Newbie Project - Tweaking the SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit

[demogorgon]

I'v been using the kx drivers for the better part of a year now, and i'm still finding new and genious uses for it!

the best piece of free software on my box.

conserning the crystal gluing thing, i may detect a slight cleaning up of the sound, it's less up in my face now too?

I'm not talking about something huge, but i may actualle hear something i havn't heard before, and some of what i heard before is gone..

i would say the audigy2 now sounds more like my live5.1 using the headphones out on the livedrive. i like the slight added detail.
hmm, i may have been wrong then.. (ouch, that one stung )

It's especially audible on bass guitars, usally the top of them, the overdrive is lost in the guitar noise, but now i hear it a lot better, most of the time, just not when guitars are dead..

could any of you gurus comment on this?

-Marius

edit: after listening some more, it would seem the lower bottom end have gain considerably? i mean, i have never heard the bass this tight and precise? must be sugarpill right?

[J. R. Todd]

I'm glad that we concur, even if we've just both eaten the same brand of sugar pill.

I have noticed the 'cleaning up' of the sound, especially in the high end. Things like tape hiss is a little more certain than before. Bass does indeed seem slightly 'louder' on average (though my inital impression of the bass on the Soundblaster Live! 24-Bit was that it was a little quiet) and a little tighter - just a little bit more like an instrument rather than 'bass'.

Overall, I'd call this a very minor tweak in terms of sound quality, but I think it's noticeable - and, as it's practically free - why not?

[demogorgon]

didn't hurt the sound, thats for shure.

not the opamps are next, and then replacing those disgusting elcos with some nice film caps.

went ahead and orderd myself some analog devices opamps too.
the ones i had orderd from national were single amps, offcource.

[J. R. Todd]

'lo again Demogorgon

Are you going to recap the entire board, or just the caps that relate to the output? There are ~30 normal sized caps on my board, but I think the caps for the op-amp are SMD. I know people have recapped the output of the Chaintech AV-710.

The other idea I had was to maybe use an independent +-9v power supply based on two 9v batteries for the op-amps, and possibly powering the DAC with batteries as well. It would remove many of the problems of 'noisy' PC power supplies, though I suppose the signal that comes from the PC (digital signal and the power for everything else) will still be pretty 'loud'.

-T.

[demogorgon]

I'l only be recapping the signal path as of now, perhaps i'l be putting in some nicer caps later as well for bypassing, but i doubt the pcb can accomodate it. the lead holes are SMALL!

like the battery ide btw.

-Marius

[demogorgon]

J.R, have you gotten the opamps yet?

i would be interested in hearing your experiences!
i'm getting my soon as well, at least 2 of three types have been sendt.

-Marius