Decided to randomly buy some new audio stuffs despite not really needing them.  Well, I guess the speakers on my parents' comp is kinda screwy, so I guess I have some justification.

I originally planned to spend no more than AU$30 for some 2.1 speakers, then I saw some really positive reviews for the DiVoom XForce 1, so I was like 'what the hell', and chucked $50 on them.
Also decided to get myself a sound card as well, just to see what one was like.  Grabbed a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-e card for $37 (cheaper than I had expected for a X-Fi card).

My mobo has a PCIe x16 (GPU), PCIe x8, PCIe x4 and 3 PCIe x1 slots, and a PCI slot (TV Tuner), so I thought there'd be plenty of slots, however, the topmost PCIe x1 slot, the card wouldn't fit, because of a mobo heatsink in the way.  Another PCIe x1 slot was covered by the GPU, and the third was too close to the GPU fan for my liking (the card would've covered the fan).  The PCIe x4 was too close to the bottom for my liking (would cover the mobo switches), so I reluctantly? plugged it into the PCIe x8 slot.

DiVoom recommends placing the subwoofer on the floor (where it is at the moment), but this hinders my leg room under the table, so I might end up sticking this on the table (and use it to boost the height of my monitor, instead of wooden thing I have now).
I did somewhat imagine that better speakers generally had optical connections, but this didn't (maybe only for 5.1 and above speakers?).  I have been getting interference with my old speakers (ie would hear some random noise when the HDD span up) - despite the analog connections for these speakers, I haven't heard any interference, though I haven't been using them for that long anyway.

The quality of the sound card is definitely better than the integrated Realtek chip, though, the difference isn't big enough to objectively notice it (ie, without doing comparisons).
I had trouble ABXing 128kbps MP3s on the Realtek, but I could easily do it on this sound card.

So I decided to see how far I could go with this, using my pair of $30 Sony headphones plugged into the speaker remote (am unwilling to turn speakers up really loud at this time of the day).  Tried 192kbps MP3s - managed to tell the difference, using these samples, although it was quite hard.  So then I tried 320kbps (LAME 3.98a -V0)... and, wow!  I actually managed to discern a difference between it and the original.  Very difficult though - I often had to listen to the tracks multiple times before deciding, but I did get it.
So I guess people who claim to hear a difference between 320kbps MP3s and FLAC do have some justification, though you need to be pretty crazy to do so.  However, at 192kbps and above, although I could tell a difference, if I were given the two samples, I wouldn't be able to confidently state which would be the original, so in all seriousness, 320kbps MP3 really isn't much worse than FLAC.

Though I will still lol at FLACfags who use integrated audio.


Oh, as for additional options that the card gives, here's a screenshot of the audio dialog:

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't seem to tell any difference between the EAX effects, even with the dB slider all the way on both sides.
CMSS-3D seems to be aimed at upsampling stereo to multi-channel speakers, so probably does nothing for me.
Can't seem to tell the difference with the Crystalizer either, though I haven't really tried listening to it that much.

(This post was last modified: 28/07/2010 03:11 AM by ZiNgA BuRgA.)

So it actually does make a difference?

Interesting.

But then again, your hearing has always been far superior to a normal persons.  (Remember that other test a few months back?)

(28/07/2010 03:05 AM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  The quality of the sound card is definitely better than the integrated Realtek chip, though, the difference isn't big enough to objectively notice it (ie, without doing comparisons).
I had trouble ABXing 128kbps MP3s on the Realtek, but I could easily do it on this sound card.

I encoded this set of stuff ages ago for someone else...

If you can tell the difference between 192MP3, this should be easy....


Rank from best to worst.

Sample A
Sample B
Sample C
Sample D
Sample E
Sample F
Sample G
Sample H
Sample I
Sample J

Anyone else welcome to try also.

(This post was last modified: 28/07/2010 03:21 AM by Assassinator.)

Ranking is difficult, especially with so many samples.  I can only tell differences between 192kbps and original, not really determine which is better.

I'll give it a shot anyway (worst to best):
J, B, A, H, F, I, E, D, C, G

Had to guess some, as I can't really tell which one is actually better.
Can't be stuffed cross-checking, and I probably changed moods half way through anyway.
Am a little worried in how G sounds quite a bit sharper than C, though the difference between D and C and various others is quite small.

(This post was last modified: 28/07/2010 04:42 AM by ZiNgA BuRgA.)

No, you did pretty well.


Also, FFMpeg's AAC encoder sucks money balls.  ==> http://doom10.org/index.php?topic=255.msg1929#msg1929

(This post was last modified: 28/07/2010 05:02 AM by Assassinator.)

bass under your monitor is no good.
bass under your desk or next to your desk is better.

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.

My boss ha some $50 CA (i say Crappy Audio, but I don't know what it realy stands for, there is just a sticker on the front of them) when he had his subwoofer behind his monitor everything sounded like spoon because so much was coming from the woofer.  I moved it to the floor and now its is much m ore pleasant to hear Rush Limbaugh ranting about his daily gripes and his piano music sounds better because it is not so overpowered with incorrect bass levels.

(This post was last modified: 28/07/2010 10:02 AM by SchmilK.)

A Splurge,.. whot the splurge is that?

i had seen these >> http://www.komplett.nl/Komplett/product/...fault.aspx

looks pretty cool!! :)

(28/07/2010 04:45 AM)Assassinator Wrote:  Also shows there's probably litte point to encode above 80kbps in HE-AAC.  Actually I suck so much at this I can't even tell the difference between the 56 and 64.

The bitrate steps there are quite small, so telling the difference between the two isn't that easy.  Rather, did you mean 56kbps and original?

(28/07/2010 04:52 AM)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?

(28/07/2010 04:52 AM)PSPkiller Wrote:  If you're still have noise issues make sure that the wires carrying audio do not run parallel to any other data or power lines. Audio can run parallel to audio but not anything else. If the wires do need to cross try and keep them at right angles.

Ehehe, yeah, well, my wiring is a mess.  I guess I might try taping some wires to the table or something.

(28/07/2010 04:52 AM)PSPkiller Wrote:  There wee are. You caught my eye when you said in the title about audio stuff and now I've completely unecessarily emptied my head into a post.

Thanks PSPkiller (resident digital audio expert?) :)

(28/07/2010 10:02 AM)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)

(28/07/2010 10:17 AM)Vegetano1 Wrote:  i had seen these >> http://www.komplett.nl/Komplett/product/...fault.aspx

Eek, 137 Euro (~AU$200)
Looks like nice speakers though.

(This post was last modified: 28/07/2010 03:42 PM by ZiNgA BuRgA.)