My understanding of sound cards is wrong ?

Last two Asus sound cards D2X and DS I needed to use Unified drivers because Asus taken so long to update to Windows 8 same with Motherboards I have owned..

I might be temped to try again. any difference with the STX 2 over STX 1 ?
 
The STX II has a very low gain setting (<32ohms as opposed to <64ohms in the STX) for low impedance headphones and IEMs and uses different op-amps, apart from that there isn't much difference apart from price.
You can actually pick up an STX on the high street for £99 as opposed to the £185 being asked for the STX II. The price difference is obviously because the STX has been discontinued and replaced with the STX II.
 
That video lol

whilst a lot of what he says is true he has a vested interest in selling DAC's which isn't made particularly clear.

It's true a separate DAC/AMP will more than likely improve on a soundcard telling the difference is another matter.


Also he designed this mod for the t50rp

http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/MayflowerElectronicsT50RPNov2012.pdf

which is terrifying :D

I do however recommend a schiit stack.

Thinking of getting a lyr and a bimby myself
 
rids57 said:
The STX II has a very low gain setting (<32ohms as opposed to <64ohms in the STX) for low impedance headphones and IEMs and uses different op-amps, apart from that there isn't much difference apart from price.
You can actually pick up an STX on the high street for £99 as opposed to the £185 being asked for the STX II. The price difference is obviously because the STX has been discontinued and replaced with the STX II.
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I really wish someone would make "proper" soundcards - having gained a little experience in the electronics side even high end soundcards often use the bare minimum for high sound quality i.e. polyester instead of polypropylene capacitors, designs that use generic aluminium electrolytics in a way that has an impact on the sound, designs with poor layout even with good components or just old workhorse op amps as DAC buffers that while there is nothing wrong with as such are a step down from some of the latest and greatest. The PowerColor seemed to be a step in the right direction in many ways but seemed to be a bit let down by the C-Media sound processor :|
 
The problem is rroff that soundcards are very much an after thought these days,

To develop a soundcard takes a lot of time and money for something that is incredibly subjective and on top of that very reliant on well written drivers.

USB is so much easier to design a product for.



You just have to look at what's coming out from places like Audio GD there is some great stuff in the external Dac market.
 
TwsT said:
The problem is rroff that soundcards are very much an after thought these days,

To develop a soundcard takes a lot of time and money for something that is incredibly subjective and on top of that very reliant on well written drivers.

USB is so much easier to design a product for.



You just have to look at what's coming out from places like Audio GD there is some great stuff in the external Dac market.
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Yeah :( also the cost side of it - some components like capacitors can be 4x the price for something that "only" give a "5%" increase in audio quality. Kind of sucks when you see a device marketed as using a really great DAC but then realise its followed up with a run of the mill component :S
 
The other problem with a soundcard is its stuck in your pc .... A amp/dac combo or even seperates means they can be moved about and used with other devices more easily .
 
Can't agree on this, Dolby headphone on the xonar series with a good headphone is mind blowing for games and movies, far more so than with it off.Music I agree there is very little difference between my xonar dgx and onboard alc889, which is one of realteks best 2 offerings by all accounts.
 
I don't agree with everything said in that video, plus, was that not a shameless plug for the mayflower? ha ha, also, isn't sound reproduction subjective to the end user?, hearing is fascinating, according to 'The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing' The human ear is an exceedingly complex organ. To make matters even more difficult, the information from two ears is combined in a perplexing neural network, the human brain, there are many subtle effects and poorly understood phenomena related to human hearing. The middle ear is a set of small bones that transfer this vibration to the cochlea (inner ear) where it is converted to neural impulses. The cochlea is a liquid filled tube roughly 2 mm in diameter and 3 cm in length. When a sound wave tries to pass from air into liquid, only a small fraction of the sound is transmitted through the interface, while the remainder of the energy is reflected. This is because air has a low mechanical impedance (low acoustic pressure and high particle velocity resulting from low density and high compressibility), while liquid has a high mechanical impedance. In less technical terms, it requires more effort to wave your hand in water than it does to wave it in air. This difference in mechanical impedance results in most of the sound being reflected at an air/liquid interface. Information encoding schemes like the place principle and volley are interesting to read up on. Action potentials, it's all in your head, ha ha.


I'm not sure it the SBZ is Differential or Single-ended or entry level Stereo DAC? According to one Sound Blaster Z review, the sound card uses the Cirrus Logic CS4398 digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) it feeds the card's analogue stereo line and headphone outputs. A JRC 2114 op-amp is used for line output while a MAX97220A headphone amplifier powers the headphone output on the back panel, which is capable of handling studio-grade headphones with an impedance of 600 ohms. A second MAX97220A is used for the back panel centre/sub connector and the sound card's front panel connector for your case. Finally, a JRC4556a op-amp is used for surround sound rear-out in 7.1 configurations. the signal to noise ratio [SNR] 20kHz Low-pass filter, A-Weight. The 600 Ohm Amplified Headphone Output is the Maxim MAX97220A,


Maxim Intergrated

Dual-Use Headphone Amplifiers and Line Drivers with Flexible Gains and Low Noise Performance

The MAX97220 is a differential input DirectDrive® line driver/headphone amplifier. This device is capable of driving line level loads with 3VRMS into 1kΩ with a 5V supply and 2VRMS into 600Ω loads from a 3.3V supply. A headphone load is capable of being driven with 125mW into 32Ω with a 5V supply. The IC is offered with an internally fixed 6dB gain or an externally set gain through external resistors. The external gain setting nodes can also be used to configure filters for set-top box applications. The IC has exceptional THD+N over the full audio bandwidth.


The SBZ sounds good to me, I connect headphones [AKG K702, Sennheiser HD 555] straight into the sound card, i prefer to disable all soundblaster SBX software/effects, sample rate in windows 10 x64 is set to 16 bit, 48000 Hz or 16 bit 44100 Hz, nice clear detail and subdued bass, I don't like any distorted or overblown Low-frequency effects.


 
The SB Z is indeed a good sound card but high quality components are not the only factor involved:

Using high quality components, while always a plus, is only part of what is needed for a good sounding design, specially when concerning DACs. More often than not, it's the analogue stage following the converter that governs how well that DAC chip is implemented.

The SB Z has limited compatibility with low impedance headphones due to it's high output impedance (22 ohms). "Some" headphones are susceptible to the adverse effects of having a low damping factor (headphone impedance divided by amplifier output impedance) which can cause inaccurate reproduction of the bass frequencies due to the voice coils being poorly damped (they overshoot when they should be changing direction).

The AKG Q701s are unaffected at low frequencies but they are increasingly affected at high frequencies as their impedance rises dramatically above 10kHz. With too high an output impedance on the amplifier, this can cause the highs to lose accuracy, the cymbals can become "splashy" for instance.

I also found the SB Z to run out of steam when using my AKG K702s and HD 650s and the more powerful amp in the STX is able to drive them with more authority at much lower volume settings and without even needing to use the highest gain setting. It also helps that the STX has a lower output impedance (10 ohms vs 22 ohms), which limits the adverse affects of a low damping factor on the AKG K702 (essentially the same headphones as the Q701) because by the time they reach the problematic high frequencies, the damping factor becomes high enough to stop it being an issue.
 
Rroff said:
Yeah his blogs and O2 design process are well worth reading - even if you don't entirely agree with everything (sometimes he is a bit of a contrarian and will take an extreme position with no margin for error to make a point even if he is right) he knows his stuff and its a good reference point to work from.
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It's def an interesting read and very educational. I hate a lot of the things that come from his articles though like idiots on r/headphones saying the odac is all you need and eating up the transparency rubbish - people think the 02 is colourless LOL even though there's clearly a lean towards brightest. I feel is a great device though but it doesn't really compete with current products.

The other guys, Tyler from Mayflower I just don't think he's a knowledgeable guy, reminds me of those reps and salesman type people more than anything. The other guy(forgot his name) is a cool dude I really enjoy listening to him as he's a funny chap.
 
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I like watching Logan too but his speciality is media and marketing, he's not really a tech expert by any stretch of the imagination, which is why he has Wendell and Qain as his sidekicks.
 
Ryanr1987 said:
people think the 02 is colourless LOL even though there's clearly a lean towards brightest. I feel is a great device though but it doesn't really compete with current products.
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I think there is a bit of variation with the O2 - the buffer op amps are very cheap and while generally high quality something has to give at that price - I've seen the SOIC version as little as 18p from genuine sources and usually 36-56p in comparison the other op amps of that spec average around £4 - the opa1612 I'm favouring at the moment are £6-7 each.

The 2 O2s I've heard both had a slight leaning towards warm mid-range but brighter treble - my own version of an O2 build doesn't really count as I used a different gain op amp.
 
The ones I've tried remind me of the Magni(original one) I wouldn't mind knocking up a kit myself if it's not too expensive, might be a fun project and something extra to give my Mixamp a little boost.

It's a shame there's people like Logan, Zeos who are amusing to watch and effortless behind a camera but their knowledge is basic. We need more people who are good at both, sure there's Tyll but he has his biases and doesn't put out a lot of content anymore...plus I don't think he is into sound cards and PC audio. Then there's people like Hifiguy528 who has lots of money to spend on gear but doesn't know what he's talking about half the time.

Surely someone here must have a good camera and mic so you can put out content haha.
 
rids57 said:
I also found the SB Z to run out of steam when using my AKG K702s and HD 650s and the more powerful amp in the STX is able to drive them with more authority at much lower volume settings and without even needing to use the highest gain setting. It also helps that the STX has a lower output impedance (10 ohms vs 22 ohms), which limits the adverse affects of a low damping factor on the AKG K702 (essentially the same headphones as the Q701) because by the time they reach the problematic high frequencies, the damping factor becomes high enough to stop it being an issue.
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Thanks for the information, maybe one day I might try it all out and hear it for myself. The thing is the Sound Blaster Z I use (which is a basic no frills O.E.M. version) was less than fifty quid, it's a good all rounder for gaming and music creation, I sometimes get out my midi controller and bang out some tunes or attempt to create new sounds using fruity loops or any free daws or virtual synths, I find their ASIO drivers allow for at least 2ms latency, not the best but unless i want to spend hundreds on say a PCI-Express RME Hammerfall then this sound card will do me. The thing is though this SBZ I have is very very loud through the headphone out, volume being 100% I tend to only keep the volume around 12 to 15 percent and most volumes upward of that it is too uncomfortable, not necessarily distorted just too loud.
 
Ryanr1987 said:
The ones I've tried remind me of the Magni(original one) I wouldn't mind knocking up a kit myself if it's not too expensive, might be a fun project and something extra to give my Mixamp a little boost.

It's a shame there's people like Logan, Zeos who are amusing to watch and effortless behind a camera but their knowledge is basic. We need more people who are good at both, sure there's Tyll but he has his biases and doesn't put out a lot of content anymore...plus I don't think he is into sound cards and PC audio. Then there's people like Hifiguy528 who has lots of money to spend on gear but doesn't know what he's talking about half the time.

Surely someone here must have a good camera and mic so you can put out content haha.
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Zardon from kitguru is your man for sound card reviews tbh. He has an extensive knowledge sure probably has some bias but at least he puts the sound cards against a variety of stuff.

a snap shot of some of his personal kit from his headfi gallery

R3Nkgty.jpg.png



As for the Objective 2 + ODAC it's very good it is a bit bright and has totally been memed in r/headphones

We joke that there is a r/headphones starter kit

m50X > T50RP > X2 > HD 600 + ODAC

it's not a bad place to end up at but most of it stems from the hype from people like zeos. Personally don't get the m50X hype at all I think the clouds offer much better performance for price in the UK. Perhaps in the US where headphone prices aren't stupid it's a bit cheaper.


I'm looking to stay with planars I think, I would love to try some He 560's. I still however would love to spend a week with the hd650's but I don't really want to shell out £230 just to try what should be a similar(ish) headphone to the 400i.
 
Is that a B-52 at the bottom? am a sucker for the gold on black look. Shame I've never found a (good quality) 1/4 socket with gold trim like the XLR socket.
 
it looks like a B52

I'm a sucker for shiny things :/ lucky for me $5,000 is a tad out of my price range.
 
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