Gamers, What's Your Audio Set Up?

mrk said:
The Topping DX5 II has what I feel is illogical pre/line out behaviour when enabled, you can't selectively set specific outputs to pre or DAC mode, enabling it forces all outputs to line out (DAC mode), I realised this by accident and nearly blew my speakers once.

Silliness always finds its way into released products I guess.
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I feel like that' happenes a lot to Topping in particular though. I think they iterate too quickly, and each new version at that point/use has a high chance it will be a completely different design from the ground up. With all the issue that entails, and with none of the fixes they applied to their previous version. It's a little disjointed.

I like the look of their products, but they're not really getting themselves in hifi stores, like how fosi, fiio, ifi are in Richer Sounds. I hear bad things about their returns policy and warranty. Might just be they haven't really been all that serious about this market yet - but I think they've got to improve their presense and game. I would like to be able to buy something by them, but I'm not chancing it, currently.
 
Timber said:
Have to be honest I've not given pre/lo behaviour a thought, but prefer the way the Fiio K7 (or K11) does it vs the old K5 Pro. Namely you have a 3-way switch for LO, Pre & PO. That for me works brilliantly where I can select Pre to adjust volume on the speakers, or select headphone out. I then don't have to muck around switching the speakers off like I did on the K5.

What @Angst listed seems like an evolution of this with one more option, but maybe I'm missing something.
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What i was meaning was that it references that there's a mode where both the line out and headphone out can be active at the same time and both are affected by the gain setting for the headphone amp which seems very odd.
 
Angst said:
What i was meaning was that it references that there's a mode where both the line out and headphone out can be active at the same time and both are affected by the gain setting for the headphone amp which seems very odd.
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Straight to the Con part 15min mark. This same thing?
 
Angst said:
What i was meaning was that it references that there's a mode where both the line out and headphone out can be active at the same time and both are affected by the gain setting for the headphone amp which seems very odd.
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Ah OK. It does sound different from the older Fiio models (i.e. K7, K9) where they have said that gain isn't sent via Line Outs. I guess the PO+Pre option you mentioned just means you can be lazy and not have to select between headphones and speakers.
 
Raymond Lin said:

Straight to the Con part 15min mark. This same thing?
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That's different I think, he says it doesn't pass through bass boost or high/low gain which suggests its seperate but sending to both output circuits without a switch to choose one.
Whereas if the fiio manual is correct and not a mistake that suggests the line out is affected by the gain setting for the headphone amp which would mean they are using the same output stage for both if im not completely wrong.

I've got a feeling it must be wrong as its only that one setting it says its affected by the gain mode and just doesn't sound right but who knows.
 
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Angst said:
That's different I think, he says it doesn't pass through bass boost or high/low gain which suggests its seperate but sending to both output circuits without a switch to choose one.
Whereas if the fiio manual is correct and not a mistake that suggests the line out is affected by the gain setting for the headphone amp which would mean they are using the same output stage for both if im not completely wrong.

I've got a feeling it must be wrong as its only that one setting it says its affected by the gain mode and just doesn't sound right but who knows.
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I see what you mean now, a Pre-out as in more bypass?

p.s. That video shows why I like the XA-02, no fuss, just simple and works and sounds good for £200.
 
Same can be said for the K11 R2R though at £140~, in fact he says just get the K11 R2R too lol.

In this context Pre-out isn't bypass, bypass is something else from a feature pov, bypassing any internal processing effects like EQ etc and outputting the same signal coming in, just with whatever the base hardware tuning is, example, different OpAmps etc. Pre-out gives volume attenuation to the signal being output, but you probably won't want that if your power amp or secondary device already has better volume control.

Like for example my X9 is set to pre-out and the PA7 power amp is set to bypass even though it has volume control, the control on the X9 is superior and feels nicer to interact with vs the analogue dial on the PA7 that has imbalance at low volumes *fairly common on analogue pots).

The confusion comes in because some brands label fixed volume level as bypass too, as it bypasses the volume control onboard letting the other device at source control volume.


DAC mode = Fixed line level signal output to the output device
Pre-out = Volume adjustable on the signal from source to output device
Bypass on a DAC = Bypass any EQ/filter effects sending the input signal right out to whatever the output source is.
Bypass on an amp = Bypassing the amp's internal volume control which is essentially the same as turning the dial to 100% volume anyway.
 
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I thought I'd post here as I would like an opinion/advice on a planned upgrade before the end of the year.

I currently have a pair of Bose Companion II powered speakers which I bought over 10 years ago, I've been happy with them up until now. Since the upgrade to B650/AM5 I've had to turn the volume up a fair bit to get them to play at the level I had them at on my previous B45/AM4 rig, I put it down to the lower output on the newer sound chip on the B650. Needless to say I'm not happy with what I have right now. As an alternative I've got the SPDIF from the board going into my Denon AV receiver, I don't really want to do that full time.

My question is, do I buy a small Digital amp such as Fosi or a Wiim and sacrifice a couple of my satellite speakers from my AV system (Velodyne Deco which I've owned for over 20 years), which I've hardly used the last couple of years, or buy a slightly bigger pair of powered/Active speakers to replace the Bose. Space is limited on my desk, said Bose speakers sit either side of the monitor and are not obstructed. Buy or use bigger speakers and they will be obstructed.

Budget? South of £250. Ive read some of the previous posts in this thread. Use will be for media day to day, possibly gaming at some point in the future.

Not really interested in Headphones.
 
Surely using satellites from a 5.1 system won't be of much use as the sats are not set up for full range output without their companion sub in place?

Personally I would just get a proper set of active speakers, check out Edifier as there are a slew of models in sizes that would suit your desk, the QR65 might actually be ideal in fact and they sound very good too, I'd even say almost certainly better sounding than the old Bose. The MR3 would also be a suitable option although it doesn't have any digital inputs so you'd need a means to feed it an aux input via 3.5mm or use the RCA/balanced inputs.

QR65 is a little above budget though, but does come fully featured.
 
Grimley said:
I thought I'd post here as I would like an opinion/advice on a planned upgrade before the end of the year.

I currently have a pair of Bose Companion II powered speakers which I bought over 10 years ago, I've been happy with them up until now. Since the upgrade to B650/AM5 I've had to turn the volume up a fair bit to get them to play at the level I had them at on my previous B45/AM4 rig, I put it down to the lower output on the newer sound chip on the B650. Needless to say I'm not happy with what I have right now. As an alternative I've got the SPDIF from the board going into my Denon AV receiver, I don't really want to do that full time.

My question is, do I buy a small Digital amp such as Fosi or a Wiim and sacrifice a couple of my satellite speakers from my AV system (Velodyne Deco which I've owned for over 20 years), which I've hardly used the last couple of years, or buy a slightly bigger pair of powered/Active speakers to replace the Bose. Space is limited on my desk, said Bose speakers sit either side of the monitor and are not obstructed. Buy or use bigger speakers and they will be obstructed.

Budget? South of £250. Ive read some of the previous posts in this thread. Use will be for media day to day, possibly gaming at some point in the future.

Not really interested in Headphones.
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You already have a AVR, just use that, perhaps the zone 2 outputs if you don't want it part of the main 5.1 system.
 
Ha. you must have been browsing youtube as it popped. and you shared it before you could even have watched the whole thing ;)

Still, thanks, watching it now!
 
We don't know if it's any good yet though, so best watch for reviews. K13 R2R is what I will be buying however as a big fan of the K11 R2R. Although a concern now is that it won't have any output memory for any tone controls or settings like the X9 down or an easy way to flick between them - Having multiple pairs of headphones with each either preferring bypass, PEQ or just basic tone adjustments means output memory or slots to click between is much preferred for ease of use.
 
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mrk said:
We don't know if it's any good yet though, so best watch for reviews. K13 R2R is what I will be buying however as a big fan of the K11 R2R. Although a concern now is that it won't have any output memory for any tone controls or settings like the X9 down or an easy way to flick between them - Having multiple pairs of headphones with each either preferring bypass, PEQ or just basic tone adjustments means output memory or slots to click between is much preferred for ease of use.
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They confirmed for me on headfi that the k15 and so I assume the k17 aswell dont have output memory for the peq profiles. So it won't remember a profile per output method which is a big negative for me aswell. I did ask if this would be looked into as a feature update but haven't had a response.
 
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Windows PC ( Now only used by the wife ) has an Asus STX in it. Its near perfect for everything to be fair.

Main PC ( Linux Mint ) has a Creative ZXR although I do keep having issues where it seems to forget how to play audio and stays silent, and so at the moment, Im using a aLogitch USB thingy, but I have also been using the OMNI on it. ( Dont know why, but I dont want to use USB for audio yet it does solve my iossues??? )

PC 3 - Linux Mint again ( Creative Recon ) - Weirdly, its flawless on that so why does the other setup keep failing?
PC4 - Linux ( SuSE ) - Asus STRIX - Seems to play flawlessly, but I have not gamed for a while.

I could go on, but the others I dont use for gaming or they have Onboard.

My speakers are, at this time Logitech 5500 but I also have a modified Altec Lansing 995 setup but they are Analog only. The Logitech has multiple inputs.
I have been thinking of going back to the Altec Lansing because I mainly use Linux, and even the second PC I use the headphones on and so I dont need multiple inputs anymore!
 
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Amazing how much has changed in just a year.

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