Garbulky's journey

[garbulky]

Ok think I figured out the resize option on flickr. I just clicked "small" and then shared that.

So the 12db's are here giving me 24db of attenuation!
Initial impressions on the spot impressions with the xda-1 to xenos 3ha amp to senheisser HD600:
What works: Well, it does work better with 24db of attenuation feeding the xenos 3ha amp from the xda-1 than with just 12 db. The distortion and buzzing at moderate volumes is very much reduced. I can turn the volume upto 80! I can also get some moderate volume out of the thing. As in it's useable at least.
Bad news: Either voltage attenuation isn't the issue or it still requires more. There is a definite lo-fi signal reproduction happening. It simply isn[t transparent. I feel that 24db attenuation may have contributed to that. Sort of like a hump in the upper-range bass intruding into the mid-range clouding things up and extension of the treble is lost. :/ Pretty much the small negative sound signature differences I noted on 12db attenuators but increased to a much greater amount.
It sounds like the midrange is in your face but the depth information and the more audiophile qualities of the sound is lost.
I feel that some careful equalization [shudder] maybe with my tone controls (eww) I may be able to get some "air" in the treble back.

I noticed this issue increase of it as I turned the DAC up (and the amp down to compensate). Which indicates to me that the amp is still being overdriven. I used to be able to get way better sound of this amp. Best way to explain it is saturation where something is near clipping but it doesn't sound like obvious distortion.
I appear to prefer the sound at volumes below 50 with the DAC where a little bit more balance and detail seems to appear.
But anyway, the point is I can use it I guess.

Will experiment further and bore y'all some more....
I still have my frankenstein XLR->RCA->RCA extender wire setup I haven't tried.
Maybe it may yield better results....

[garbulky]

^^ I knew I posted that way too soon. Some equalization has lent the sound a more familiar quality. Nowhere near there, but obviously some work needs to be done before properly figuring this out. Buckle down and all that.

[garbulky]

Update: 12 DB rather than 24db attenuation appears to work best for the headphone amp. It works but simply not as good as I know it can get. But it does offer me a fully functional setup now.

Also pasting my crews earbud review so my stuff can be organized:
Recently I decided to try and shed some weight and so to the gym I go. So, my next step was to get me some earbuds and here they are.


It was 10 bucks from wally world and at that price there's little to fault here but I figured I'd give it a fair shake.

On the output of an ipod it has some nice bass which is overaccentuated but pleasing. On an ipod it feels like it does get quite low! This bump makes the mid-range and treble feel recessed. However compared to the apple genuine earbuds, sorry I meant apple POS buds these were a night and day difference. At medium volumes it does well (for the price) but quickly gets harsh if pushed very loud.
The test song was Cimorelli's stronger video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OJZAmRFWEk
It's not a good recording as it has heavy compression but it's a great test of how much cheap stuff will annoy you. The girls voices tend to be at a frequency that made the apple earbuds cry uncle and sounded awful. But it is a good test to see how well it can replicate it as the different stuff I have replicate them significantly difference.
The crews performed better than the apple iPuss-buds here. It was almost bearable and I could make out the differences in the voices when they were harmonizing. But turn it up too loud and it replicates the apple buds sound signature distortion pretty much 100%. It still helped me enjoy my workout.
FUN's some nights fared much much better. It was a very good experience and I would say it has about the same quality as $150 PC surround speakers within it's range and in many cases beat them handily.

But wait! There IS a soundstage and it's quite seamless which is quality I've noticed where earbuds did better vs my hd600. Sounds were placed all around me with maybe just a tiny hint of depth. However there is a lack of air. It feels slightly muffled sort of like an oppressive silence.

These earbuds are rated as 98db/1mw and 16 ohm impedance so I figured why not push it with my xenos 3ha headphone amp which 755 miliwatts into a 32 ohm load. ;D
The headphone amp was connected to the XDA-1.

Did I bother with WASAPI output which I go on and on about?
Heck no! These are $10 phones. ;D

Agreed Ms. Sweet Brown!

I preferred the sound of it connected to the ipod when compared to the xda-1 with the headphone amplifier. It seemed to have been tailored for the ipod's sound signature/power/quality which may explain the difference. It got upto halfway on the volume pot before it started distorting just like with the ipod.


Comparisions.
Compared to my wife's $14-17 shure headphones, the shures had less bass but that was because they were more neutral.

Switching over to my sennheisser HD600's, bought about a far more open and "airy" sound where the hd600's walked all over it. However the difference wasn't a 40X difference. It was more like a 40% nicer difference. So that's pretty good.

Switching to my axiom m80 towers also left it completely out of the water. There is something delicious about sounds floating in the air that none of my headphones have.


So are they worth it? Very much so. It provided a nice seal, some soundstage and most importantly for an audiophile - DID NOT FALL OUT OF MY EARS while on the treadmill. Which happened often with the apple earbuds which lead to this.

If you have an extra 5 bucks go for the shure set they sell as it is more neutral and can handle a higher volume and are overall significantly better.

[garbulky]

Just purchased the UCA 202. My asus xonar essence cannot handle a full line level input for recording and it appears that this can. I just hope that it's quality is even slightly close tothe xonar essence. As the quality from the essence's recording inputs were fantastic. I'll try to post some comparison audio if everybody promises not to be cruel to my pitch poor voice.

[garbulky]

Exciting news...I may get to audition the Tekton pendragons!

[garbulky]

A bunch of stuff is coming in.
Meanwhile, I have taken my first step towards building JLAFRENZ's passive attenuator!
Behold... a block of wood to provide bracing during drilling.

[garbulky]

the first of the goodies came in and it's a behringer UCA 202 analog to digital converter. From brief impressions, the functionality that it gives you is huge especially when you realize it provides an spdif output direct to the xda-1 allowing analog input into the xda-1 at 48khz!!!For 30 bucks!! That's crazy when you realize that's not the reason I bought it for. Unfortunately I got delivered some really heavy news. It may put me out of commission for a while on my experiments. But maybe not. I'll try to post when I can.

[Dark Ranger]

Congrats on the new gear.

Apr 24, 2013 18:10:46 GMT -5 garbulky said:

Unfortunately I got delivered some really heavy news. It may put me out of commission for a while on my experiments. But maybe not. I'll try to post when I can.

That sounds ominous. Take care of yourself and your loved ones, that's more important. I hope everything works out for you, garbulky.

[garbulky]

Apr 24, 2013 18:32:05 GMT -5 Dark Ranger said:

Congrats on the new gear.

Apr 24, 2013 18:10:46 GMT -5 garbulky said:

Unfortunately I got delivered some really heavy news. It may put me out of commission for a while on my experiments. But maybe not. I'll try to post when I can.

That sounds ominous. Take care of yourself and your loved ones, that's more important. I hope everything works out for you, garbulky.

Thanks a lot darkranger. I don't know how it will affect me as yet, but it already is I guess, but it's about illness of a loved one.

Update: I ran into some issues with sound quality of the UCA-202 on the laptop but no such ones on the desktop. Appears to do with the quality of the power it takes from the USB connection.

[GreenKiwi]

You might try plugging it into a powered USB hub.

[GreenKiwi]

I hope for the best for your loved one.

[garbulky]

Thanks for the kind words green kiwi. A USB powered hub actually sounds like a good idea. I'm not entirely sure whether that would fix the issue but I don't see why not. The sound I get is a high pitched swishing sound or whispering sound going between two notes sort of like a varying sound wave.It also happens to be the same sound (but a little reduced) that I get from my laptops internal microphone. So I don't know if it is a deeper problem than can be fixed with a USB hub. I've tried without the laptop plugged into the wall and disconnected from everything except for the behringer and also tried it plugged into the wall without the battery inside. Same noise.

[KeithL]

The USB power and grounds from most computers are somewhat noisy, and taht noise can often creep into USB powered DACs and other devices, especially when you connect them to an audio system with its own ground. If the noise varies when you move things on the screen (like when programs run), then you would probably benefit from a USB ground isolator (that's a little $40 gadget; a hub will NOT isolate the ground). The fact that you hear the same sound from your microphone suggests that this is what it is (noise on your computer's power or ground bus).

Apr 25, 2013 15:33:52 GMT -5 garbulky said:

Thanks for the kind words green kiwi. A USB powered hub actually sounds like a good idea. I'm not entirely sure whether that would fix the issue but I don't see why not. The sound I get is a high pitched swishing sound or whispering sound going between two notes sort of like a varying sound wave.It also happens to be the same sound (but a little reduced) that I get from my laptops internal microphone. So I don't know if it is a deeper problem than can be fixed with a USB hub. I've tried without the laptop plugged into the wall and disconnected from everything except for the behringer and also tried it plugged into the wall without the battery inside. Same noise.

[garbulky]

Hi Keith. The noise is a constant which does not change when you use a mouse or programs run. Also interesting is that the xda-1 via usb is dead silent. Also as Im not sure what the ground isolator does, the behringer ADC is powered solely by the usb cable so hopefully it won't affect the power to the device?

[KeithL]

Actually you've got that last part entirely backwards.

I haven't played much with ADCs, but the overall situation should be similar to that with DACs. I've had several USB-powered DACs with headphone outputs that sound perfectly quiet when you use headphones (which are basically isolated), but make those little "chortling" noises when you connect them with a cable to a stereo system which has its own ground with a cable. The problem is that both the ground and the +5 on the USB cable are noisy - because the computer's power supply they are connected to is noisy. When you connect the USB-powered device to a stereo (with its own ground), the noise appears as a difference between them, and ends up on the audio signal. (The ground in the cable going to the stereo isn't heavy enough to "overpower" the noise difference between them. nothing IS isolated.)

I have NEVER heard this problem with any AC powered DAC - presumably because its power supply is referenced to the same ground as the audio system. (The ground noise difference between the computer and the AC powered DAC doesn't matter since a little noise doesn't bother a digital signal.)

In all cases (with DACs), putting a USB isolator in between the computer and the DAC made the noise go away. The USB isolator is a little gadget that actually transformer-isolates the USB data signal AND also totally isolates the USB 5V supply and ground (it has an itsy bitsy isolated 5V switching supply in it).

The one I've used is by www.electronics-shop.dk (it's called "USB 2.0 Isolator - Full Speed - 12 MBit") and is about $39, but there are lots of others and I suspect they are all about equal. Note that USB hubs do NOT isolate the power lines like an isolator does. The isolator isolates BOTH the data lines and the power lines.

Apr 25, 2013 16:27:00 GMT -5 garbulky said:

Hi Keith. The noise is a constant which does not change when you use a mouse or programs run. Also interesting is that the xda-1 via usb is dead silent. Also as Im not sure what the ground isolator does, the behringer ADC is powered solely by the usb cable so hopefully it won't affect the power to the device?

[garbulky]

Thanks Keith. I appreciate the time you took to educate me on that device. Sounds like it is what is needed!
Maybe someday when I have the money I will purchase it but it is $10 bucks more than the behringer itself so I have to think about that.
Anyway, something interesting about it is that the laptop is playing PCM audio directly in DAC mode through usb into the behringer and then outputting (analog) via its RCA jacks to my headphone amp, the sound is dead quiet - none of the previous problems. So it has to do with how the analog audio input is being affected affected somehow but only when connected to the laptops USB.

Anyway a review will be forthcoming on it.

[garbulky]

And the goodies came in!


The MXL V67g just like in all photos you see of them look FAR better in real life. It looks better than the Luna IMO and I love the old school look of the Luna. It has a very nice green look to it with shiny gold bands and a very subtle gold mesh around it. In pictures the colors on the mesh and the bands don't look nearly as nice.

I have been experimenting with them. They blend surprisingly well. From initial impressions the MXL V67g has a warmer tone. While the M-audio Luna may have a little more detail retrieval. But the MXL casts a wide tone in stereo while the m-audio appears to cast a studio recording in a small room soundstage to the voice. Both are very good. But the V67g is a steal at a 100 compared to the 250 of the Luna. It really really is.
What was really cool is that my piano has never sounded more realistic than through a stereo recording field. I was shocked at how much of an amazing difference recording things in stereo made. The voice sounds great and fully integrated.
Both of them pick up tremendous detail from a distance and certainly bring the stereo field into life. For instance they both picked up the piano well from 10 feet away well off to their side.
Stereo recording allows us tremendous flexibility in sound and music creation. The condensers were certainly the right choice as most of our recordings were done so far with us simply relaxing on the couch and the microphones doing the grunt working of making things sound good. And everything just blends. No compensation for that.
It's everything I imagined and more.

[GreenKiwi]

Wow! That mic just look KOOL!

[ocezam]

Apr 28, 2013 10:45:29 GMT -5 GreenKiwi said:

Wow! That mic just look KOOL!

Yeah, I agree. Both of them look pretty retro. Really bitchin in my book.

...

[garbulky]

Thank you oceazam and greenkiwi. I gravitate towards the old school look. I especially like the retro look with just a touch of modern flair. My wife really likes them too. What's nice is that the old recording desktop has a very loud fan but it is barely audible in the recordings as the mics reject most of the sound from the rear. But it will pick up us turning sheet music loud as ever!
I just did my first experiment with windows movie maker. Being brand new to video editing - damn it's cumbersome! It's a real pain to sync the audio and the video. But I'm still learning....
I don't know what I'd do when I have to sync multiple clips to their respective audios and combine them!

In other news, ongoing update on the behringer ADC/DAC. It's some serious value for the money and also performs very well in DAC mode. For $30 bucks I can't see anybody being dissapointed with it if they don't have ground loops to worry about.

Meanwhile I replaced the volume knobs on my microphone phantom power pre-amp. The old ones were coming off. The new knobs are slightly too large and push against the LED and could use a smoother action but it works and looks allright.