Old news to some, new to me

[OCNewbie]

Quick intro. I have recently gotten into some pricier headphones ($100-$150 range). And I just got the Sennheiser HD555's thanks to this forum from Amazon. Anyway, I was using them on my old SB Live! Value card with the most recent drivers provided by Creative. Well, they had a nice sound, but I guess I was underwhelmed. I happened upon a post with a link to the KX Project, which is a group? making updated drivers for old SB Live! cards and Audigy too as well.

Anyway, to the "deal". I decided to try these out, and I am very very impressed & pleased with these. I wasn't even sure if these would make a difference in sound quality, but it's like night & day.

So for those of you who wish to use headphones with their old SB Live! card and are still using Creative drivesr, give KX Project drivers a shot if you want good quality for music. I'm amazed at the improvement. Don't forget after the drivers are installed you'll need to plug your headphones into the rear-out (black) plug, instead of the regular green one. You'll be happy you tried em out =) This deal is definitely hot for me.

Just looked this up on the KX website, using the black/rear output is supposed to result in better sound quality.

 

[Glendor]

Anybody else try it yet? Looking for more opinions...

 

[OCNewbie]

I believe it's easily reverseable if you don't like it. Has an uninstaller, then you can just re-install the old drivers. If you have some decent headphones, and a SB Live card, and enjoy listening to music on them, I highly recommend trying these drivers. I'm seriously impressed by the big improvement.

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: Glendor
Anybody else try it yet? Looking for more opinions...

Same boat

I am thinking of trying the softmod as described in General Hardware.

Also This should be in General Hardware or Peripherals

 

[cremefilled]

Not for gamers --

DirectSound3D support is under constant development, however it can cause issues with some games.

At present the kX driver is aimed primarily at musicians. . . Features designed specifically for gamers will however be added as development of the drivers continues

 

[BlackGlove]

Just got some Logitech speakers from my wife this christmas which includes 6 satellite speakers plus a subwoofer (6.1).....but I could not find the 6.1 speaker set up on my SoundBlaster Live. I can hook up 5.1 and 7.1 but not 6.1. Anyone know how to get around this? Does KX Project support 6.1? I believe I have the latest updates for the card.

 

[housecat]

nice, i used these on my audigy, went from a total piece of crap card that was disabled in sys properties to what it was supposed to be in the first place....

you can tell the difference even on cheap headphones. much more detailed sound.

heres to till we get a soundstorm on pcie. :beer:

 

[fr]

Does this still let me use the Creative Mixer? I've grown quite fond of it.

 

[cremefilled]

The Audigy cards have nice specs, and in the reviews I have seen that have the technical facilities to test, they have measured quite well -- with the Creative drivers. I am quite skeptical about how these open source drivers could sound markedly better; I can understand smaller driver footprint, less CPU usage, etc., but as far as digital/analog conversion, which is what comprises the intrinsic sound quality, this is really a matter of the hardware, not the software.

I wonder if these drivers add a bit of "corrective" eq -- even if this will actually deviate from a flat freq. response. A couple of years back, the mp3 player Sonique was touting its "superior" sound. It turns out that everyone else was decoding with a flat frequency response, and Sonique was boosting both the bass & the treble.

To make an accurate test, you'd really need to have A/B testing with sound pressure levels matched to at least within 0.5 dB. If you could, I'd bet that A) there's no substantive difference, or B) the new drivers are adding eq.

Btw, if you have audiophile aspirations, hooking up headphones directly to a soundcard is not a good idea. Line-out jacks are meant to drive line-level inputs, meaning something on the order of 100,000 ohms of purely resistive impedance. Driving headphones is like driving tiny speakers, with an uneven impedance bottoming out in the 50 ohm range.

 

[housecat]

try them....

its pretty clear that they dont add EQ automatically.. you set it on "flat" and its very much flat.. and thats how the drivers come loaded. you DO have access to a 12band EQ though, something Creative never gave us.

from my experience, Creative actually hinders their older cards performance through their drivers... install the Audigy2ZS drivers on a Audigy1.. you'll see a massive improvement in quality that way as well.

but being one who has done this, can say the kxproject is the best way to go.

 

[Dizway]

My ATI AIW TV program doesn't detect the audio. No sound. I've reinstalled MMC w/ no luck.

 

[OCNewbie]

Best bet is to try the forums over at KX Project for troubleshooting I'd think.

Forum Link

 

[housecat]

Thats the other company I try to avoid (after experience with them), other than Creative... ATI.

I have a TV Wonder... all I wonder is how they managed to write such crappy software.