Audio over HDMI has way less bass than aux

  • Thread starter Thread starter One
  • Start date Start date

One

One

One

Soldato
Joined
24 Aug 2011
Posts
6,162
Location
ABQ, NM
Subject title sums it up really. When I use my HDMI lead into my monitor, then plug my speakers into the monitors output it has really weak bass when compared to my PCs headphone output straight into the 'mp3' input of the speakers. Just to clarify: it sounds more natural with the bass through auxillary input rather than HDMI.

Is this the monitor or the HDMI settings? I'm not sure if this is common or not, will provide further info if it's requested, I'm here to help myself :)
 
Quite possible it's because the DAC (digital to analogue converter) in the monitor is rubbish. HDMI is digital, sound is analogue. So what you hear, at some point along the chain is converted from digital into analogue. When connecting your speakers to your motherboard, the onboard audio DAC is doing the audio processing. My guess is the DAC on your motherboard is doing a far better job.
 
Yup, that makes sense. Looks like I'll just have to find some way to make this aux cord tidy then. The sound difference is pretty astonishing seeing as how bass is not just heard but also felt.
 
Audio from a monitor is a convenience. Any kind of sound output, whether it be built in speakers or a headphone/speaker output socket, is really there to make things easy. For those who aren't too fussed how good it sounds, as long as there is sound. First and foremost, a monitor is a display; that is where the money is spent. You'd be cheesed off if they skimped on the quality of the display by including a decent quality audio output. :p
 
Yeah I sort of forgot about the DAC stuff that would be going on. Would dig to dig ro anag to anag be a direct pass-through or would there still be stuff happening?
 
desires said:
Yeah I sort of forgot about the DAC stuff that would be going on. Would dig to dig ro anag to anag be a direct pass-through or would there still be stuff happening?
Click to expand...

In general I'd expect a device with digital in to simply pass through to the digital outs. Although anything with a tone control, surround effects (virtual speaker, pro logic), etc. needs checking to turn those things off.
 
Marsman said:
Quite possible it's because the DAC (digital to analogue converter) in the monitor is rubbish. HDMI is digital, sound is analogue. So what you hear, at some point along the chain is converted from digital into analogue. When connecting your speakers to your motherboard, the onboard audio DAC is doing the audio processing. My guess is the DAC on your motherboard is doing a far better job.
Click to expand...

There's no reason why a DAC would reduce or cut-off certain frequencies, this is very unlikely.

I would expect it's different sound settings on the computer, in the drivers, Windows sound settings or output settings of the program used.
 
AbsenceJam said:
There's no reason why a DAC would reduce or cut-off certain frequencies, this is very unlikely.

I would expect it's different sound settings on the computer, in the drivers, Windows sound settings or output settings of the program used.
Click to expand...

You're probably right about it being the transport. But, the monitor could be at fault, e.g. it might have some nasty coupling capacitors acting as a high pass filter at the outputs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom