Soundcard purchase, help fellow ns2'ers
Ok so I got the g4me zeros and it's a really solid headset. When playing games specifically everything sounds pretty good, low bass (which means no annoying boom to clutter other sounds and so forth). But it's clear when doing other things (music etc) that the headphones feel 'weak' after doing some quick research it's clear that onboard audio does not have enough ohms/dB to power the headset (or w/e)
So the headset is the g4me zero and this is apparently the relevant stuff
Headphone Frequency Response
10Hz-26KHz
Headphone Input Impedance
150 ohm
Headphone Sensitivity
108 dB
Microphone Frequency Response
50Hz-16KHz
Microphone Sensitivity
-38 dBV at 94 dBSPL
So I'm no audiophile and will be strictly playing games, and sometimes enjoying some music. But I do want to power these headphones so I can get their 'true' audio so to say. I don't want crazy 'bass' in games like the siberia v2's gave me.. the way they sound in-game with the onboard now is actually pretty great, almost no bass and etc. But cleaner/clearer audio can do nothing but help.
So I was looking at some soundcards, but some of the prices were insane for me personally after just buying the headset -- and a lot of them were for 'audiophile' music listeners. So I was looking at more budget friendly ones. And this one took my interest -- it has more dB than whatever the headphone rating is (I couldn't find a 108 exact) and says it has a lot of 'ohms' (I have no idea what this is) with its headphone amp built in. And the reviews said the software was fairly simple to use which is a plus, and it doesn't require power from the PSU.
So basically I want to really use the headphones and have some clear audio quality compared to the realtek onboard I've only ever used. But don't want 'bass' while in-games, I'm assuming everything will be adjustable?
Sound Blaster Z: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102048
What do you guys think? If you have any other recommendations let me know, I'm not looking for any 5.1/7.1 surreal setups or anything as these are stereo headphones and I use pretty much nothing else. Also I'd like to keep this under $120 as I don't see myself as someone who 'loves to hear the strings of the guitar after the finger strums it ever so gently'
Thanks in advance, will also be copying/pasting this elsewhere so if you've seen it twice sorry.
So the headset is the g4me zero and this is apparently the relevant stuff
Headphone Frequency Response
10Hz-26KHz
Headphone Input Impedance
150 ohm
Headphone Sensitivity
108 dB
Microphone Frequency Response
50Hz-16KHz
Microphone Sensitivity
-38 dBV at 94 dBSPL
So I'm no audiophile and will be strictly playing games, and sometimes enjoying some music. But I do want to power these headphones so I can get their 'true' audio so to say. I don't want crazy 'bass' in games like the siberia v2's gave me.. the way they sound in-game with the onboard now is actually pretty great, almost no bass and etc. But cleaner/clearer audio can do nothing but help.
So I was looking at some soundcards, but some of the prices were insane for me personally after just buying the headset -- and a lot of them were for 'audiophile' music listeners. So I was looking at more budget friendly ones. And this one took my interest -- it has more dB than whatever the headphone rating is (I couldn't find a 108 exact) and says it has a lot of 'ohms' (I have no idea what this is) with its headphone amp built in. And the reviews said the software was fairly simple to use which is a plus, and it doesn't require power from the PSU.
So basically I want to really use the headphones and have some clear audio quality compared to the realtek onboard I've only ever used. But don't want 'bass' while in-games, I'm assuming everything will be adjustable?
Sound Blaster Z: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102048
What do you guys think? If you have any other recommendations let me know, I'm not looking for any 5.1/7.1 surreal setups or anything as these are stereo headphones and I use pretty much nothing else. Also I'd like to keep this under $120 as I don't see myself as someone who 'loves to hear the strings of the guitar after the finger strums it ever so gently'
Thanks in advance, will also be copying/pasting this elsewhere so if you've seen it twice sorry.
Comments
Sound Blaster has a history of making great sound cards.
One thing the soundblaster has is "SBX and Dolby" apparently those are terrible for games, but good to use for like a movie or something. I don't want to be destroyed by bass like previous headsets when gaming, but did enjoy it during music -- the bass in games actually makes it harder to hear and it also draws your focus for a split second even if you've heard it a thousand times. DMing in CS for a few hours and I was actually playing better because I didn't hear those constant loud noises drawing my attention -- sounds silly or placebo but it's true.
Should look something like this:
Quite so, even my ancient Soundblaster Audigy SE still works great to this day.
The only relevent piece of info to me in regards to your issue is the impedance, most headphones weigh in at 32 ohms and under, most powerful headphones that sound great are around 64 ohms give or take. Your headphones are behemoths to be requiring 150 ohms, but properly powered they should sound awesome.
Anyway, check out this video (and it's sequel):
then if you have any further questions, ask away. But the general recommendation is you should be looking for an external amplifier that will put out the power to drive your 150 ohm headphones, don't need anything more than that.
Yeah they're in the front audio ports, for whatever reason my motherboard has custom realtek drivers I think and does not offer selecting 'headphones' for random rear panel ports. Only the front end can use the 'headphone' setting (iirc) Either way I'm positive they're set to headphone, in the speaker test though it says 'stereo' but I assume that just means 2 speakers.
Oh no they can get pretty loud. I actually had my windows/driver at 100% for all my old headsets, and when I set the volume control on the headset itself to lowest, it still sounded like 40%.. enough to listen to music and game, so I lowered windows to 50% and even with the headset at lowest I can still hear in-game! Lol.
The one I linked isn't very expensive, if I had the money I'd go for those HT Claro's.. those look sick, and they say for high impedance headphones you can select the ohms and turn the jumpers to high.. whatever that means.
I'm going to check out the video now, however from what I can tell the soundcard I linked has a built in headphone/microphone amp! Also it comes with a microphone that you plug in and all it does is monitor background noise and try to filter it from your microphone. Sounds cool but the headset I got is actually a boom mic or something, so it only takes sound from like one direction I believe -- pretty much cancels outside noise.. couldn't hear my AC in my voice recording at all and I can hear it in person through the headset slightly
From what I read about this soundblaster, it offers a mode where you can equalize/adjust audio to your liking, and then a true 'stereo mode' for headphones which gives you 'direct' audio? Through an amped 600ohms whatever. That sounds pretty good, the price is reasonable, it requires no power from my PSU, and the drivers are reported to be quite stable. I'll keep reading about but this may be my purchase and exactly what I need to get the most out of these headphones
Also most sound cards can do that equalise functionality, even your onboard can probably do it.
Don't spend extra for 600 ohm capability "just in case" you'll get a 600 ohm headphones. From my experience the best headphones out there clock in at 64 ohms, any higher and it doesn't seem to give a better experience. I don't mean to say that your 150 ohm headphones are bad, they're probably bad ass, but 600 ohms is really not something you'll ever encounter in real life short of spending excessive amounts of money.
The sound blaster Z will do what you need, but I honestly would recommend bumping up a bit and getting an external dac and amp.
Anyway, I'm not sure about external stuff -- and really I'm not looking to blow the bank here again cause I just got an SSD and this headset and they were not price friendly.
The sound blaster seems to do what I'm looking for and I don't really listen with these headphones anywhere but the pc - I'm not an ipod guy or anything, and in the car my sound system is actually pretty good (just need a stereo for that and direct aux) so I can't see this headset being used elsewhere at all!
If you think you know something better than the soundblaster for equal or friendlier price then by all means link me!
@ironsoul, I watched some of it but stopped because it lost my interested -- I'm sure it has a lot to explain and info for me to know but I'm just a gamer -- I just noticed the headsets were 'lacking' and did some quick research and it was my on-board audio holding back the headset (much like how a game running at 300 fps is held back by a 60hz monitor, the upgrade is massive. I assume the same thing will be said by me with a soundcard
I got my aune t1 for $150 actually, which is double the z card but I wouldn't call it breaking the bank. It will last you a lot longer, and have much more utility than a desktop card.
There are those fio external amps (not dac) that are similar in price of the z card, but I am inclined to think the z card might be better even.
Also, remember audio equipment does not depreciate like other computer equipment. Good audio from the 1960's is still good audio today if you see what I mean. What you buy now could potentially last you a long time.
I don't know exactly what you mean by sounds 'weak,' but if you're getting enough volume out of the headphones you don't need an extra amplifier. Your on board sound card already has a built in amplifier. The music might sound weak because, like you said, there is very little bass response. Do you notice the kick drum and bass guitar missing? This would be best corrected with an EQ. Amps and DACs have probably the least to do with the way the music sounds vs. the actual headphones themselves. (Amps basically take a small signal and make it larger)
People hear from around 20kHz to 20Hz across the sound spectrum. In order to hear an accurate representation of the music the speakers have to have a flat frequency response, but this is incredibly hard to do (cheaply).
lesnumeriques.com/casque-audio/sennheiser-g4me-zero-p18211/test.html I could only find this page in French, but you can let google translate it for you. The important part is at the bottom where the frequency response graph is. If you look at it, the high mids are all over the place. It's probably tuned that way to make voices or other noises easier to distinguish. A lot of the snap of the snare is around 5kHz and the cymbals have a lot of frequencies above 10kHz. At -15db these frequencies are completely washed out by the rest of the band/noise. You're probably not going to get that HIFI sound you're looking for out of these things.
I would attempt to fix the dips with an EQ before spending money. You probably already have an EQ on whatever you're using to play the music anyway. It's not going to cost you a thing to try it out. Just do the opposite of what you see on the graph to correct the dips and peaks.
-Mouse
I'm sure the sound blaster z or whatever it's called will be an excellent device, even if it can't fully power your headphones.
If you're a gamer, stick with Sound Blaster products. They might not be perfect either, but as far as gaming goes, light years better than anything else. And it works perfectly fine for music and movies as well. I'm using Sound Blaster Z with Altec Lansing MX5021 speakers and Logitech G230 headset. Btw, microphone settings on SB Z are awesome. The noise filtering and enhancement is fantastic so team mates in NS2 will hear you loud and clear. I'd prefer more driver updates, but at least what we already have works without problems, so that's good.
Set the Equalizer to something like this (make smaller steps for less intensity):
Gives very deep bass and very rich mid and high end, "rendering" sounds you might have never heard before. Again, tested with my hardware listed above, but should work on any other just as decent headset or speakers.
I'm no audiophile, I'm a gamer, my headset literally has gamer on it so I figure I'd go for a soundcard offering the same.
However someone said the soundblaster has a direct stereo option so that you get unfiltered audio with the headphone amp and it just lets you hear the headset how it should be. I think I'll try that before fooling with the equalizer.
I don't think I need to fool with the voice chat either? The microphone from what I tested on these sennheisers is pretty damn awesome and has outside noise cancel already in it - I'm pretty sure my voice recording didn't pick up my A/C and I can hear the thing so that was really cool.
One question for you though -- there is an 'ohms' option on the driver from what I've seen, what do I set it to for the 150 ohms, do I leave it default -- or enable that 600 ohms option? or is there another option elsewhere as I only saw a quick video of the driver( a lot of people say soundcards should have an option to set 'jumpers' to high and adjust ohms to your headset value in the driver) . And I assume you can save/backup all your settings? So I can upload it to a cloud and if I ever swap rigs I can just install the driver and boot up the profile for the same settings.
I've never heard anything besides on-board.. so I'm hoping this blows me away!
@rejzor
SBX Pro has the Surround and Crystalizer enabled (works fine on default setting) plus the EQ profile above. First one improves 3D sound positioning on stereo or headphones where Crystalizer makes bass richer and higher end stand out more. With the above EQ profile, you push the "rich" part even further without making the sound harsh (which setting Crystalizer to 100% does make for some reason).
Not sure about the Ohms setting, i can't find it right now. But unless you're using some heavy duty professional headphones with insane impedence, stick with default. Default seems to work perfectly fine with my Logitech G230 headset.
I see what you're saying, one more question.
Since the headphones I have are stereo - in every game I play I should be putting on headphone mode and not 5.1 or surround etc (that should give terrible sound, or not as accurate) Improving directional audio sounds pretty good. So using SBX Pro just makes directional better without adding fake '5.1?' and your profile just makes those settings more 'vibrant' (like digital vibrancy on a monitor? The colors are good, but you give them more boom. However you say 'rich bass' do you keep that on in games? I personally don't like much/any bass in games as bass is a distractor plus it covers up other audio effects, doesn't matter for most games but for certain titles you need no bass -- the headset currently has like none in my setup but I didn't adjust anything.
And for windows do I need to set the new soundcard as a default device? Do I need to go into steam and change the audio, and games already installed do I need to go into their audio settings and re-adjust as well? (Sorry for all the questions) will probably be buying this today or the next day!
@Rejzor
Was your intention to link this video? https://youtube.com/watch?v=d1rXcJuEsy0 It seems to cover exactly what the OP is talking about.
Ezekel, you're buying a new soundcard for all the wrong reasons. Your headphones are well within the tolerance of the on board sound. The only reason to upgrade to the soundblaster card is if you wanted the dolby 5.1 (which you're already stated you don't need/want), or you want some of the software filters. The soundblaster amplifier might have a higher output, but you have already stated you get plenty of volume with the current set up. Based on what you're saying there is no reason to upgrade your soundcard.
If you don't like the way your headphones sound while listening to music, you need to filter the music through an EQ or get new headphones. Buying a new amp or soundcard will simply make them sound louder.
Based on the frequency response curve that I linked to the headphones are tuned in a way as to help you hear things in games, not music. If it's that big of a problem use different headphones when you're listening to music.
From all the research I've done there's more to a soundcard than just giving the headphones the power they need - there's a lot of customization which is not possible with realtek, plus I'm forced into my front panel (although I've heard no weird noises.. or so I think? could have gotten use to a sound if there ever was any) so that's another negative. From the last time I tried I couldn't reassign the ports on the rear panel to get headphones working. I could get sound through them but it'd play them as 'stereo' speakers and didn't sound as good as the 'headphone' setting
I'm still going to get that soundcard and see for myself(it's very affordable, about $59), cause I can read a thousand things/watch and never know the difference until I try it myself. Sort of like how people can rave about the 'deathadder 2013' but nobody states how it's terrible for people who use palm grip, or how the sensor has 'smoothing' on it which doesn't really harm you much in-game but it's blatantly there for sure and a lot of people cannot tell.
But thanks for the info. I'll pay close attention to how things sound now at a lower volume, and then adjust the same volume with the soundcard and compare audio to see if I notice a difference listening to some CDQ things - sort of like a blind compare, then I'll fool around with the EQ like Rej said and see what I can do with the headphones.
I've commented their video, because it's a massive fail. Two audiophiles talking about gaming audio. That's like asking a fisherman for quantum physics opinion... they were talking about everything but what's really the most important. And that's 3D sound positioning and nothing else. It's what you want and need in competitive games.
@ezekel
If you have a stereo headphones, select Headphones profile. The Surround slider covers the 3D space presence. It's a connection between 3D in-game space and your stereo only headphones to render most accurate sound position, whether it's coming from left or right, above or below you, in front of you or behind and everything in between.
Same sound (same volume and type) coming from different directions sound different and that helps any living creature with ears know from where exactly it's coming from.
As for the settings, when you install SB Z, it automatically takes over as primary audio device and unless if you have changed that inside games to a specific device, will be automatically updated (usually denoted as "Default audio device" inside games).
SB Z also allows having speakers and headphones attached at the same time, so you just switch in software and you don't need to fiddle with cables anymore. I use speakers for casual gaming and music/movies and i switch to headphones for NS2 and other accurate gaming (CS:S/CS:GO). 3D positioning is much more accurate with headphones because teh sound is very direct. Not so much with speakers.
I'll first try the direct option and just see how it sounds, then fool around with the other things. Is there anything else I should copy from your equalizer settings - like is there another page with different settings elsewhere such as crystalize and what not? Also do you use the same settings for both in-game and music?
I'll be purchasing this most likely tomorrow and am excited. Improving directional audio sounds pretty incredible - gaming soundcard, and gaming headphones. I also agree with your comment on that video, those guys don't play games the same way we do.
@rejzor
Being an audio nerd myself, I thought I'd put in my really basic 2-cents.
If you want to use the headphones for JUST gaming, get creative cards which I am not a fan of...
If you want something that is a much more well-rounded card, go for an Asus or my personal fav HT Omega Claro Halo.
Also +1 to @Ironsoul video. Lots of misconceptions are talked about in there. Music is ONLY as good as the recording quality. Bitrates/frequency rates don't do anything if the source wasn't recorded well to begin with. Games typically don't have great sound to begin with.
The video has a lot more to do with hi-fi audio than gaming, true. You were talking about getting more out of your headphones while listening to music in the opening post, so that's what I tried to respond to. That video is fairly spot on in regards to digital audio and fidelity.
As far as, what the actual hardware on the sound card does, sure it can offload some of the sound processing from the CPU and add effects, and if that's what you want, then by all means spend that $60. Most of the 'audio quality' that you're getting from one of those cards happens in the digital to analog converter (DAC) and amplifier. Electronics have advanced so much in the last decade that these components are pretty cheap and still amazing quality. The things I'm talking about are not 'subjective that's your opinion' things. You can literally see the difference between amplifiers and what they do to a signal by putting it through an oscilloscope. You can loop the audio through the output multiple times, sum the signal with an original inverted signal, and leave only what was added or subtracted to the signal. There are tons of tests you can do to gear without having your buddy stick on a pair of cans and A/B the music. If you look at the specs on any modern amplifier there's usually a distortion rating of <0.01%.
The HT is out of my price range, it's almost near the 300 mark and it uses PCI so I'd have to always get a motherboard which supported that - however it does look like it's the best consumer grade dedicated soundcard but if that company cares about its product, they'd have to get a pci express re-release or something. Also the price on that card hasn't dropped for a few years if I recall so I doubt it'll ever be as popular as it should be
I've seen a lot of asus cards, read tons of opinions and it's all just confusing in the end for a normal user like me. It came down to hearing that the asus drivers are poorly made and confusing, but after looking into it even more it looks like soundcards have been 'dead' in terms of a dedicated hardware component. It's been like a year since a new release and apparently the drivers are all dated 2012-13. But either way this small upgrade should hopefully be a significant one since I've never used an amp or what not.
I'll be picking it up tomorrow. So thanks everyone! If WORSE comes to worse and I don't like it.. it's as simple as returning it(probably for not full refund)? And the asus cards look much much cheaper from what I've seen - so if the creative is a fail.. unplug it and go back to realtek and then try out an asus.. no biggie, if it was something like the HT then it'd be different because that one is a big price hit