TR Forums

Thanks mac_h8r1!

So the jacks at the front are not the way to go.. Got it.. Best to use the jack provided with the platinum Audigy 2 control panel, right?

"Thus, you will not need the card that I'm assuming you have because the firewire connection is on the Audigy cards."

What? Need a stand-alone soundcard, because the Mobo might have an onboard soundcard? I thought it was bad to use an on-board anything..

"If you're daring, you can carve a thin groove into the bottom of the door [perpendicular to the door] through which the headphone wire can pass."

That's an idea.. What would I use to cut through the metal cleanly? I'd have to get one of those cutters the modders use..

Unless you've got a full-digital system with 18 bits (or better) of precision all the way from the signal source to your ears, 108dB S/N is wishful thinking

Is this achiavable? What kind of components have all digital connections?

PS- this is the best headphone amp, cost/performance-wise, that I've found so far..

http://www.headphone.com/layout.php?top ... 0010010010

Expensive little buggers.. Maybe I'll wait and see if the new soundcard will make an improvement before I take the plunge...

lazysack wrote:

"Thus, you will not need the card that I'm assuming you have because the firewire connection is on the Audigy cards."

What? Need a stand-alone soundcard, because the Mobo might have an onboard soundcard? I thought it was bad to use an on-board anything..

Sorry for my ambiguosity. Basically, I'm making the assumption that you have a FireWire card, call it card A. I'm also making the assumption that your motherboard does not have a built in FireWire port [BTW, FireWire, LAN, and USB are the exceptions to the "don't use onboard components" rule].

Running with the assumption that "card A" already is installed in your system, along with your current sound card, it is safe to say that there are 2 slots being taken up.

Since the Audigy's have built in FireWire, you can remove "card A" because you will have FireWire connectivity once the Audigy is installed.

In all reality, the FireWire connection is just icing on the cake. I'd love the card whether it had it or not.

JBI, thanks for the info about dB stuff.
However, the Audigy2 ZS [and Audigy 2 i think] does claim 24-bit audio processing. The tremendous fidelity is geared toward the musician, where MIDI samples can have that level of precision. Notice the ASIO 2.0 support, which is extreme low-latency access for high-bandwidth applications [like, say, 2MB sound samples].

It may not be attainable by the casual [or extreme] gamer, but is available for those who truly want it.

lazysack wrote:

Unless you've got a full-digital system with 18 bits (or better) of precision all the way from the signal source to your ears, 108dB S/N is wishful thinking

Is this achiavable? What kind of components have all digital connections?

You can get audio equipment that has D/A converters in it, allowing you to maintain a digital signal path up to your amp. This would help S/N by keeping all of the sensitive analog stuff completely out of the PC (the inside of a PC is terrible from an EMI standpoint). Having a pure digital connection all the way to your ears is physically impossible though, since the final stage (speakers or headphones) must be analog. But the idea is to maintain a digital signal path as far as possible.

I don't know how I have it set up now, it's been 4 years since I bought it, and I haven't opened it up and checked it out.. As I mention, I'm not a tweaker.. More of a "I'll throw money at you, and you put it together for me, deal?"

I know the soundcard is a Diamondmax MX-330, but I forget what the motherboard is, and what it's specs are.

The computer I will be buying will have an Audigy 2 Zs soundcard, and I'm not sure what kind of soundcard I'll be going with yet, but maybe either an Intel Intel D875PBZ or an Asus PC4800 Deluxe..

I research what kind of components I want, I just don't really understand what makes them work...

You can get audio equipment that has D/A converters in it, allowing you to maintain a digital signal path up to your amp.

Can you give me an example of such a set-up, Just brew it?

You can see what kind of components I'm looking at.. Would these items be compatable with my aims?

Thanks!

lazysack wrote:

The computer I will be buying will have an Audigy 2 Zs soundcard, and I'm not sure what kind of soundcard I'll be going with yet, but maybe either an Intel Intel D875PBZ or an Asus PC4800 Deluxe..

I assume you mean motherboard, yes? I'd go with the ASUS.

Whoops, sorry, yes, I meant Mobo.

Why the Asus over the Intel? Keep in mind I won't be doing any overclocking..