Xonar DG - ultimate budget headphone card?

Mr Krugga said:
It was 6 channels setting that let me down I think. I set the AMP to its highest.

Yep, they sound great with 2 channels setting. Happy with my purchase so far, apart from the fact that I have to sit much closer to the floor now :p
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Channels should be set to 6 for 5.1 material. Likewise, 2 for stereo and 8 for 7.1 (if the DG allows that). That's with Dolby headphone on at least.
 
Telltale Boy said:
I'm currently in the market for a sound upgrade so this is top of the list (I barely ever use my speakers).

Also a lot of you seem to be going on about the Goldring NS1000 headphones. However i've been recommended the JVC HA-RX700 headsphones elsewhere and i've seen so many great reviews for them. Plus they're £35 compared to the £50 price of the NS1000s.

Which headphones would you recommend?
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I have both the NS1000s and HA RX700. Would certainly recommend the Goldrings over the JVCs.
 
It's not just a matter of taste. With the wrong amp or source passive NS1000s sound shockingly bad. It explains why reviews are so variable.
 
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To be quite honest, the SNR thing has just become a bit of a marketing tool for soundcard manufacturers. A CD has a theoretical SNR of 93db. Don't get too hung up on it when buying a soundcard.

High SNR does not necessarily mean great sound quality. It just means background noise will be less noticeable. The soundcard manufacturers test in somewhat idealised environments. Stick the soundcard right next to your graphics card or use the front panel with unshielded cables and there's a high chance that the quoted SNR will be meaningless.

A perfect example of a product with a poor SNR would be noise cancelling headphones like the NS1000s (in active mode). You hear background hiss. It's that sort of background noise that audiophiles try to eliminate by buying high SNR components. When sound is playing, you probably won't notice it. It just makes the silence 'blacker'.

Edit: when someone can discern the difference between two soundcards playing the same unprocessed audio, it's probably the sound signature they can hear, not the SNR. Sound signature preference is rather subjective and often difficult to quantify. The main discernable differences for most people will be due to features like Dolby Headphone or EAX etc.
 
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Yeah, the NS1000s treble with the E5 doesn't quite match noise cancelling mode but I find it's close enough to be usable.

I mainly use the E5 for a hiss free option.

It's worth noting that Goldring quote different frequency ranges for the headphones depending on whether noise reduction is active or not. With it on they quote a range that goes both higher and deeper than passive mode.
 
dmxdex2020 said:
Does this amp thing for headphones make all the difference? i have a xonar DX PCIE card with goldring dr 150s. I also notice that my card does 2.0 GX. But all these new cards do 2.5. Is that higher EAX levels?
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Your card also does 2.5 if you run recent drivers.
 
For what it's worth, Asus being slow to address things on the driver front was one reason I switched back to Creative.

It's a shame. My old Xonar D2 seemed like a superb bit of hardware but diver issues, especially for older games, made it frustrating.

Creative get criticised a lot for drivers but my X-Fi Prelude just seems a lot more user friendly than the Xonar.
 
Robbie G said:
Well, it arrived, and first impressions are...

not good.

1. Annoying buzzing / static with headphones through front panel.
2. Very little bass, EQing it upwards just makes it sounds muddy.
3. Generally doesn't sound nearly as good as my X-Fi Xtreme Music.
4. Auto output-switching does not work.

Unless something drastic changes this weekend, I'm going back to it, front panel support or not.

Adios.
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Have you listened with Dolby Headphone both in and off? It makes everything sound more distant but if either the headphones are unsuitable, or the HRTF doesn't suit you, the bass will just sound quieter.

Having said that - the Xtreme Music was a lot more expensive at launch. I would be very surprised if Asus have managed to beat the component quality with a £25 soundcard.
 
There seem to be relatively few people on Head-Fi that have heard Goldrings and plenty that have heard Audio-Technica. There is one user review on there that directly compares the two and the DR150s were rated higher than the AD700s.

We pay roughly the same price in the UK for DR150s that Americans do for AD700s. Going from one to the other would be more of a side grade than an upgrade.

HardOCP gave the AD700s a glowing review but they've only reviewed one other set of headphones (which I don't believe they amplified properly). All their other audio reviews have been headsets.
 
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Marsman, just thought I'd mention that FEAR has known issues on Xonar. IIRC hardware surround doesn't work at all on Xonar, hence you were restricted to software 2 channel mode. Might be an idea to try more games.

It does illustrate one of Xonar's limitations for gaming though, as this isn't an isolated case. That sort of thing is why I eventually moved back to an X-Fi, using an external receiver for Dolby Headphone.

Edit: While you have both cards in the same machine, it might be a good time to experiment with virtual audio cable software. That might allow you to process multi-channel gaming audio on X-Fi and output it with the Xonar with Dolby Headphone.

Another thing I'd be interested in you trying would be running a game that requires AlChemy and seeing if you can enable EAX with both cards installed. I tried this a while ago without success. Newer X-Fi drivers might help though.

If you have time to try either it would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
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http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/Lists/Games/AllItems.aspx

Looks like Alchemy should autodetect FEAR when you run it. Run Alchemy first - then the game.

Sounds like a typical half-hearted ASUS driver 'fix' for a legacy game. I found they were pretty good at releasing fixes for new games but forget anything more than a few years old. If an old game doesn't work now, I'm not sure they'll ever sort it out. Shame really.

I still think Microsoft should have given everyone a universal work-around to the HAL problem. Not even Alchemy's perfect. DS3D-GX is a distant second and the less said about Realtek (like a shoddy version of Alchemy) or C-Media's offerings (basically an old version of DS3D-GX) the better.

Edit: http://pages.globetrotter.net/samaust/Files/Tril-Velbac.html - Velbac has been recommended as a Virtual Audio Cable application for running an X-Fi and Xonar together by Stephen Wall who does most soundcard and headset reviews for Guru3D. He's ROBSCIX on Head-Fi and and a few other forums.

There's a seemingly more up-to-date VAC program here: http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm but I've not seen any user feedback for it.
 
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Ooer - and I thought my posts were getting a bit tangential...

Splitter setup should be fine. It's very similar to what I've been running until very recently. The A1 doesn't have pre-outs does it?
 
Marsman said:
Nothing doing. Doesn't matter though, not to me anyway. EAX is something I have never bothered with.
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Just thought of something else. You wouldn't be running FEAR on Steam would you?

Due to the directory system all Steam Games using DirectSound3D must be added to AlChemy manually, either by pointing steam to the game's .exe or the registry key. Nothing on Steam is autodetected by AlChemy. See the section on source engine games in the link I posted (n.b. Valve changed the sound in most source games from hardware to software a few years ago - so most of it is out of date but you can follow the method).

In my experience, AlChemy pretty much always works but sometimes you need some tweaking to get there. I find the simplest way is just to point AlChemy to the game's .exe, rather than messing about with finding registry keys.
 
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Uriel said:
Another thing I'd be interested in you trying would be running a game that requires AlChemy and seeing if you can enable EAX with both cards installed. I tried this a while ago without success. Newer X-Fi drivers might help though.
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Sorry Marsman, just been reminded of this. When I tried Xonar and X-Fi in same system Alchemy actually stopped working entirely. Only a full uninstall of the Xonar and reinstall of the X-Fi solved it :(.
 
Just remember that installing a Xonar seems to kill AlChemy on the X-Fi. That gets rid of a good deal of X-Fi's appeal to me.

I just hope it's not a physX style lockout where features stop working when rival hardware is detected. Surely it can't stop working when all alternative sound devices are detected? That would mean that onboard, graphics card based sound and USB headsets would all cause problems.

It could be a conflict with DS3D-GX I suppose, but it still didn't work for me with the GX button turned off.

Edit: I asked about this on Creative's forum. Someone confirmed the issue is with newer Xonar drivers. Apparently if you disable the DS3D-GX process in task manager AlChemy will work. Unfortunately it sounds like there's also an issue with FEAR 1 with Alchemy 1.4. It supposedly works up to 1.3.
 
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:eek:

But I want the upmixing issue when using 2 channel! Or at least I would if I still used a Xonar. :(

That's how it's supposed to work dammit! It thought it was a feature not an issue.

Can't keep all the people happy all the time can you?
 
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Hang on - I might not be following correctly.

When in 2 channel mode, using Dolby Headphone, I want the sound just in the front left and right virtual speakers - simulating stereo speakers. Are you lot saying that Dolby Headphone just doesn't work in 2 channel mode now?

Either for Dolby Headphone or actual speakers the last thing I want is stereo being upmixed to 5.1.
 
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