SBLive improvement

[fedde]

Using 5V TTL signals is no problem for the CS8412. Unless you use an input transformer (mine is 2:1 or so). I think my SB outputs 0.5 Vpp

The SBlive is not really suitable for high end audio. Even combined with an external DAC (I use my Nonoz III for it). The main problem is that the SB live uses some filters to upsample to 48 kHz (fixed) and to implement bass/treble. The KXproject drivers sound better IMHO (eg. you can omit the bass/treble filters)

Fedde

 

[carlosfm]

Yes Fedde, you're right.
I use the KX drivers for a long time and I don't want anything more, as the Creative drivers have more bugs than Windows, those &%$$/%/(%&ing drivers kept %&%/%$&%$%ing my W2k.

The 48khz upsampling is really crap, and it's rather obvious.
I tested an HDCD on my PC (with digital audio extraction, volume at the max.), with my Audio Alchemy connected to my SB Live, and no HDCD.
Really, the bits that get out have a bad "treatment".

With some tweaks as I made, it gets good, but not high-end of course.
Note: My older SB AWE64 Gold was MUCH better sounding than the Live.
One of the reasons was that the AWE64 had a multi-bit Philips dac (TDA1387, very similar to the TDA1545A).
I only don't use this older board because it's ISA.

 

[fedde]

I just found out that turning the Mic Boost function on sounds better after all. This for the few people on the forum that might use a SBlive card with the standard drivers...

 

[fr0st]

I just put in a tl072 in place of the Headphone amp IC that was there. Alot of the noise is gone, but the psu noise still comes though.
What effect would adding inductors (220uh) to the 5v and -5v rail have on the noise levels?

 

[seadog]

Thank you very much!

 

[Devil_H@ck]

I just put in a tl072 in place of the Headphone amp IC that was there. Alot of the noise is gone, but the psu noise still comes though.
What effect would adding inductors (220uh) to the 5v and -5v rail have on the noise levels?

I think adding capacitators would be easier.