MJL21193 said:You bring the same level of magical mumbo jumbo to everything you talk about, be it chip amps and caps or sound cards! VIA didn't sprinkle pixie dust on any of it's chips to make them sound glorious!
On one level, this is fairly amusing, to hear the way you "review" different things based mostly on how you "feel" about them or how you believe they are. Your keen observations of the feline activity, giving you clues to the "realism" of the presentation. You take a figment of imagination and expound on it like it is fact.
On another I find that this is starting to infuriate me more than entertain.
Me too. Of course. Its absolutely vexing. I'd rather stuff just work right, or at least work in a similar way. Changing computers led to the sound card problem somehow. There was a difference, and its more obnoxious than I am.
There's also the difference in friends and family, like this:
Could you turn that noise down? -or- Hey! Could you turn that music up?
Its really a great big "Why?"
The new computer does this (see chart) and that seems to be the extent of its skills.
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Rightmark Chart
Here's a chart from RMAA.
Oddly enough running Line-out to Line-in doesn't make remarkably different scores in comparison to Wal-Mart's cheapest portable CD player to Line-in. The THD figure goes from 0.002% with the Line-out to 0.04% with the CD player, while the noise floor gets worse by about 9db (there's a slight hiss when the CDP is near maximum output). The stereo seperation figures were better by about 10% with the CD player.
So far, the output of the card wasn't tested by a separate computer.
I'll see if I can repair the old PC and run the test the other way around, with line-out from the "suspect" PC to line-in of the old PC.
This frequency response chart is from Line-out to Line-in of the X-Fi Audio.
Here's a chart from RMAA.
Oddly enough running Line-out to Line-in doesn't make remarkably different scores in comparison to Wal-Mart's cheapest portable CD player to Line-in. The THD figure goes from 0.002% with the Line-out to 0.04% with the CD player, while the noise floor gets worse by about 9db (there's a slight hiss when the CDP is near maximum output). The stereo seperation figures were better by about 10% with the CD player.
So far, the output of the card wasn't tested by a separate computer.
I'll see if I can repair the old PC and run the test the other way around, with line-out from the "suspect" PC to line-in of the old PC.
This frequency response chart is from Line-out to Line-in of the X-Fi Audio.
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Hi Dan,
You are doing something wrong. Wrong settings, something.
Have you connected line out to line in? This would be in and out on the same card with a cable that has stereo mini-jacks on each end.
Close all of the Creative controls and make sure you are not set for digital out only. Open the windows volume controls for playback and recording. Use these to set the levels for the test.
Here's a tutorial on how to run the test. It deals with an older version of RMAA, but it's basically the same.
You are doing something wrong. Wrong settings, something.
Have you connected line out to line in? This would be in and out on the same card with a cable that has stereo mini-jacks on each end.
Close all of the Creative controls and make sure you are not set for digital out only. Open the windows volume controls for playback and recording. Use these to set the levels for the test.
Here's a tutorial on how to run the test. It deals with an older version of RMAA, but it's basically the same.
danielwritesbac said:
Hi Dan,
The loop test involves one sound card only plus optionally something else in that loop, like an amp or an equalizer. To test a CD player, RMAA will produce a .wav file to play on it and it will analyze it, but it needs to use the same sound card to produce the file and receive it.
Why not properly test the X-Fi?
danielwritesbac said:
I have in this computer the X-Fi Xtreme Audio. I have an Audigy SE in my "lab" computer and that works flawlessly as well.
Do you have the soundcard properly installed with the correct drivers? Have you set the volume levels correctly?
It will not run the test with the amount of garbage you have shown in post 282, so that can't be the loop test.
I may be off base here but it seems as if you want there to be a problem with the Creative card.
MJL21193 said:
Well, no I don't. That's a chore!
All day it took. Most of the time was finding Bios v5.5 for my PC. Also it took some time to walk through the various bios's available. Latency is now down to 12ms. Also, shuffle between different card slots, lots of cmos clearing, restarting. Oh, egads!
X-Fi Audio is now playing level with 48khz and 24bits master rate. Any higher and there's a ripple. At standard CD rate there's a slight rise from 10khz to 20khz.
X-Fi Audio on loopback cable:
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Hi Daniel,
Somewhere, there is a setting to lock the sample rates together. I figure that is how you got those horrible plots, the rates were not locked.
I am using the Creative drivers and it took work to configure things properly. You can't fault the card or it's software. All the issues I've had were with darn Windows. XP is the most stable OS they have put out so far, and it still acts like buggy "betawear".
I was forced to reload the system a couple months ago and simply have not configured everything. I've lost the will to create a tight system to rely on, only to have Microsoft tear it all down again.
My current plan will be to configure a Linux system. Windows will allow me to yap to the world and the Linux system will be for things I rely on. You know, my OS/2 machine still runs fine, as does my OS/2 server. It's just that they are both well over 10 years old.
-Chris
Somewhere, there is a setting to lock the sample rates together. I figure that is how you got those horrible plots, the rates were not locked.
I am using the Creative drivers and it took work to configure things properly. You can't fault the card or it's software. All the issues I've had were with darn Windows. XP is the most stable OS they have put out so far, and it still acts like buggy "betawear".
I was forced to reload the system a couple months ago and simply have not configured everything. I've lost the will to create a tight system to rely on, only to have Microsoft tear it all down again.
My current plan will be to configure a Linux system. Windows will allow me to yap to the world and the Linux system will be for things I rely on. You know, my OS/2 machine still runs fine, as does my OS/2 server. It's just that they are both well over 10 years old.
-Chris
Every single "effects" button should be turned of. Go deep into your drivers, to control panel, etc. as some will be hidden.
Reduce volume levels, I read somewhere that on he X-Fi the master volume should be below 84% to get a fair reading.
Also look for the words "resampling" anything that says this should be turned off.
Of course, maybe I shouldn't be saying this, as I could never get the testing to work properly, either.
- keantoken
Reduce volume levels, I read somewhere that on he X-Fi the master volume should be below 84% to get a fair reading.
Also look for the words "resampling" anything that says this should be turned off.
Of course, maybe I shouldn't be saying this, as I could never get the testing to work properly, either.
- keantoken
Hi Jaycee,
Hi John,
My X-Fi card was sampling far higher than yours, using the newer Creative drivers. See, it's the darn Windows environment! The less expensive X-Fi had the other limitations, and that might be the one you are using. I found an X-Fi card on sale for approx $50, but I had to put it into my wife's computer. That one was useless to me (I wanted two cards). So that is when I found the EMU 1212M on sale. The EMU is much, much better for testing. It has balanced inputs as well (if memory serves). Yes, that was on another XP machine that I've had to reload once. I am just so tired of reloading everything that I kind of gave up. The answer might be to use an XP machine for testing only and refuse all other patches and upgrades. Sad eh?
-Chris
True, but it took me forever to get things working really well in Windows. I have had to reload the entire system twice since then. At least if I put out the effort in Linux, I won't have anyone trashing the system at regular intervals. That makes everything I figure out invalid when dealing with Windows.
Hi John,
My X-Fi card was sampling far higher than yours, using the newer Creative drivers. See, it's the darn Windows environment! The less expensive X-Fi had the other limitations, and that might be the one you are using. I found an X-Fi card on sale for approx $50, but I had to put it into my wife's computer. That one was useless to me (I wanted two cards). So that is when I found the EMU 1212M on sale. The EMU is much, much better for testing. It has balanced inputs as well (if memory serves). Yes, that was on another XP machine that I've had to reload once. I am just so tired of reloading everything that I kind of gave up. The answer might be to use an XP machine for testing only and refuse all other patches and upgrades. Sad eh?
-Chris
anatech said:
Hi man!
I fastened out problems (especially Microsoft) with Zone Alarm, Firefox, Avg, and Autopatcher, which cost nothing and wasn't difficult. I set Internet Explorer's proxy settings all to 127.0.0.1 (localhost/nowhere). Anything Microsoft blindly follows the Internet Explorer settings right into the rear end of the network card--a virtual enema for Microsoft.
For Nvidia Nforce 4xx problems, I've shut off SATA, used the 70MB/S WD500 AAKB IDE drive (didn't need 500gb, but wanted 16mb on-drive cache), and use original Norton Ghost Dos vers to back up to a DVD writer.
Data files are kept aboard a WD 500 AAKS in an external MyBook USB enclosure. This is only connected during backup time, and its unplugged at all other times. So, if the system goes nuts, its just a 10 minute job to blast the sucker with the fresh Norton Ghost (dos version) bootable DVDs.
Its running a lot more solid after the recent audio-inspired computer repair adventure with the X-Fi Audio.
Distortion has reduced dramatically.
I'm so grateful for all the help.
I think there's still some problems with the audio, but will await the arrival of the 2 DJ headphones, rather than make assumptions with no reference.
This better equipment, specifically the measuring software and the "standards" headphones, is ever so much better than guesswork!
Thanks guys! - Status
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