Audio Advice

[Thor.]

LOOL wow now thats a speaker system, do they still classify bigger is better, its not the 80's you know :biggrin:

The receiver i bought after the fact was a pioneer 1000watt 140watt a piece receiver, it was the best purchase for those speakers ever :biggrin: originally 114watt a piece but you can overdrive them.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Thor.

[FMod]

LOOL wow now thats a speaker system, do they still classify bigger is better, its not the 80's you know

Yeah, but they're not better because they're bigger. They're bigger because they had to be.

[Rennn]

The advice is appreciated, but I still plan to get a middle-grade sound card, and if I don't here a difference I simply won't worry about it until I've replenished my gaming budget. There's a local PC place that'll buy even ancient hardware for at least half of the retail price, so I'm not worried about missing a chance to get rid of my current speakers if I can definitively prove that they're the weak link.

 

I'm obligated to at least test a better sound card first (imo), because I did just upgrade my speakers. Logic indicates that there should be some kind of increase in audio quality from $20 speakers to $200 speakers (with high reviews). Since there was virtually no sound difference, yet reviews still indicate that my current speakers are good (for a stereo setup, at least), I have to assume regardless of what people say that it's at least worthwhile to test a sound card.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Rennn

[kalikka]

This thread made me laugh hard. X-bit and X-khz has nothing to do with audio quality.

DAC, speakers and the other components like op-amp define the quality of the sound. And the most important factor is the audio file kbps, games usually have low quality soundtracks to cut down the filesize of the game.

 

Xonar DG/DGX is a nice soundcard for headphones and low-end speakers.

Xonar DS/DSX is nice card for home-theater systems with the DTS support.

Xonar D1/DX is nice card for better audio equipment with its very good DAC, but the problem is its very high output impedance that may be a problem with headphones (dampening factor). With headphone amplifier this gets fixed and the soundcard starts to look like Xonar STX.

 

I am using Behringer b3031a active speakers with Xonar D1.

And Beyerdynamic DT-770 pro 80ohm headphones with Xonar DG.

Edited July 8, 2013 by kalikka

[Rennn]

This thread made me laugh hard. X-bit and X-khz ha nothing to do with audio quality.

DAC, speakers and the other components like op-amp define the quality of the sound.

 

Xonar DG/DGX is a nice soundcard for headphones and low-end speakers.

Xonar DS/DSX is nice card for home-theater systems with the DTS support.

Xonar D1/DX is nice card for better audio equipment with its very good DAC, but the problem is its very high output impedance that may be a problem with headphones (dampening factor). With headphone amplifier this gets fixed and the soundcard starts to look like Xonar STX.

 

I am using Behringer b3031a active speakers with Xonar D1.

 

Do you feel better now that you've pointed out that you were laughing at me/us?

[kalikka]

At least you were smart enough to ask before buying.

There are more than enough people who buy a high-end 300$ soundcard for low-end 100$ plastic speakers/headset, and afterwards they ask if it was a good buy. They always make me facepalm hard...

 

Am I blind or why can't I see which speakers/headphones you are using?

[FMod]

This thread made me laugh hard. X-bit and X-khz has nothing to do with audio quality.

DAC, speakers and the other components like op-amp define the quality of the sound.

By and large, but not entirely.

There is a cap - the Shannon limit - imposed by quantization frequency. In the early days of computer audio, sound was limited to very low values in this regard.

 

We're talking truly single-bit DAC with only 4-bit ADPCM sound at 8 kHz. A breakthrough came when it became settled at 8-bit, 22.1 kHz. Still, it required mod format to be developed to compress music into the required 20-30 kB limit per song while allowing for free samples.

 

Eventually they got to supporting 16 bits, 44.1 or 48 kHz, first nominally, then adequately. Then the "race" went on... pointlessly and fruitlessly.

[FMod]

Logic indicates that there should be some kind of increase in audio quality from $20 speakers to $200 speakers (with high reviews).

 

All plastic-cabinet speakers are pretty similar in quality, really. It's not the price tag that makes the sound, it's the drivers and the cabinet. There isn't anything expensive about plastic speakers to affect quality.

 

You still haven't named your exact model. Is it a 2.1, that is a big subwoofer box and two little plastic speakers (satellites)? If so, most money in their BOM went to the subwoofer. The point of this subwoofer is to make the sound appear louder by moving a bit of air and adding low-end hum in anything more complex than a boom.

 

High reviews for such stuff come from sites who specialize in chips, mice and gadgets, not in audio, and when they get what passes for speakers in that world, they rate them on anything but their sound.

 

That said, you should be able to, at the very least, hear the subwoofer. It's probably not an improvement to sound quality, but that's the second largest part of the price, right after the Creative badge.

[kalikka]

Indeed, when you look at 2.1 speaker systems the subwoofer usually takes up to 50% of the budget.
Hifi (half-)joke goes that all the subwoofers under 400$ are junk ;P

And where does this take us when you compare 200$ 2.1 speakers with ~200$ 2.0 speakers?

You are left with 2 50$ (maybe less) plastic cans and a big ass box that makes farting noises...

 

And I still haven't seen any info on which speakers and onboard audio you have. Even the mobo model is enough info for me...

Edited July 9, 2013 by kalikka

[Rennn]

I haven't checked this in a while.

These aren't the same sellers, so price and exact components vary. For example, the [unused] integrated video card on my motherboard isn't the same, but that's the only difference, most likely due to the year of release, and the speakers were more expensive locally.

Anyway, mobo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131669

Speakers:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836116044

Edited July 9, 2013 by Rennn