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rol1

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Posts posted by rol1

    Connectivity

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    Take all the cables, adapters back.

    Get 1 brown or tan coaxial digital audio/video rca cable.

    Get the digital expansion bracket with the digital s/pdif input for your board.(should cost about what you paid for cables) Here's a selection by Hoontech;

    http://www.hoontech.com/english/

    or you can sell you live! value for $30 and buy the Hoontech Digital NX board that has the s/pdif in & outs with the basic card.

    The best you can get using the stereo adapters is bad stereo. Use the s/pdif's.

    The digital audio connection from the back of the cable box gives you 5.1 AC3 this way.

    Turtle Beach vs SB Live 5.1's vs Philips 5.1

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    The rest of the SB stuff are farther down the list in terms S/N, THD, etc...

    They are all very close in audio quality, with a range in prices from $39 to a $199 price tags, and they all only record only 2 channels.

    The Hoontec Digital NX at $39 with its' s/pdif in & output(into a ext. decoder/receiver) is going to give you better sound than any of the above SB, Phillips, or TB cards can give you through the analog outs of their cards. That is a matter of quality of the componets.

    Did you check out the 8ch studio stuff with the 5.1/7.1 dvd playback?

    Ever heard of latency in terms of audio n comps? The Inca88 has values of 3ms, the blasters are in a range that make them unacceptable for live work.(no jammin')

    The only comparrison is the prices.

    This message has been edited by rol1 on 07-07-2001 at 02:24 PM

    Turtle Beach vs SB Live 5.1's vs Philips 5.1

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    You've got to be kidding? Would you pay $200 for a live drive? No way!!

    I can still get Aureal SQ2500 boards for $40 and have A3D 2.0 in the games that support it. EAX developers are very happy not to be compared to A3D 2.0, muchless, A3D 3.0. TurtleBeach may support A3D 2.0, alot of their older Vortex chip cards did.

    Phillips has their Q-sound, hardware or software or both I'm not sure, does tricky things with stereo and surround not intended by their makers.

    But I understand, when the DVDs have 5.1 sound why accept the 4ch mixdown?

    But you have to understand that an audio card in a PC is not audio componet quality stuff and the analog stage in the case is subject to every bit of noise produced by fans, video-boards, modems, or lame power-supplies.

    Many soundcards passthru the digital signal to an external decoder using the s/pdif. This gets the data away from the noise of the PC and lets a good quality componet do it's job.

    Which means an external decoder or receiver, which means another $200 or $300, but you can get DTS-CD-Audio decoding this way.(the only way I have found to play audio-DTS cds.

    If I were to spend that much I would have to spend $270 for the Inca88;

    http://www.tracertek.com/inca_88.htm

    Do you want to say I bought the live drive or a pro audio 8ch recording studio with ultra low latency software?(it does games and DVDs too)

    Directed toward SomeGuy15

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    If you think changing the wires to a 1/8" mono-plug is making a difference, why don't you open your satalites, remove the mini-jack and wires to the cross-over, and replace them with a few inches of the O-free wire, and a decent set of 3-way speaker terminals, then sillicon-up the hole then you can spend $60 on real Monstercables.

    What, if anything, does a 5.1 decoding soundcard do w/ a 4.1 Klipsch!

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    Win-DVD does decode DTS from DVDs. I have not seen in writing that PowerDVD does more than AC3 decoding and mixdown.

    Win-DVD does not play the DTS-music-cds.(at least not in 5.1 or 6.0 surround)

    If the quality of DTS-DVD over AC3 matters to you, then the DTS-CDs probably matters also.

    The Midiland ADS2000 does not decode DTS, but it will let you use 4ch gaming thru it's analog inputs.

    I have not read the specs of the Panasonic decoder in some time, it may or not decode DTS-CDs, but its one of the best for under $300.

    The newest receivers have the best decoders, the HQCD's, 24/96 DA converters, the programable input levels, nice remotes, audio/video switching, etc...

    But if you spend that much you coulda' got the Inca88, or better.

    soundcard -> receiver question

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    Get a digital-out card and use it for stereo audio and digital surround from DVD's(thru the s/pdif), use the analog only for gaming surround.(A3D and EAX)

    The idea is that the harddrives, fans, videocards, power supplies, etc. mess up the analog output. Using the s/pdif you let the much higher quality decoders in the receiver do the work.

    You still use the analog outs of the soundcard into the analog inputs of the receiver for the gaming sounds.(multi channel mode)

    Building A Dorm Room Sound/DVD system

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    "but windvd / powerdvd should be able to decode the dvd via your ati radeon decoding chip"

    The software decoders do all the work with your cpu, then uses the ati to display while it handles the surround mix-down of the 5.1 to 4 channel out thru your sound card.

    The software that ships with the ATI/AIW, that can speak to the Radeon's hardware, has decided that you do not need surround-sound thru your soundcard. It only plays the stereo soundtrack thru your soundcard.

    If you want surround-sound with your Radeon DVD decoding you have to use the s/pdif out of the Radeon.

    If your soundcard has s/pdif input (like the $39 Hoontech NX card) you may be able Radeon's s/pdif out off of the dongle into the s/pdif in if you have one.

    No bets on that.

    a real new preamp

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    Did you hear the one about the engineer that told the buyer for his assembly line to get "Noble Blue Pots" So his buyer says "what are noble blue pots?" "oh, potentiometers" so he goes across ths alley to his cousins and says "I must order 100,000 single gang pots, and 100,000 double gang pots," at this point cuz is getting excited, then Buyer says "I also need 100,000 5-gang pots, but,

    "THEY MUST BE BLUE."

    And I am getting tired of hearing the punchline everytime I jiggle these knobs!!

    A quick history of the ProMedia's preamp:

    1..highgain preamp, problems with hissing and crackling knobs

    2..low-gain preamp, helps the hissing but still crackles

    3..the cp1,A kinda off switch with a ?color changing led? (I not sure about this) and a head phone jack that doubles as a aux front speaker inputs.

    I can understand, China Trade and all. But you have Mondial now.

    Amy, got any Engineers that you could explain to that we need a preamp that Klipsch can be proud of?

    I mean these little opamp preamps are holding back the best computer speakers on the market.

    WE are Klipsch owners also, don't we deserve a little class A circuitry? Don't just give me 1 mediocre headphone amp, give me 2 that will get the Sennheiser freaks howllin' at the moon.

    What's the deal about avoiding the surround decoders? 1 good Motarolla chip can do Dolby Digital, DTS, and all types of mixdowns.

    Look at Cambridge, or Altecs, or the others that have a chance to talk crap, while we Klipsch owners have to deal with a muddy, constrained, hissing, crackling, halfassed opamps.

    Let your Mondial engineers have a go at it. Tell them what we want and we can show'em what 400watts are for.

    But all that is just catch-up. Klipsch should have been there. At this point I think you should kick-it -up anotch. Leave'em whinnin'.

    Building A Dorm Room Sound/DVD system

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    The lattest versions of Win-DVD and Power-DVD are said to have DTS support, reviewed as "with a good phantom center channel" to "poor with dropped sound".

    A separate decoder will have alot better sound than a software decoder, better d/a converters, and you can't use software sound with hardware DVD decoders such as the Hollywood+ or ATI's hardware decoders(Radeons)

    The Midiland ADS2000 has analog inputs for your soundcards' 4 point EAX or A3D gaming sound(this is why you would use the analog out of you soundcard) The s/pdif will passthru surround to the decoder's AC3, but no DTS.

    http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/reviews/ADS-2000/ADS2000.html

    or the SH-AC500D from Panasonic that does DTS

    http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1240610877

    Both give you a remote and it is easier not to mess with splitters and leave everything hooked-up.

    2 months ago I saw a champaign edition Sony A/V receiver with deluxe everything on egghead.com, connections for DVDs, vcrs, cd players, s-video I/O's, maybe even RGB outs and all controlled with a good remote for $300.

    Plus 500 extra watts to play with. Leave Klipsch positioned for gaming and connect to receiver. Get some roomie's HiFi speakers setup for HT. Use remote to switch.(if you can set it up right, the right receiver will let you play the Klipsch and HT)

    CD-DTS, or music DTS cd's must be in the specs if you want that feature.

    You can have the Livedrive with all the extras and it won't come close to what a $40 Hoontech card can do with a good receiver.

    But ya got to understand, that EXTRA 500watts with the 400watts from the Klipsch is good for dorms, barracks, whatever.

    BTW,

    If you take the grill off the bottom of your door and stick your sub into it, you just turned the hall into one big port.

    Building A Dorm Room Sound/DVD system

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    Get a good A/V receiver with 500watts and 5.1 analog in and out RCA plugs.

    Then you can get 24/96 stereo, analog surround, 5.1 AC3, 5.1 DTS from the s/pdif.

    The analog inputs handle the 4ch analog from your soundcard for gaming.

    And the analog outputs are to feed your Klipsch their 4ch DSP mixed-down analog they need.

    For $200 or $300 you get the best quality 24/96 stereo, AC3, the only way to get DTS, much better signal quality, no-cpu cost, and 500 extra watts for somethin'.

    Adding to my 4.1 setup...

    in Personal Music Systems

    Posted

    The top 2 links are to Creamware's Luna II's processor card that uses Firewire to drive the 2496 box's 8 channels simultanious in/out. It uses a plugin architecure with plugins from commercial and users.

    The other links are for ambisonics and ambiphonics that uses speaker placement and digital delays to recreate the sound fields recorded by special mics, created by Vspace, or from stereo thru ambiphonics.

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