypassing all of that. The signal stays digital meaning it doesn't have a chance to be marred by analog noise and distortion.
Ah, I see. Actually that reminds me that I read some article a long time ago that most of the cost of sound cards are on the DACs.
So would a speaker with optical connection + integrated audio have been better?
I guess it would mean that there's no interference between the sound card and speaker, but the quality would depend on the DAC in the speaker - is my random assumption anywhere close?
A good point actually. You'd assume that an expensive speaker with optical input would use a decent D/A converter so ye's you'd be better off and cheaper speakers would use a cheap-donkey converter. But given the cheapness of a cheap speaker the quality of the speaker itself would mask any problems with the converter. Basically, you get what you pay for.
ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:Ehehe, yeah, well, my wiring is a mess. I guess I might try taping some wires to the table or something.
You should see mine. I've got all the wiring to do with my laptop including mouse, power, ethernet, firewire to audio interface, power to audio interface, audio from interface to a small mixer, then off to an amp down two unecessarily long leads, power to the mixerand amp, leads from the amp to each speaker, avrious ethernet cables going to and from a switch, power to the switch... it goes on. Yes there's noise but I can't be assed to tidy it up.
ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:Thanks PSPkiller (resident digital audio expert?) :)
I wouldn't say I'm an expert. I'm just an audio/electronics-to-do-with-audio person in general. Give it a month and I'll be in university studying sound technology.
ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:SchmilK Wrote: [ -> ]Yes it is not directional, but it DOES BOUNCE and putting it in a corner vs the center of the room will sound different. Also having it in a 'box' such as under your desk can tend to amplify the power of the kick as well as drown out the frequencies that may be overlapped in coverage from your desktop speakers to your woofer.
Hmm, I guess I could just turn down the bass then? (speakers have separate treble/bass volume controls)
I forgot about reflections. Schmilk speaks the truth. If you can get it under or beside the desk you'll be better off. Plus getting it on the floor gives you satisfying room vibration... Just don't put it the corner of the room. Something about bass frequencies getting trapped in corners and sounding like donkey. I can't remember the science behind it but it works (or rather it doesn't.)
Have fun!
I see, thanks a lot. I guess I don't have too much choice for positioning the sub though... I might shift it a bit across the floor maybe.
Like no-one here is going to really care, so I'll post in this old thread.
It appears that, from the
recent 64kbps public listening test, CELT/Opus
has beaten HE-AAC (Apple and Nero's encoder) in quality, not to mention that Opus is designed as a low latency codec (22ms, but can go down to 5ms, as opposed to HE-AAC's 100+ms)
I think Opus is developed by the same guys behind Vorbis, so it's a royalty free codec, which is undergoing standardisation at the moment. I believe the bitstream isn't even finalised yet, so may be more room for improvement.
I actually participated but only submitted one (out of 30) samples. Kinda feel bad cause I told the guy I'd submit more, but, sh*t happened and I never got around to it. Oh well. In sample 1 (a guitar sample), I thought CELT sounded pretty poo poo, and looking at
individual results summary (xiph.org) it appears that everyone else felt the same way, but CELT streamed ahead in other samples, giving it a higher average. Looking over the distributions, it appears that CELT is somewhat over the place, whereas HE-AAC is more consistent. Perhaps this is a defect of the format/encoder at this stage and hopefully gets rectified later.
Hmmm.... interesting.
Also shows Apple's HE-AAC > Nero's.
From my own tests one seems to do better than the other in different bitrates and sources. I think at 64kbps, Apple usually wins, but Nero usually wins at 48kbps.
