I got the drivers up and running vquickly and had pretty much got the hang of how to use it and the DSP in about 30mins, im very computer literate but cant understand programming code or microcode for that matter 
Anyway I have my music on he harddisk as uncompressed WAVS so the ADC quality doesnt really matter. However I had the outputs driving, Morel MDT30s tweets and Peerless HDS 850467 midbass HDS w/phaseplug. Now appart from the obvious noise a slight buzzing audible from the listening pos and a bit of hiss, it sound good, very good. I had a very clean and distortionless sound with no spitty trebble or anything harsh. This is baring in mind that the onboard Analog stages were only driven to a max of half volume for the woofs and about 37%tweets. Anyway I know that the digital outs are a much better bet if you want soundquality.
Now heres the good bit (not good if you dont have two standalone stereo dacs) but the digiout on the card (furthest away from the games port) uses a stereo output jack. Now with the input connected to the standard SPDIF outs on the Epilogue the left channel on the digiout becomes a digi feed, if you now connect the input to the SPDIF3/headphones on the epilogue you get the right channel digi out giving out stereo digi. So essentially you can get four channels of digi out to DSP to your hearts content, with better output quality.
You may already know this but I thought I post it anyway just incase anyone else has used the KX set.
One thing I will say abou the lowpass and highpass in the KX is that the Width setting doesnt work like just changing the order or an xover slope its weird the way it does do it. I know that "all it would take" is messing around with the code to give true rolloffs but I dont have a clue where to start.
If anyone else knows how to program the code this would be an extremely useful tool for all loudpspeaker enthusiasts around. The ability to change xover freq and order of slope. You can listen to this for as long as you like with as many iterations as you like to find out what sounds best, then go onto the real xover design stage knowing that the xover freq you have chosen sounds the best. This I know for me would be very useful.
Oh for it to work tho you need - comp with SB card
- two 3.5mm jack to phono
- four channels of Power amp
You can even do six channels setting outputs to the centre channel and subwoofer, but that would require more amps and more jacks.
Anyway I hope someone finds this interesting Matt
Anyway I have my music on he harddisk as uncompressed WAVS so the ADC quality doesnt really matter. However I had the outputs driving, Morel MDT30s tweets and Peerless HDS 850467 midbass HDS w/phaseplug. Now appart from the obvious noise a slight buzzing audible from the listening pos and a bit of hiss, it sound good, very good. I had a very clean and distortionless sound with no spitty trebble or anything harsh. This is baring in mind that the onboard Analog stages were only driven to a max of half volume for the woofs and about 37%tweets. Anyway I know that the digital outs are a much better bet if you want soundquality.
Now heres the good bit (not good if you dont have two standalone stereo dacs) but the digiout on the card (furthest away from the games port) uses a stereo output jack. Now with the input connected to the standard SPDIF outs on the Epilogue the left channel on the digiout becomes a digi feed, if you now connect the input to the SPDIF3/headphones on the epilogue you get the right channel digi out giving out stereo digi. So essentially you can get four channels of digi out to DSP to your hearts content, with better output quality.
You may already know this but I thought I post it anyway just incase anyone else has used the KX set.
One thing I will say abou the lowpass and highpass in the KX is that the Width setting doesnt work like just changing the order or an xover slope its weird the way it does do it. I know that "all it would take" is messing around with the code to give true rolloffs but I dont have a clue where to start.
If anyone else knows how to program the code this would be an extremely useful tool for all loudpspeaker enthusiasts around. The ability to change xover freq and order of slope. You can listen to this for as long as you like with as many iterations as you like to find out what sounds best, then go onto the real xover design stage knowing that the xover freq you have chosen sounds the best. This I know for me would be very useful.
Oh for it to work tho you need - comp with SB card
- two 3.5mm jack to phono
- four channels of Power amp
You can even do six channels setting outputs to the centre channel and subwoofer, but that would require more amps and more jacks.
Anyway I hope someone finds this interesting Matt
Awesome. Really, really awesome. 😀
I just got here from the KX forums, and you would not believe all the stuff they're doing with these cards. I just learned that yes, it is possible to get 8 fully synchronized analog channels from Cubase SX using 2 Soundblaster Live's, and a few jumper cables inside the computer. If my math is correct, that meanse that I can have, at my command, 4 totally independant stereo Soundfont synths, 2-in 8-out multitracking capability, and 4 effects. That's on 2 cards. (My 3rd card is also in use full-time as an active crossover. Having just finished another stack of speakers (*PHEW*) I'm about ready to go passive on 2 of them and free up some amp channels...
Driving 6 speakers from one soundcard is an incredible feeling! You should try it.
I'll be posting pictures in a little while in a new thread.
Thanks! Keep up the creativity!
I just got here from the KX forums, and you would not believe all the stuff they're doing with these cards. I just learned that yes, it is possible to get 8 fully synchronized analog channels from Cubase SX using 2 Soundblaster Live's, and a few jumper cables inside the computer. If my math is correct, that meanse that I can have, at my command, 4 totally independant stereo Soundfont synths, 2-in 8-out multitracking capability, and 4 effects. That's on 2 cards. (My 3rd card is also in use full-time as an active crossover. Having just finished another stack of speakers (*PHEW*) I'm about ready to go passive on 2 of them and free up some amp channels...
Driving 6 speakers from one soundcard is an incredible feeling! You should try it.
I'll be posting pictures in a little while in a new thread.
Thanks! Keep up the creativity!
Oh, I forgot: I'm pretty sure the "width" parameter is really an "order" parameter; 1.0 means 6dB/oct, 2.0 means 12db/oct, etc. I haven't verified extremely scientifically, but that's what it looks like on a FFT.
Strange things happen with 0.1-order crossovers. They sound really bad.
Strange things happen with 0.1-order crossovers. They sound really bad.
I have to totally agree with what has been said - an awful lot can be accomplished with these cards and the kX drivers. I'm currently using an Audigy2 OEM (£60). This can do 8 analogue outputs and 6-channel discrete digital out. 5th element - in case you hadn't realised, the digital outs of these cards (both Live! and Audigy) are not stereo jacks, but triple-ring jacks, and with a suitable connector you can get three separate stereo PCM streams out through this port. It's how Creative connects to their digital-capable 5.1 systems which don't have a decoder.
I've been tinkering with the idea of using the card as the heart of a HT system. It allows you to decode the DTS with DVD software, EQ the hell out of it (room resonance and speaker correction is just amazing with the Parametric EQ), and if you want the ultimate in sound quality output it in discrete PCM streams to DIY DACs of your own choosing.
While not being in a position to pursue this right now, I've quite heavily corrected the bass of my stereo computer system, cutting out a huge room mode at around 100Hz (it's quite a small room, and square) and an ugly hump in the response at 80Hz. I've done all this by ear so it's not going to be accurate, but listening to a frequency-sweep gives quite a nice flat response with a gentle rolloff in the bass down to 20Hz. I've managed to do that with very little use of the processing power - using 2 5-band sterep parametric EQ 'modules'. There is enough DSP power avaiable to have this much EQing for seven discrete channels, and more. This stuff is amazing.
Rant over.
I've been tinkering with the idea of using the card as the heart of a HT system. It allows you to decode the DTS with DVD software, EQ the hell out of it (room resonance and speaker correction is just amazing with the Parametric EQ), and if you want the ultimate in sound quality output it in discrete PCM streams to DIY DACs of your own choosing.
While not being in a position to pursue this right now, I've quite heavily corrected the bass of my stereo computer system, cutting out a huge room mode at around 100Hz (it's quite a small room, and square) and an ugly hump in the response at 80Hz. I've done all this by ear so it's not going to be accurate, but listening to a frequency-sweep gives quite a nice flat response with a gentle rolloff in the bass down to 20Hz. I've managed to do that with very little use of the processing power - using 2 5-band sterep parametric EQ 'modules'. There is enough DSP power avaiable to have this much EQing for seven discrete channels, and more. This stuff is amazing.
Rant over.
well, I woulnd't be *that* confident of the card. (Audigy's have more GPR registers though, I guess.)
My crossovery card has 256 GPR registers, and at the moment, I'm trying to hack a few plugins apart so I can use filters (20 regs) instead of a 10-band EQ (88 regs) and get everything done I need to. It's a real hassle sometimes, and there's no way to get two reverbs on one Live! card. *sigh*
Well, I still have a 2x8 multitracker and 4 (8) synths and 4 effects boxes and active crossovery for under $100....
My crossovery card has 256 GPR registers, and at the moment, I'm trying to hack a few plugins apart so I can use filters (20 regs) instead of a 10-band EQ (88 regs) and get everything done I need to. It's a real hassle sometimes, and there's no way to get two reverbs on one Live! card. *sigh*
Well, I still have a 2x8 multitracker and 4 (8) synths and 4 effects boxes and active crossovery for under $100....
I wasnt aware that increasing the xover order would result in a change in the SPL at the xover freq you have typed in. I assumed that with all xovers whatever the order so that to sum right at the chosen frequency the response is down by 3db, regardless of order. So the woof and tweet are both down 3db at xover which results in 0db (taken to be flat). Its just that the slope starts off at a higher frequency and rolls off more quickly with increasing orders of slope. (Low pass)
So if this is the case then getting a signal generator to give out a sine wave at 2k into a lowpass set at 2k then whatever the order specified the SPL should not change. However it does when the slider is moved.
Correct me if im wrong on this.
So if this is the case then getting a signal generator to give out a sine wave at 2k into a lowpass set at 2k then whatever the order specified the SPL should not change. However it does when the slider is moved.
Correct me if im wrong on this.
It really is able to do it. I just tried simultaneously opening 8 stereo Parametric EQ modules (this would be 2 modules in series for each pair of channels) and it works fine. No GPRs left for a lot else though (the A2 has 512 GPRs with stereo EQ modules requiring 49 each). Also I managed to optimise my EQ curve so only one module is required to correct my system. Hence it would need 4 modules in total for 8-channel room/speaker correction. That much is easy for the card to do.
So OK, it's not got the power of really high-end processors, but for £60 its overall power is a great. The fact that you can also have mutiple units in a single system means that you can produce, for not a lot of money, a really powerful DSP system with enough I/O to have balanced outs for as many surround channels as you like.
If you know how to program new effects and optimise them in terms of memory usage for your specific needs, there isn't a lot you couldn't do with this. The only limitation in real terms is the 48kHz sampling rate, which cannot be altered (any 44.1kHz PCM streams *have* to be resampled if they're sent through the DSP, which can get a little annoying). It's also limited to a maximum of 24 bits/sample, though this cannot really be seen as a limitation.
So OK, it's not got the power of really high-end processors, but for £60 its overall power is a great. The fact that you can also have mutiple units in a single system means that you can produce, for not a lot of money, a really powerful DSP system with enough I/O to have balanced outs for as many surround channels as you like.
If you know how to program new effects and optimise them in terms of memory usage for your specific needs, there isn't a lot you couldn't do with this. The only limitation in real terms is the 48kHz sampling rate, which cannot be altered (any 44.1kHz PCM streams *have* to be resampled if they're sent through the DSP, which can get a little annoying). It's also limited to a maximum of 24 bits/sample, though this cannot really be seen as a limitation.
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