Potential Setup Advice

[DRZ]

I understand you aren't a fan of PC speakers, but surely Creative's top-dog speakers can't be that bad?

I might look into upgrading my AMP, but you're right - there's no point in spending megabucks if I don't know what I'm doing.

I also have no idea how my speakers compare in the Hi-Fi world. You all talk of how sound is meant to sound best with all settings left and just the origional audio signal. My speakers sound superior with all of the X-fi's enhancing features on, and a slight EQ on.

Just for one week try and live without the settings then turn them back on - The sound will sound, well, poor in comparison.

As for your speakers, Eltax Symphony 6s - not brilliant by a long strech but not poor in comparison to PC speakers.

Remember HiFi proper is an expensive game and as they are cheap they are rather bottom-end. Still a considerable upgrade from anything PC speaker though.

 

[Tommy B]

Just for one week try and live without the settings then turn them back on - The sound will sound, well, poor in comparison.

As for your speakers, Eltax Symphony 6s - not brilliant by a long strech but not poor in comparison to PC speakers.

Remember HiFi proper is an expensive game and as they are cheap they are rather bottom-end. Still a considerable upgrade from anything PC speaker though.

So are my Symphony 6s better than, say, a Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1?

I will try what you said. So you mean leave the AMP bass/treble to balanced, turn the EQ off, and all of the other features on the X-fi???????

 

[DRZ]

So are my Symphony 6s better than, say, a Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1?

I will try what you said. So you mean leave the AMP bass/treble to balanced, turn the EQ off, and all of the other features on the X-fi???????

Yes, they should blow the Gigaworks out of the water.

Turn everything off, if you can turn the tone control off (tone direct, source direct perhaps) do it, else centre the dials.

 

[Tommy B]

Yes, they should blow the Gigaworks out of the water.

Turn everything off, if you can turn the tone control off (tone direct, source direct perhaps) do it, else centre the dials.

I've turned EVERYTHING off.

The treble is just far too dominant and there's hardly any bass at all!

If I do use EQ, is it best to do it using the AMP, or using the X-fi controls?

 

[DRZ]

I've turned EVERYTHING off.

The treble is just far too dominant and there's hardly any bass at all!

If I do use EQ, is it best to do it using the AMP, or using the X-fi controls?

If you really must use the EQ, use the amp's tone control. It is ALWAYS better to take away than to add so turn down the treble control until it is an acceptable level.

It is a shame you couldnt just get used to the sound for a while first though.

 

[Tommy B]

If you really must use the EQ, use the amp's tone control. It is ALWAYS better to take away than to add so turn down the treble control until it is an acceptable level.

It is a shame you couldnt just get used to the sound for a while first though.

It's just there is no bass whatsoever. It sounded like a pc speaker bought from a car boot sale.

Is it possible that my AMP is rubbish?

 

[HamZilla]

Thanks Tommy B for asking a question I have been too lazy/scared/forgetful to ask for ages. I am in a similar predicament whereby I want to have PC/DVD/Console surround sound plus vinyl DJ setup through stereo. I dont want to compromise the musicality more than is absolutely necessary to have the surround sound.

This is a great thread and I hope it can be developed into a "sticky" or FAQ when its finished.

 

[fish99]

Is it possible that my AMP is rubbish?

Anything is possible. It's more likely though that you're just noticing how different the sound is. The fact is you get used to a certain sound. It took me ages to realize how lacking the mids and sharp the highs were on my Grado SR80 phones because I'd got used to their sound. When I got my hi-fi setup, and tried my brothers Sennheiser headphones, it was immediately obvious how wrong the Grados sounded (to me), but for months I didn't notice it because they were all I listenned to.

You're used to how your Eltax's sound with elevated highs and bass from the EQ settings. In a few days you'd get used to the new sound and maybe even prefer it.

Floorstanders aren't ideal for small rooms or bedrooms btw. I haven't got a clue how good/bad that amp is though.

 

[tom_nieto]

Tommy B I'm really sorry if I've sounded condascending, but I really think you should have a play around with your current setup before you blow £200 on a set of speakers that might well not sound as good as your stereo setup!

I'm really glad that you're trying everything with the EQ off. Seriously, leave everything flat and neutral for at least a day or two and see how you go. If there is no bass, try turning up the volume a little. I used to find that with my old mission speakers that I needed to crank the volume up quite a lot before the bass started to really kick in. Unfortunately they weren't the best speakers and when I turned them up too much the bass was overpowering a bit! Your Eltax speakers aren't great, but they should easily rival the high end PC sets. I would really suggest that you try to borrow a better amp from a mate and see where that gets you. If your 'rents have a setup in the lounge offer to tidy the cables up behind it and sneak the amp to your room for a few hours. The more you can learn from your system for free the better!

Again I'll say this, especially to HamZilla, good stereo sound is still good for games and movies! OK it's not surround, but problems like that can be addressed later. I have a surround amp AND a stereo amp. The stereo amp is powering my front speakers and acts as a power amp from the AV amp. The fronts aren't connected to the AV amp at all, just the stereo amp. So if you've got stereo sources then you can connect them directly to the stereo amp and not have to worry about the (usually) inferior quality of an AV amp. When you want crash bang in games or movies you can still have lovely surround sound. It's all much easier than it sounds (I was scared at first too!), and we're all just trying to help!

 

[Tommy B]

I appreciate you're trying to help. The thing is I often have my speakers on very quiet, and I like having a fair bit of bass when they're turned on. The fact is I'm reasonably happy with them as they are, but I'll try them with everything off for a day anyway.

I tried a surround sound test, and it's pretty awful as the PC speakers behind me are crap compared to my 2 floorstanders, and so the balance of sound is generally awful.

I'd still like to hear from someone who owns a Megaworks S750, just to have their oppinion.

 

[fish99]

At the end of the day sound quality is more or less proportional to price, since more expensive speakers have more expensive components, better designs and better materials. Hence they sound better.

So Gigaworks S750 have 8 speakers and cost £260. For that £260 you are getting a sub, an amp (built into the sub) and 7 satellites. So the sats can't be more than about £20 each. So how are you expecting them to sound as good as your Eltax speakers, which were £250 when new, so £125 per speaker? They're six times as expensive per speaker.

 

[cokecan]

ever since i ditched the pc speaker thing for an AV reciever and a 5.1 set up ive never looked back. granted i had/have soundstorm/x-mystique that does encode evryin into dolby digital but thats easily turned off.
i used to listen to everythin in 5.1 but for a while now ive been listenin to music etc in stereo and it does sound so much better.

i know that a proper stereo amp is awlays gonna be better quality that an av reciever for doing stereo but having said that, av recievers are still pretty decent quality in stereo, by far better than any PC set up.

Its also nice to be able to pretty much controll every video and audio source in your room with just one thing, quick switch from the DVD input to another input and we can go from a DVD player to say your PC or 360 or something.

if you were adoment about buyin a new set up then id go for an AV reciever, and then get a couple of bookshelfs for the rears and a center speaker (always best to buy the speakers in the same product range /models as your fronts as said above), then you have a kick ass surround set up for dvd's etc and films. but can VERY easily switch to stereo and just use your 2 front speakers (your floorstanders) for music, leavin the rears and center basically turned off.

probably hte best thing if you want to future proof as well, if you can get a decent sencd hand amp cheap, that should last you qutie a while, then all you have to do is upgrade your speakers when you want. suddenly decide your floorstanders dont cut it anymore, just buy a couple more floorstanders and ya good, then when ya have abit more money, maybe upgrade the center

an idea for a relativly cheap but decent av reciever would possibly be something out of the yamaha range???

 

[tom_nieto]

There are often complaints after people have bought PC speakers for one reason or another, but I've never heard a bad word said from people who have AV amp/Hi-fi setups for PC.

 

[Hesky82]

an idea for a relativly cheap but decent av reciever would possibly be something out of the yamaha range???

if stereo music performance is as important as film then you would do well to stay away from a yamaha receiver, I've found even with there new gear music has never been one of there strong points. if you dont have much to spend on a receiver I would recommend a marantz, 100 bux would get you a great 2nd hand av amp and 300 quid would get you a new one. the problem with cheaper av amps which are heavily geared towards excellent stereo performance tend to have less inputs. you really want an amp with 5.1 analogue inputs so you can plug all you channel outputs from your x-fi into the av amp, problem is many av amps even today dont have this facility, they just rely on digital multi channel inputs and decode the signal onboard. which is fine but in the case of the x-fi and audigy range you only get a stereo output.

 

[Hesky82]

There are often complaints after people have bought PC speakers for one reason or another, but I've never heard a bad word said from people who have AV amp/Hi-fi setups for PC.

we're now finding pc's can often output stunning sound from full dts films to dolby digital multi channel audio in games and great stereo performance. these days a dedicated audio system is the only setup that could do justice, little pc speakers lack power, quality of components, are generally to small, and are made to a tiny budget, they just dont cut it anymore.

 

[cokecan]

if stereo music performance is as important as film then you would do well to stay away from a yamaha receiver, I've found even with there new gear music has never been one of there strong points. if you dont have much to spend on a receiver I would recommend a marantz, 100 bux would get you a great 2nd hand av amp and 300 quid would get you a new one. the problem with cheaper av amps which are heavily geared towards excellent stereo performance tend to have less inputs. you really want an amp with 5.1 analogue inputs so you can plug all you channel outputs from your x-fi into the av amp, problem is many av amps even today dont have this facility, they just rely on digital multi channel inputs and decode the signal onboard. which is fine but in the case of the x-fi and audigy range you only get a stereo output.

you've just got me thinkin with that, cant you get a kind of sister board for the x-fi that gives it optical outputs??? that could help like ya said, the av recievers geared towards decent stereo music lack the analogue inputs would probs be better here then??

infact im sure there was a post about this earlier htis week and someone mentioned about a do it yourself kinda thing using hte pinouts of the x-fi's add on connections???

 

[Hesky82]

thinkin about it its not just cheap av amps, just look at roksans and tag maclaren offerings, there music performance is 2nd to non for an av amp, but there connectivity is pretty poor. and thats with 1k++ receivers.
I'd love a little unit that plugs into my audigy and provides a digital 5.1 output to connect to my receiver optically or via a coaxial cable. my roksan av processor lacks the 5.1 analogue inputs but i would never part with it due to its fantastic audio performance.

 

[tom_nieto]

Most mid range AV amps (i.e. not tag/roksan etc) compete with each other by providing more inputs rather than adding brand sound nuances. For £300 you could easily get a s/h Denon 3803 which even has component upscaling for HDTV useage. A lot of people are moving towards HTPC setups because they can fine tune the picture with programs such as ffdshow to provide excellent quality. SPDIF output doesn't make too much difference really, as it's just passed through from the DVD drive. I appreciate that there will be some issues with jitter etc, but from a multi-speed DVD drive I would expect them to be negligible. Most of the performance gains in reality come from the processing and amplification stage.

 

[james.miller]

At the end of the day sound quality is more or less proportional to price, since more expensive speakers have more expensive components, better designs and better materials. Hence they sound better.

oh no. no no no no no. Yopu can be replacement B&W drivers for a few quid, yet their speakers cost hundereds. The materials used in speakers are almost always very cheap to buy. You can buy the drivers used in most 12" HT subs for <£200. some of them <£100.

One thing you should never do is assume an expenasive speaker is expensive to produce.

 

[Hesky82]

oh no. no no no no no. Yopu can be replacement B&W drivers for a few quid, yet their speakers cost hundereds. The materials used in speakers are almost always very cheap to buy. You can buy the drivers used in most 12" HT subs for <£200. some of them <£100.

One thing you should never do is assume an expenasive speaker is expensive to produce.

very true, if only you knew how much the components used in the xover cost in your 600quid pair of speakers, or how much those Kevlar midrange drivers really cost to produce.
granted there going to be better quality than most but there still far from expensive and always proportionally cheap when compared to the purchase price of the speakers.
building your own speakers is the way forward