The bass problem..(Updated)

amol0010

Ok..i will give a complete description of the system i am using. I am on a Athlon xp 1800+ with a VIA kt 266a (Asus A7V) motherboard with a AC97 codec onboard, which i have disabled already from the BIOS setup.

I am using a Sound blaster Live 5.1 X-gamer (SB0060) sound card with the latest set of KX drivers.I installed them removing all of the previous creative drivers, and faced no problems in installation.

I am using the default DSP Setup in the soundcard itself. The Mp3 player i am using is Foobar2000 v 0.667.

I am using a Philips HP 890 Headphone set without an Amplifier plugged into the rear out (black) socket, with the Front->rear channel swap given by default in the driver configuratoin.

The Problem occurs when i enable the Equilizer. If i push up the bass frequencies, the sound starts distorting even at moderate volumes, and only the Bass distorts. I tried both the equilizers given in the Kx driver and the equilizer Plugin in foobar2000.

Besides that the bass lacks any punch at all, and sounds very tinny compared to what the front out gives.

As advised , i tried using the PHASE plugin , and connected the PHASE between the surrounder and the epilog, with the Stereo left and right channel outs of to the PHASE and outs of the PHASE to the front left and right inputs of the epilog.
I put the surrounder to 2.1 Mode, with surround off and the rear-> front channels swapped.

But this doesnt seem to alleviate the problem. The bass gets a bit Deeper, but it still distorts , when the volume is increased even at moderate volumes.

Whiile this never occurs with the front out, even if i push the bass frequencies to the highest , it doesnt distrot at all, and sounds very punchy and detailed.

I also tried out the Headphone/subwoofer channel swap, and with the headphone plugged in the Subwoofer , and then connected the surrounder stereo outs to the Headphone/SPDIF2 left and right inputs of the Epilog.

But this problem occurs even with this socket ouput. The bass keeps distorting, and never sounds as good as the front out channel.


And finally i tried uninstalling the KX drivers completely, and then reinstalled the creative drivers back, then put the speaker setup the 4.1 and then in foobar2000, i Swapped the stereo to rear channel out, and plugged the headphones in the rear out channel.But even these drivers, it doesnt help. The distortion is still there.

Whew..done finally

I would really like to use the Rear out channel as my primary channel, but if this problem continues, i wouldnt be ever able to do it



I would be extermely grateful to the persons who would help me out of this.

Daniel Drummond

1. Are your phones really able to handle bass (are they big enough)? 2. If you have front and rear channels swapped and you're connecting your headphones to the rear connector, than you should put the phase plugin between surrounder and rear left and right inputs in the epilog and not in the front right and left inputs in the epilog. See if it helps. But maybe you don't have a phase problem at all and it is from another cause. 3. If even with Creative drivers you have distortion, the problem may lay in your headphones or you may have a malfunctioning soundcard... I mean, that problem shouldn't be happening... Also, check if in windows control panel (sound config) you have hardware acceleration set to full and sound set to 5.1 (even if that is not what you're using) and also if sample rate conversion is set to maximum quality...

amol0010

Thanks for the reply..

amol0010

Thanks for the reply..The problem isnt my headphone, they are more than capable than handling a lot of bass, as i mentioned earlier they give extremely good bass in the front out mode, this happens only with the rear out , and also the Headphone->subwoofer swap. And as u said, i saw that the setup was to 5.1 frm the advanced properties and also the sampling rate is to the highest.

heffo

Hi everyone,

I've read this thread and think I have the answer. But my answer, if it's correct, won't make you happy.

From the things I've read somewhere at the kX page and my partial knowledge in electronics, I think this is what causes the problem:

The rear output does, I think, not have an power amplifier capable of driving a low-impedance speaker or headphones - then the headphones are a too big load for the output so distortion occurs - similarly to driving a crappy cheap China-made tuner/tape recorder (boombox) to a highest volume (maybe that's not the right example but it doesn't matter).
The lack of power amp at the rear output is probably one of the things that cause the higher quality of the rear output sound. When you connect an external amplifier or active speakers (=with amp built in), the distortion does not appear, as the input impedance of the amplifier input is high enough.

Probably the only solution for you is keep on connecting the headphones to the front output.

If someone is sure I don't have correct view on the problem, please let me know.

Bye,

Heffo

Lex Nahumury

Well, I think you are right Heffo.
As you can read from the 'quote', amaloo10 does NOT use a HP-amp.
Even when using 'High Impendance' headphones, the rear out has to high output Impandance,
and no power to drive headphones correctly.

amaloo10;
Try feeding the rear output into an external Mixer console/preamp -> headphones.

/LeMury