Improve Sound Quality?

Rensin

Rensin

Rensin

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Joined
15 Feb 2008
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1,323
Have received a set of sennheiser HD595 headphones and have tried them on a couple of different blu rays and i find that my Panasonic headphones sound much better, i have read on other forums & been told that the HD595 are a decent set and sound better.

I have them connected directly to a Xonar DG soundcard and tried both official & unoffical drivers but no difference, yes the soundcard is not high quality/expensive but seemed to work well with my Panasonic set.

Is there any way of improving the quality or am i wasting my time and better off upgrading?
 
'Better' is a very subjective (and basically meaningless) term when it comes to audio.

It’s possible that the ‘better’ headphones are highlighting quality issues with the soundcard that the previous headphones were masking. It’s equally possible that the sound of the new headphones just doesn’t suit you (or they just need time to bed in – assuming that applies to headphones).

Have you got anything of known good quality that you can plug the headphones into for comparison? According to the specs they shouldn’t need anything special to drive them.
 
My 595s sound very different on different soundcards. They are very top heavy and almost hard to listen to on my Audigy 2 ex platinum but sound awesome through my Nuforce Icon.
 
When you say they sound better... What exactly do you mean? Lacking bass or trebble or too much of either? Is the sound just fuzzy/unclear?
 
by better i mean that the volume on the HD595 is not loud, by turning the souncard to maximum volume makes the HD595 only just hear able. Plugging the Panasonic set back in the volume needs turning back down to about 20% volume. Normally in movies you can feel the bass and sometimes have to turn the volume down a bit more but the HD595 sound like a coin rattling in a tin can. I bought these second hand form flebay btw.

I only have my main PC to try them on with an X-Fi gamer sound card.
 
Sounds as if the soundcard doesn't have the power to drive those headphones well enough and I suspect the Panasonic ones are just easier to power.

Most higher end headphones require more power unless specifically designed to work with certain devices like mp3 players and computers.

If its just quiet then that seems the most likely case to me but you also mention rattling? If there's rattling at quiet volumes then there might be something else up but if you just mean it's very quiet then I'd just look at getting a soundcard with an amplified headphone port
 
Something like a FiiO E5 would be an inexpensive amp to try without changing your soundcard.

EDIT: However when I ran my HD595 though my Audigy 2 it got plenty loud enough and I expect the X-Fi Gamer would be at least equal if not better in that respect. It could be dodgy headphones as Phal suggested.
 
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cheers Guys, will try them on my X-Fi card this afternoon and if the same i guess they can go back.

btw by the bass sounding like a coin in a tin can i didn't mean they rattle just the lack of bass which made them sound tinnified.
 
The OP suggests he has a xonar DG which has the integrated headphone amp which is optimized for 32~150Ω. HD595's are supposed to be 50Ω impedance, so they should be fine. Have you got the headphone gain set correctly? (32-64 or >64) and i'm assuming you are using it in headphone mode. (and that the sliders in the mixer panel are up as these are separate to the main volume control in windows)
 
Either way, there's either a problem with the headphones or they're not being amplified properly (due to incorrect settings since the soundcard is capable of running them)

I was just too lazy to check the card specs :p
 
Sound card setting are set to Pro gaming mode (32-64ohms)

Channel set to 2
Sample Rate 48Khz
Analogue Out Headphones.
Volume 100%

Mixer is increase to 100%, all other settings are left at default with SVN, HF & GX turned off.

Tried on my X-FI card and the sound still sounded as though it was lacking in volume.
 
Well I guess you could try higher amplification settings but I'm not sure how high you can go :p

Kei will probably know since he seems up on his electronics hehe
 
They generally lack bass these phones and are of average quality in the first place. I do like the sound they produce with classical music, Piano and Violin sound great.

They are however easy to drive, so i'm not sure how you're having problems.
 
Set the card to >64 ohms and turn GX off and put HiFi mode on. Make sure that Flexbass, effect, karaoke, AEC and vocalFX are all off. If that doesn't solve it, try the headphones via an integrated hifi amp or AV receiver. If they are still not right through that, then i'd say its either a normal characteristic or they have a problem. It could be a plug problem, so try giving the plug a wiggle (pushing inwards) whilst they are playing. Plug issues that still give you sound from both channels usually give you an odd almost out of phase sound usually with little in the way of bass. I've had to use an extension chord in the past when the plug just wouldn't work properly directly.
 
Rensin said:
Sound card setting are set to Pro gaming mode (32-64ohms)

Channel set to 2
Sample Rate 48Khz
Analogue Out Headphones.
Volume 100%

Mixer is increase to 100%, all other settings are left at default with SVN, HF & GX turned off.

Tried on my X-FI card and the sound still sounded as though it was lacking in volume.
Click to expand...

If pro gaming mode is not loud enough, use the exciter mode. If that isn't loud enough, then something is definitely wrong somewhere.
 
Marsman said:
If pro gaming mode is not loud enough, use the exciter mode. If that isn't loud enough, then something is definitely wrong somewhere.
Click to expand...

Exciter mode? Sounds like I'm missing out with my Titanium HD... I want to be excited :(
 
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