Logitech Z-5500's... Will a better sound card (Have integrated evga 680i) improve my music listening?

[mattjbak]

As the title says. I'm new to audio, but these speakers are blowing me away... caused me to rediscover my love of music. Would a new soundcard improve my listening experience at all? Thanks all!

Edit: I'm using the optical out and the effect is set to Dolby PLII Music.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

If you're going to stick with a digital connection, then probably not. If you went with a new card and went with analog output, then you'd notice more of a difference.

You may want to try different settings first to see what you prefer for music. Long ago I had it in my head that having all speakers playing was obviously the way to go, but in the case of music, listening in 2.1 has its advantages. You should probably try that and see what you think. Except in the case of multichannel audio (like DVD-A), music is recorded in stereo and intended to be played back that way. When you apply surround processing like PLII, you can miss some of the experience.

If you're able to sit in a good position centered between the front two speakers, you'll naturally get the feeling of a "center channel" from just the two speakers. Fancy words like imaging, soundstage, etc. come into play as well
Just give it a chance for a day and see what you think. It naturally wont feel as immersive as having all the speakers playing, but it depends on what you're looking (listening?) for. Once I gave it a shot long ago, I could see why most "audiophiles" go for a strictly 2 channel setup for music listening.

 

[mattjbak]

So are you saying 2.1 analog with a new soundcard would be better than 2.1 digital with what I have currently? If so which card is recommened? Wouldn't digital be better with a new card? Confused.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: mattjbak
So are you saying 2.1 analog with a new soundcard would be better than 2.1 digital with what I have currently? If so which card is recommened? Wouldn't digital be better with a new card? Confused.

I'm saying try 2.1 digital first since that would be a free thing to try and you may like it more.

If you want to improve things further, a good high quality analog card could give you better results.

What kind of source are you listening to? Your quality is going to be limited by your weakest link in the chain.

btw:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=1940133&enterthread=y

 

[mattjbak]

Thanks for all of the help, my mp3 collection is massive, mostly high quality bitrate or lately I've been getting lossless stuff when I can.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: mattjbak
Thanks for all of the help, my mp3 collection is massive, mostly high quality bitrate or lately I've been getting lossless stuff when I can.

If you're really into music, you might consider going a step up from computer speakers.

I don't know how important this is to you, but there are huge gains to be had for getting into "real" speakers.

 

[yhelothar]

Best way I found for me to improve my listening experience was to listen to a pair of REAL speakers.
I never knew what music reaaally sounded like until I heard my neighbor's $15k audiophile speakers.
This gave me a reference point that allowed me to listen to music in a whole nother way.
Listening to music was no longer just getting into the beat and listening to the tune. It was a complete sound experience.
When you go into the realm of high quality audio, it's not just about listening to music. It's about the experience, feeling like the band is performing in front of you, feeling the atmosphere the band is playing in, feeling every distinct instrument and sound from their respective positions.

The first thing I would recommend doing, is what YoYo stated, listen to your speakers in 2.1 mode. Having all 5 speakers playing ruins the stereo imaging of how the music was recorded. Despite what seems obvious, a good 2 speaker setup actually sounds more surround than any 5.1 speakers can provide. A good 2 channel speaker would basically deliver sound to your ears exactly as the microphone heard it. So it's almost like you're sitting where the microphone is right in front of the band.

Try this. Put your speakers in 2 channel mode, and put each speaker about 5" adjacent to each ear. This is an easy way to really experience stereo effect from the average speaker.

 

[darkswordsman17]

To save you from going to crazy and overwhelming you or making you feel like crap for not having $50,000 speakers, I think the best things for you to do would be:

Digital out from your motherboard to the Z-5500s. Let the control module do its thing. For music (other than specifically mixed surround recordings) do the normal 2 channel (unless you just need a lot of sound say for a party). Its more of a personal opinion, but remember the music was mixed and intended for 2 channel playback. For movies I think it should automatically adjust to DD5.1/DTS depending on what signal its being sent.

Now, look at your source. You say higher-bitrate MP3s. Are these your own rippings or someone else's? The reason I ask is a lot of people will actually rip music at 128k and then re-encode to higher bitrates (which is pointless). I would go through and try to upgrade your source. If you have the space use lossless (do not just convert MP3 to lossless as it just extrapolating the missing data and isn't actually higher quality). For ripping you can consider going through and using Exact Audio Copy and then convert from that but that might be more hassle than its worth (its not bad once you get used to it and have it setup well, but starting out its kinda a pain).

Now, what software do you use for playback? Foobar2000 is a good one. It's a little spartan although very customizable and can be very powerful if you get it setup properly. I think there's even a way to set it up to use say the iTunes interface but the foobar mixers and things. I don't think you can probably get bit-perfect output, so normal digital is probably about the best out from your motherboard.

I would check the control panel stuff for your board's audio to try and make sure that its not messing with the sound any. Likewise, I would suggest, at the very least for when you're getting everything setup to turn off all equlization being done and to normalize your speakers settings on the Z-5500 control pod (set them all to the same settings, and the same for the treble and bass settings). You can always play with settings later if you want to tweak the sound a bit more to your liking, but sometimes the various parts of the chain won't do a good job and by the time you get the end result it sounds worse than it can (especially if you have several of the parts doing their own manipulation of the sound along the way). If you are really used to using a certain program you might do some searching and see if there's a certain version or something that is the best quality. WMP and iTunes while not bad, aren't the best sound quality wise. At the very least go through the settings and turn off any extra effects (I know there's several in WMP such as SRS TruBass and other stuff).

So here's how to maximize quality with your setup:
EAC ripped->Converted to lossless or high bitrate MP3/AAC using a good encoder->Good quality software->Digital out from motherboard->Z-5500

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
To save you from going to crazy and overwhelming you or making you feel like crap for not having $50,000 speakers, I think the best things for you to do would be:

Digital out from your motherboard to the Z-5500s. Let the control module do its thing. For music (other than specifically mixed surround recordings) do the normal 2 channel (unless you just need a lot of sound say for a party). Its more of a personal opinion, but remember the music was mixed and intended for 2 channel playback. For movies I think it should automatically adjust to DD5.1/DTS depending on what signal its being sent.

Now, look at your source. You say higher-bitrate MP3s. Are these your own rippings or someone else's? The reason I ask is a lot of people will actually rip music at 128k and then re-encode to higher bitrates (which is pointless). I would go through and try to upgrade your source. If you have the space use lossless (do not just convert MP3 to lossless as it just extrapolating the missing data and isn't actually higher quality). For ripping you can consider going through and using Exact Audio Copy and then convert from that but that might be more hassle than its worth (its not bad once you get used to it and have it setup well, but starting out its kinda a pain).

Now, what software do you use for playback? Foobar2000 is a good one. It's a little spartan although very customizable and can be very powerful if you get it setup properly. I think there's even a way to set it up to use say the iTunes interface but the foobar mixers and things. I don't think you can probably get bit-perfect output, so normal digital is probably about the best out from your motherboard.

I would check the control panel stuff for your board's audio to try and make sure that its not messing with the sound any. Likewise, I would suggest, at the very least for when you're getting everything setup to turn off all equlization being done and to normalize your speakers settings on the Z-5500 control pod (set them all to the same settings, and the same for the treble and bass settings). You can always play with settings later if you want to tweak the sound a bit more to your liking, but sometimes the various parts of the chain won't do a good job and by the time you get the end result it sounds worse than it can (especially if you have several of the parts doing their own manipulation of the sound along the way). If you are really used to using a certain program you might do some searching and see if there's a certain version or something that is the best quality. WMP and iTunes while not bad, aren't the best sound quality wise. At the very least go through the settings and turn off any extra effects (I know there's several in WMP such as SRS TruBass and other stuff).

So here's how to maximize quality with your setup:
EAC ripped->Converted to lossless or high bitrate MP3/AAC using a good encoder->Good quality software->Digital out from motherboard->Z-5500

He's not going to hear the difference between MP3 and lossless with his logitech speakers.
The recording quality would probably make a FAR greater difference than all those things you stated.
I would recommend doing a few blind tests to find the transparent bitrate. Foobar's abx compare is a good one. The facts are that most people can't even hear the difference above 128kbps bitrate.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: astroidea

He's not going to hear the difference between MP3 and lossless with his logitech speakers.
The recording quality would probably make a FAR greater difference than all those things you stated.
I would recommend doing a few blind tests to find the transparent bitrate. Foobar's abx compare is a good one. The facts are that most people can't even hear the difference above 128kbps bitrate.

The reason I said to do that is to be certain that he's starting with a high quality source (as high as he could likely get). A lot of pirated music is ripped so incredibly badly that its low quality will show through on all but the poorest of speakers (I'm talking $20 computer speakers). In fact it is the main reason I stopped pirating music. I could tell the difference on even the ibuds on an iPod.

Doing ABX tests don't matter if he just wants to make sure he's getting the highest quality he can, it doesn't really matter that he can't necessarily tell the difference. Besides its not like storage space is hard to come by, and this will keep him from re-ripping again in the future if he does go higher quality. Even most laptops these days have enough hard drive space to store your music in relatively high quality.

Part of the reason that a lot of people don't have a problem with the 128k AAC files on iTunes is that a lot of times its still better quality than the pirated rips they have. Plus they have people tell them they can't tell the difference anyway so they don't bother. Personally, I think this latter is a big cause for why its so difficult to get a good quality recording anymore. People keep getting told they can't tell the difference so corners keep getting cut and its compounding. Just my opinion though. I understand your point, and even agree with it to an extent.

 

[Biomorphic]

Originally posted by: mattjbak
As the title says. I'm new to audio, but these speakers are blowing me away... caused me to rediscover my love of music. Would a new soundcard improve my listening experience at all? Thanks all!

Edit: I'm using the optical out and the effect is set to Dolby PLII Music.

I guess you all went a bit irrelevant. The question was about choosing between an integrated sound codec and a discrete sound card.

Let me first point out that I have a Logitech Z-5500 speaker system, a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi and a Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit. You may wish to have a look at my full configuration at the link below.

Let integrated sound alone but there is a world of difference when you hear the Logitech Z-5500 with the X-Fi and the Live! 24-bit. I tried my new Z-5500 with the Live! 24-bit and sound quality was superb and flawless. When I plugged my Z-5500 with my X-Fi I was simply stunned. I heard what I have never heard before in my life and believe what I am saying because I already own Technics, PolkAudio, Altec Lansing and Logitech (both, the Z-5400 and the Z-5500) speakers.

Most, if not all, reviews bring the Z-5500 on par with the Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 in terms of sound quality. However, the Z-5500 has got a bonus and it is the lifetime of its amplifier which is way better than the ProMedia Ultra 5.1 as most of the latter's amplifiers got burnt after a year of heavy use whereas the Logitech's amplifiers have not got any complain yet.

Now, coming onto the choice of effect, it is true that stereo decoding is best to listen to 2 channel audio and you do have the option of using stereo/stereo x2 with the Z-5500 and the question of compromise does not even arise here.

I guess I have made myself clear and I have also answered the initial question.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Biomorphic

Originally posted by: mattjbak
As the title says. I'm new to audio, but these speakers are blowing me away... caused me to rediscover my love of music. Would a new soundcard improve my listening experience at all? Thanks all!

Edit: I'm using the optical out and the effect is set to Dolby PLII Music.

I guess you all went a bit irrelevant. The question was about choosing between an integrated sound codec and a discrete sound card.

Let me first point out that I have a Logitech Z-5500 speaker system, a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi and a Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit. You may wish to have a look at my full configuration at the link below.

Let integrated sound alone but there is a world of difference when you hear the Logitech Z-5500 with the X-Fi and the Live! 24-bit. I tried my new Z-5500 with the Live! 24-bit and sound quality was superb and flawless. When I plugged my Z-5500 with my X-Fi I was simply stunned. I heard what I have never heard before in my life and believe what I am saying because I already own Technics, PolkAudio, Altec Lansing and Logitech (both, the Z-5400 and the Z-5500) speakers.

Most, if not all, reviews bring the Z-5500 on par with the Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 in terms of sound quality. However, the Z-5500 has got a bonus and it is the lifetime of its amplifier which is way better than the ProMedia Ultra 5.1 as most of the latter's amplifiers got burnt after a year of heavy use whereas the Logitech's amplifiers have not got any complain yet.

Now, coming onto the choice of effect, it is true that stereo decoding is best to listen to 2 channel audio and you do have the option of using stereo/stereo x2 with the Z-5500 and the question of compromise does not even arise here.

I guess I have made myself clear and I have also answered the initial question.

If you're using a digital output from your soundcard, then it makes no difference whether you use a Creative card or an onboard chip. The limiting factor is going to be the DAC chip, which, in the case of a digital connection to the speakers, is going to be the speakers' in either case.

 

[Biomorphic]

Originally posted by: MrChad
If you're using a digital output from your soundcard, then it makes no difference whether you use a Creative card or an onboard chip. The limiting factor is going to be the DAC chip, which, in the case of a digital connection to the speakers, is going to be the speakers' in either case.

I do not think integrated sound codecs got better processing than sound cards and integrated sound codecs put load on the CPU whereas sound cards do not. Moreover, integrated sound quality is affected by noises of the motherboard and it does not support EAX Advanced HD 5.0 unlike the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi.

Another advantage of the sound card is when you have to upgrade your machine. Change whatever you want, your sound card and the sound quality will not be affected.

Last but not least, the software suite you get with a sound card simply cannot be compared to the mediocre application you get with integrated sound codec.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Biomorphic
I do not think integrated sound codecs got better processing than sound cards and integrated sound codecs put load on the CPU whereas sound cards do not.

That's irrelevant in terms of sound quality, which is what we're debating here.

Moreover, integrated sound quality is affected by noises of the motherboard and it does not support EAX Advanced HD 5.0 unlike the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi.

This is consumer-grade hardware, not audiophile-level equipment. Electrical interference is not going to have a noticeable affect on the sound quality. EAX has nothing to do with sound quality.

Another advantage of the sound card is when you have to upgrade your machine. Change whatever you want, your sound card and the sound quality will not be affected.

Again, my point has to do with sound quality. If you're bypassing the DAC chip in your computer or on your sound card, your sound quality should be the same. This is NOT true if you use the analog outputs.

Last but not least, the software suite you get with a sound card simply cannot be compared to the mediocre application you get with integrated sound codec.

This may affect sound quality, but there are high quality free applications that will work with any sound output device.

 

[Biomorphic]

Originally posted by: mattjbak
As the title says. I'm new to audio, but these speakers are blowing me away... caused me to rediscover my love of music. Would a new soundcard improve my listening experience at all? Thanks all!

Edit: I'm using the optical out and the effect is set to Dolby PLII Music.

MrChad, the initial question was about how to enhance the listening experience and what I have said so far was totally justified.

Concerning sound processing, not all integrated sound codecs will give you DTS and Dolby hardware decoding at the same time or none will be even featured.

EAX Advanced HD 5.0 is for sure an enhancement in providing a better listening experience when playing games which in turn are becoming more and more hungry for newer technology support.

Moving onto the upgrade option, I think you are right but on the other hand I do not know any free application which has built-in decoders for DTS and Dolby.

Now, let us imagine a scenario where mattjbak has just bought a film on DVD with DTS and Dolby. The speakers to be used are not mere ones, they are the Logitech Z-5500, one of the best sound systems for computer audio if not the best. Do you think mattjbak will be able to enhance his listening experience with an integrated sound codec without DTS or Dolby support? Moreover, if just like the integrated sound codec his VGA also is integrated and he has got limited RAM and a Sempron/Celeron CPU, don't you think the performance of the playback will be affected?

 

[MrChad]

Biomorphic, I understand what you're trying to say, but I think we're talking about different things.

EAX Advanced HD 5.0 is for sure an enhancement in providing a better listening experience when playing games which in turn are becoming more and more hungry for newer technology support.

If he is gaming, EAX is certainly a feature he will probably want. The question, however, was:

Will a better sound card ... improve my music listening?

Do you think mattjbak will be able to enhance his listening experience with an integrated sound codec without DTS or Dolby support?

Yes. He's outputting a digital signal to his speakers, which has Dolby/DTS decoding built in.

Moreover, if just like the integrated sound codec his VGA also is integrated and he has got limited RAM and a Sempron/Celeron CPU, don't you think the performance of the playback will be affected?

It may affect his framerates in games, but again, my response is based solely on his desire to improve his music listening experience.

 

[Biomorphic]

Was it only for music? :shocked:

Oops...

Mom is calling me. See you later, guys!