Are audiophiles too sissy or am I nuts? - please answer my idiot questions, experts.

JGSF · Oct 16, 2005, 03:31 AM

I've been thinking in a good reason to switch (or not to switch) from an Audigy 2 Bulk to a M-Audio audiophile 2496 or X-Fi...

With Audigy 2, I can get 2.66 ms playing live, I think my pc sounds great, I've heard the live recordings, they sound great to me... I simply love the flexibility of kx drivers...

I read a lot of stuff about that 44Khz->48Khz ressampling issue, a lot of complains, bla bla bla... I still think it sounds great.

ASIO is 48Khz-16bit, everybody wants 96/24, there's these wonderful DAC/ADC in high-end cards... 4 year ago Audigy 2 sounded great in the reviews, now it doesn't for the reviewers...

FUCK! I am an amateur musician that plays frequently, and I think that my Audigy 2 bulk sounds great and performs great (with kx drivers of course)...

I have a dilema, I'm gonna get an A64 system this week and I don't want to abandon my Audigy2 with kx drivers for a X-Fi with crappy creative drivers or an M-Audio audiophile 2496 with only one analog rca output...

Please tell me that's not worth to change my soundcard... That's the feeling I have. But I'm not a sound expert, I'm a musician.

**dj_stick** · Oct 16, 2005, 07:51 AM

rule of thumb if it sounds good enough to you, then it's good enough

Doug W · Oct 16, 2005, 02:33 PM

I second that motion.

ReDGuiTaR · Oct 16, 2005, 02:55 PM

People complain about sound quality then they only have mp3 sample @ 128kbps !!!! now tell me what s making it sounds bad ? @ 128kbps the file is so compressed that you loose all the bass quality in music at high volume .

256kbps is the bare minimum where you want your mp3 at ... 320kbps is even better and losseless codec like FLAC are just plain good . Just buy a bigger Harddrive !

dungle · Oct 17, 2005, 05:36 AM

Johnny,
The sample rate conversion issue happens when you get the card to play 44.1kHz material (like CD digital audio etc) in real time. As you probably know the real time resampling SRC adds measurable artifacts that the audiophiles can't abide. This can be overcome by using a music player such as winamp that supports pluggins such as a high quality software based SRC using state of the art dithering algorithm. Nasty artifacts gone!
When you record your own stuff at 48kHz your actually working at a better resolution than CD anyway. At the final stage of mixing/mastering you use another good quality dithering pluggin in the host/wave-editor of choice to produce a final 44.1kHz Wavefile for CD audio burning etc.
If the kX card has features you use and dont want to lose (such as DSP) but you still want to go to a high end card, then why not keep the kx and interconnect it to the new card via a simple TTL spdif connection. I have been doing this for some years now very sucessfully, you get the best of both world this way.
cheers

imperia · Oct 17, 2005, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dungle

Johnny,
The sample rate conversion issue happens when you get the card to play 44.1kHz material (like CD digital audio etc) in real time. As you probably know the real time resampling SRC adds measurable artifacts that the audiophiles can't abide. This can be overcome by using a music player such as winamp that supports pluggins such as a high quality software based SRC using state of the art dithering algorithm. Nasty artifacts gone!
When you record your own stuff at 48kHz your actually working at a better resolution than CD anyway. At the final stage of mixing/mastering you use another good quality dithering pluggin in the host/wave-editor of choice to produce a final 44.1kHz Wavefile for CD audio burning etc.
If the kX card has features you use and dont want to lose (such as DSP) but you still want to go to a high end card, then why not keep the kx and interconnect it to the new card via a simple TTL spdif connection. I have been doing this for some years now very sucessfully, you get the best of both world this way.
cheers

do i have to use resampling pluging for winamp? kx does 44 -=> 48 automaticlly?

dungle · Oct 17, 2005, 08:27 AM

Of course, the beauty of hardware based SRC is it works with everything automatically but with SBlive and audigy the sound quality won't be as good as if using a good software SRC.
For winamp users just look up the plugins section of winamp.com and you'll see
HQSoftProc Software Resampling Plugin and of course it's free.
cheers

Rogacz · Oct 17, 2005, 03:10 PM

Same goes for Foobar2k. There is a plugin (SSRC) avaible which does great job. If you can't find it, PM me - I'll email it to you. If you use Foobar2k of course

(Which I recommend

)

Oct 16, 2005, 03:31 AM	#1
JGSF HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 452 Rep Power: 0	Are audiophiles too sissy or am I nuts? - please answer my idiot questions, experts. I've been thinking in a good reason to switch (or not to switch) from an Audigy 2 Bulk to a M-Audio audiophile 2496 or X-Fi... With Audigy 2, I can get 2.66 ms playing live, I think my pc sounds great, I've heard the live recordings, they sound great to me... I simply love the flexibility of kx drivers... I read a lot of stuff about that 44Khz->48Khz ressampling issue, a lot of complains, bla bla bla... I still think it sounds great. ASIO is 48Khz-16bit, everybody wants 96/24, there's these wonderful DAC/ADC in high-end cards... 4 year ago Audigy 2 sounded great in the reviews, now it doesn't for the reviewers... FUCK! I am an amateur musician that plays frequently, and I think that my Audigy 2 bulk sounds great and performs great (with kx drivers of course)... I have a dilema, I'm gonna get an A64 system this week and I don't want to abandon my Audigy2 with kx drivers for a X-Fi with crappy creative drivers or an M-Audio audiophile 2496 with only one analog rca output... Please tell me that's not worth to change my soundcard... That's the feeling I have. But I'm not a sound expert, I'm a musician.

Oct 16, 2005, 02:55 PM	#4
ReDGuiTaR DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2004 Location: Quebec , Canada Posts: 746 Rep Power: 0	People complain about sound quality then they only have mp3 sample @ 128kbps !!!! now tell me what s making it sounds bad ? @ 128kbps the file is so compressed that you loose all the bass quality in music at high volume . 256kbps is the bare minimum where you want your mp3 at ... 320kbps is even better and losseless codec like FLAC are just plain good . Just buy a bigger Harddrive ! __________________ Zing a ling... zing a ling a ling ... A8N-E - A64x2 4600, 2048 Mb Kingston ram 400mhz cas 2.5 ( 2 x 1024 DualChannel ), Seagate 320 Gig 7200 16Mb cache S-ata 2, GeForce 7900GT 512MB, Enermax 460watt power supply, WindowsXP SP2.

Oct 17, 2005, 03:10 PM	#8
Rogacz Porcupine Floyd Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Poland Posts: 422 Rep Power: 0	Same goes for Foobar2k. There is a plugin (SSRC) avaible which does great job. If you can't find it, PM me - I'll email it to you. If you use Foobar2k of course (Which I recommend ) __________________

Oct 16, 2005, 02:33 PM	#3
Doug W HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Montevideo, MN USA Posts: 973 Rep Power: 0	I second that motion.

Oct 17, 2005, 05:36 AM	#5
dungle DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 120 Rep Power: 0	Johnny, The sample rate conversion issue happens when you get the card to play 44.1kHz material (like CD digital audio etc) in real time. As you probably know the real time resampling SRC adds measurable artifacts that the audiophiles can't abide. This can be overcome by using a music player such as winamp that supports pluggins such as a high quality software based SRC using state of the art dithering algorithm. Nasty artifacts gone! When you record your own stuff at 48kHz your actually working at a better resolution than CD anyway. At the final stage of mixing/mastering you use another good quality dithering pluggin in the host/wave-editor of choice to produce a final 44.1kHz Wavefile for CD audio burning etc. If the kX card has features you use and dont want to lose (such as DSP) but you still want to go to a high end card, then why not keep the kx and interconnect it to the new card via a simple TTL spdif connection. I have been doing this for some years now very sucessfully, you get the best of both world this way. cheers

Oct 17, 2005, 08:27 AM	#7
dungle DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 120 Rep Power: 0	Of course, the beauty of hardware based SRC is it works with everything automatically but with SBlive and audigy the sound quality won't be as good as if using a good software SRC. For winamp users just look up the plugins section of winamp.com and you'll see HQSoftProc Software Resampling Plugin and of course it's free. cheers