recommend me a sound card and speakers please

CivilServant

I bought the tamp just after christmas and I can honestly says it's the best thing since sliced bread. The amp is tiny, but the clean power coming out of it is unbelievable. Granted I don't have the eardrums of an audiophile, the the reproduction of vocals and classical instruments sounds like I'm right there. A big thank you to committed, you definitely know your stuff. Still have to get the x-fi for 5.1 bf2 gaming tho

pwd

It's a lot louder with the 13.8 psu.

CivilServant

Hehe I'm sure it does. It costs as much as the amp What speakers are you running them through? I'm running mine through 15 year old pioneer speakers, and it still sounds positively delightful. I'm guessing not much has changed in speaker technology.

TempestSabre

Incidentally in this months "What HIFi Sound and Vision" (Feb) theres an article about budget PC & MP3 speakers. Which is worth a read. However I'm not a fan of 2.1 speaker sets with smaller speakers and a huge bass sub, which most of the ones on review are. Pity you can't test any of these out in Dublin.

commited

CivilServant wrote:

Hehe I'm sure it does. It costs as much as the amp What speakers are you running them through? I'm running mine through 15 year old pioneer speakers, and it still sounds positively delightful. I'm guessing not much has changed in speaker technology.

No, not much has changed, but the quality has got higher. Pioneer would definately be on the lowfi side of hifi (no offence )

I have a variable SMPS psu here and I havent found it any louder with 13.8v!

I'm now going with a different class T amp - there is now better stuff out there (needs a bit of DIY such as box and soldering connector wires) - about $115 including postage, and then you'll need to buy a box & power supply.

I'm now finding the t-amps sound slightly bright and fatigueing, so I'm heading for 2 of these amp: http://diyparadise.com/charlize.html

Getting rave comments on some very educated forums. People ditching very expensive (£1000+) amps for one.

pwd

Ah you're right the volume is the same. Just happened to be listening to louder media.

I wouldn't recommend the e-mu sound card for use with the amp unless you know where to get the appropriate cable. It's hard to find. The e-mu one is not delievered outside america like I said. Creative support have been surprisingly unhelpful when I asked them where I could get one, especially since it says to get in touch with them if you need the cable and are in europe.

commited

There was an aftermarket site that did the XLR - 2xRCA cables - I can try and dig it out if you want.

Otherwise - make your own cable using bits from maplins

craigcharlie

not sure if this is a help, but creative have a facility here in Ireland, I went there once, out Blachardstown way somewhere. maybe they might have some stuff on site there?

pwd

It's people there I've been mailing. They're useless and condescending also.
It's not rca cables I need, it's 1/4 inch ones

My amp just went pop. It was connected to the power supply and turned on for about a minute and didn't have sound coming out of it. So I recommend *not* using the 13.8V power supply with it.

commited

Thats terrible news I bet it was a dodgy power supply.

PWD - In about a week or two, I'll be selling my t-amp if you're interested (have a spare one which I'm using as a stand in while my father gets his meridian amps serviced).

PM me

pwd

It might have been a power surge, since I also lost over half a gig of stuff from my hard drive. (Nothing too important luckily). The psu was the maplins regulated 3A one. They told me when I got it that they don't accept returned power supplies.

I'll send you a pm, commited.

commited

It's odd to lose half a gig of stuff, have they gone to bad sectors?

Are the power supply and t-amp deffo duff?

PM replied

DemonOfTheFall

Tell them where they can shove their policy of not accepting returns on faulty goods, pwd!

pwd

power supply is fine. t-amp doesn't work.
Power supply is working, and the official spec of the t-amp says to use lower amperage and lower voltage than that power supply, so I'm not going to try to get a refund.

Lost half a gig after chkdsk ran on external hard drive only (not c drive) on startup and erased lots of "completely unreadable" folders. This makes me fairly certain it is a power surge that blew the amp.

this is the unit in question:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=231&criteria=3a%20power%20supply&doy=24m1

It says "5A surge" on it. (2a continuous, 3a heavy duty)

commited

Over current isnt a problem - but if there was a surge that increased the voltage, you may well have killed the little t-amp.

rsynnott

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

Lol, the X-Fi and creative's MP3 hyper quality propaganda are hilarious. The way that it rips "amazing"ly, is by:

1. Resample to 48 khz (Smacks head at sheer stupidity)
2. Use dynamic compressor filter to ruin the sound.
3. Up the lows and the highs to ruin the sound.
4. Make up retarded name like "Crystalliser" and make people think that it can improve perfect CD Quality music.
5. ????
6. Profit!!!

Much the same as "audiophiles" who use vacuum valve amplifiers on the basis that they "make the music sound better". (They distort in in a generally rather pleasing fashion)

Note that the reviews of that card provided contain no double-blind testing; as such they are worthless.

masteroftherealm wrote:

I dont really care bout tech specifics though dude Im talking real world results man!

Ah, chronic audiophile syndrome. Would you like to buy this thousand pound power cable? It's blessed by Jesus AND Satan!

TempestSabre wrote:

Just a thought.

HiFi Speakers aren't usually shielded for PC use. So don't leave you USB drive or iPod on or infront of them. PC speakers usually are.

Modern hard drives have extremely high coercivity, so this isn't an issue. Unshielded speakers will damage a CRT monitor if they're fairly close.

I am, by the way, rather happy that I'm not an audiophile; I can't tell the difference between small crappy MP3-player output and high-end CD player output

commited

rsynnott wrote:

Much the same as "audiophiles" who use vacuum valve amplifiers on the basis that they "make the music sound better". (They distort in in a generally rather pleasing fashion)

Note that the reviews of that card provided contain no double-blind testing; as such they are worthless.

Talking from imaginary experience? You've obviously heard guitar valve amps or some crap and are basing your opinion on that.
I've heard plenty of valve amps in my time - I have a solid state setup though - and they are the best amplifiers in the world. I dont know how you're opinion even counts for anything when :

I can't tell the difference between small crappy MP3-player output and high-end CD player output

Ah, chronic audiophile syndrome. Would you like to buy this thousand pound power cable? It's blessed by Jesus AND Satan!

I've actually heard the difference power cables and power supplies make. There is no substitution for that.
Oh and I'm no "audiophile" - I just like music.

TempestSabre

rsynnott wrote:

....
Modern hard drives have extremely high coercivity, so this isn't an issue. Unshielded speakers will damage a CRT monitor if they're fairly close.

I am, by the way, rather happy that I'm not an audiophile; I can't tell the difference between small crappy MP3-player output and high-end CD player output

Didn't realise that about HD's. Many moons ago I had a college project wiped from a 3.5" disk after leaving them in my bag with my cassette walkman and earphones. Floppy disks having much lower coercivity.

Your lucky then. I was getting annoyed at how dire all these iPods, modern CD portables, and MP3's sounded compared to my MD players. Did an ABX test one day with a friends 4G iPod and even he was shocked at the comparision. MD was clearly much better. Even the portable CD's we tried were pretty bad. After a bit of reading, imporving the bitrates, using a proper encoder and a better regarded MP3 player and better cheapo earphones the SQ is much improved, and the music is much more enjoyable.

Did some more reading on the Xi-Fi and it seems it does rebuild the MP3's on the fly and apply a highly tweaked EQ. But the end result is quite different from the source. However if you are listening to movies and games, what you really want is good positional effects more than qood and accurate sound reproduction. The Xi-Fi is perfect for this, but still ok for music.

rsynnott

commited wrote:

Talking from imaginary experience? You've obviously heard guitar valve amps or some crap and are basing your opinion on that.
I've heard plenty of valve amps in my time - I have a solid state setup though - and they are the best amplifiers in the world. I dont know how you're opinion even counts for anything when :

From an objective point of view, though, vacuum valve amplifiers distort audible frequencies. They may well make it sound nicer, but it is distortion.

commited wrote:

I've actually heard the difference power cables and power supplies make.

Power supplies, yes. Probably more likely to make a difference than nearly anything else; a dodgy one will introduce humming.

Power cables? Are you serious? Do you realise that between that socket you plug your hifi into and the substation, there are miles of, quite possibly aluminium, dodgy wiring? Do you really think a few feet on the last leg will make a difference? If so, why?

And do you believe in break-in for audio cables?

commited

rsynnott wrote:

From an objective point of view, though, vacuum valve amplifiers distort audible frequencies. They may well make it sound nicer, but it is distortion.

Any evidence to back this up? It certainly isnt my finding.
If it is true, surely its not a problem if it makes it sound better? I've heard high-end systems that cried if you gave it a "bad recording". My class t suffers a bit from that too...

Power supplies, yes. Probably more likely to make a difference than nearly anything else; a dodgy one will introduce humming.

Power cables? Are you serious? Do you realise that between that socket you plug your hifi into and the substation, there are miles of, quite possibly aluminium, dodgy wiring? Do you really think a few feet on the last leg will make a difference? If so, why?
And do you believe in break-in for audio cables?

Of course power cables make a difference - there is more RFI floating around your house then in all the miles of wiring that comes up to your house and it's in a much more ordered fashion. I dont use fancy smancy cables - I use bog standard cables, but I have heard the difference they can make - I just prefer to spend my money elsewhere. I'll eventually be doing a whole load of DIYcables for my system - you'd be welcome to come by and see if you couldnt hear a difference
break-in for audio cables - I've noticed a difference in the DIY cables that I've heard before/after break in, but not on commercial cables.

peterdaly

Anyone recommend a sound card for the creative S750 7.1 surround sound. Its gotta have 4 line outs because I dont have the Creative 3:4 cable.

Solitaire

AFAIK any 7.1 sound chip - including decent onboard solutions - should have four 3.5mm line-outs for a 7.1 speaker set.

marco_polo

Old zombie threads are fun.

Solitaire

Four-and-a-third years old. That has to be some sort of record!

EDIT: Holy sweet Jebus Christo!! :eek: The second I posted that there was a five-and-a-half year thread necro in tCN!

Solitaire

Not long after the aforementioned necros this happened.

Ten-freakin'-year necro :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

What has peterdaly unleashed?!?! :eek:

pwd

I used to be so much nicer.

The t-amp is brilliant btw. Have my second one now, thanks to a power-surge busting the first. The power-supply didn't make a noticeable difference to the sound quality though.