Buying decent headphones

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 01 Jun 2007, 20:30

Thanks.

It sounds like a load of old bollocks IMO but fair enough if it works for you. I've never ever notice headphones sounding better over time.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 01 Jun 2007, 22:57

Burn-in isn't bollocks with headphones. Part of it is brain burn-in but with things such as headphone and speaker drivers you can an actual mechanical change that cn be measured scientifically.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 12 Jun 2007, 04:40

EvaUnit02 wrote:2*RCA male>1*3.5mm stereo phono cable and I'm golden. AUX FTW.

Ok I received my cable today. X-fi is now hooked up to my Philips minisystem w/ combined 70W worth of speaker. Music sounds incredible. I've disabled the Crystaliser, it just distorts the sound.

Does cable quality actually make a difference? I bought a high grade & reasonably expensive lead, I hope my money wasn't wasted.

Hey Lourdes, when not playing games what mode is your X-fi switched to? With all the shit effects turned off, I'm not sure if there's any difference between Entertainment and Audio Creation modes. Is it my imagination or does Entertainment mode sound warmer and punchier? In theory I'm guessing that Audio Creation mode would be the purest one, eh?

EDIT: I'm currently giving Audio Creation mode w/ Bit-matched playback on a go. Sounds great thus far.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 15 Jun 2007, 12:11

EvaUnit02 wrote:Does cable quality actually make a difference? [/b]I bought a high grade & reasonably expensive lead, I hope my money wasn't wasted.

Hey Lourdes, when not playing games what mode is your X-fi switched to? With all the shit effects turned off, I'm not sure if there's any difference between Entertainment and Audio Creation modes. Is it my imagination or does Entertainment mode sound warmer and punchier? In theory I'm guessing that Audio Creation mode would be the purest one, eh?

EDIT: I'm currently giving Audio Creation mode w/ Bit-matched playback on a go. Sounds great thus far.

Cable quality makes a difference - to an extent. In the analog realm there are always differences but they're just not as big as some like to believe. Audiophilia along with BS marketing and silly prices have really killed peoples faith in anything.

That's the mode you want for audio.

Can't wait to see reviews of the Auzrentech Prelude, seems like it's going to be a superb card all round. I may end up ordering one.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 15 Jun 2007, 19:17

In digital I'm sure it's utter bollocks. Personally I like to buy higher than the cheapo ones but that it, just a bit better.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 16 Jun 2007, 01:44

With digital audio you get into the subject of jitter but that can only be heard in numbers. Although obviously many audiophiles think you can hear it.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 16 Jun 2007, 05:04

Wow, they've really made Winamp into a full blown media player with a nice browser media library browser since I last used it. This is now my music player of choice thanks to the plugins.

Lourdes, could you please recommend some nice input and output plugins?
For input I'm currently using:- MAD set to 24bit w/ priority at highest.

More input plugin recommendations would be appreciated, particularly ones to replace the default CD, Oggvorbis and FLAC decoders.

For output:-
Out_asio SSE2 version w/ thread priority at time crtical and resampled at 96KHz (being the highest sample rate that works on my X-fi).

I've tried Kernal Streaming, but that sounds the same as Out_asio. I'll stick with Out_asio since it supports SSE2 extensions.

I've tried Audioburst FX free version, that doesn't anywhere near as the two former plugins.

I'll pass on DSP, I don't need all those shit added effects.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 16 Jun 2007, 06:42

I use in_mpg123 + mp3infp for tagging because I'm used to this arrangement. You'll find that there are no proven audible differences between the decoders. On a technical level mpg123 > Nullsoft MPEG Audio Decoder > MAD in precision. But in practical terms the only differences are the featuresets. I started using in_mpg123 when I heard it was supposed to be the best but I listened to the Nullsoft one a lot last year after improvements and I can't say there was a difference.

There's no good reason to use anything but ASIO output unless you need something another input plugin supports.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 16 Jun 2007, 12:43

From my understanding, I have to disable the in_mp3.dll to use other decoders? I've renamed it.

Could I please get some optimal settings for in_mpg123 and out_asio from you?

This is what I'm using at the moment.

in_mpg123 (SSE2):-

out_asio (Intel 64):-

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 16 Jun 2007, 19:07

It works just if it's enabled now, you can tell by doubleclicking a track. But like I said there's no perceivable advantage to it, I'm simply used to mp3infp now.
Your settings look fine, mine aren't maxed out like that because it's not necessary.