Bill Unruh <unruh <at> physics.ubc.ca> writes: [snip] > There is a real problem between price and quality and exactly what you want > with the end result. As I said, if you are handy with tools, making your > own speakers is probably the way to go, but that is useless if you are not. > The cheap ( about $100) TransAudio T10.1 has gotten rave reviews as an > amplifier-- but it is purely stereo and only 15 watts, so it is not going > to blast low efficiency speaker-- which any small speaker system will be. I'm not very handy with tools so I wouldn't dare trying to build my own speakers :) Maybe I'll just by a decent amp and a sound card first and use them with my headphones. Then I can check out some speakers. I can't find that transaudio amp anywhere. I did some more research on amps though and it seems that marantz do build quite good amps for reasonable prices by concentrating on the important stuff - leaving out ipod,ethernet,usb connectors and the like. Also, their amps do have this 'dolby headphone'[1] technology which means one could use some high-end headphones with it and check out the surround sound. I'm considering the SR7001[2] or maybe SR8001 if I can find a good offer somewhere. > Note that my testing program works most simply with oss, not alsa. It can > be used with alsa with a bit more effort. Also if you are going to be using > CD format output, do not get one of the Soundblaster type cars which ONLY > work at 48000 Bps. output. They have to speed convert CD rate cards, and > alsa speed conversion introduces a lot of noise and distortion ( AFAIK they > still only use linear interpolation, which is pretty terrible) I do not > however know what the output of computer games is. (ie what rate their > output runs at). I believe my hda-intel nvidia is one of those running only at 48khz so I'm probably suffering from that interpolation problem. So the m-audio and turtle cards can do 44.1khz also? > I would go for a good soundcard and amp separately. Otherwise you may well > get mediocre in both. 1.4K sounds pretty expensive for and amp plus > soundcard. By this time making > good amps is cheap. I hope so! :) > I just noticed on googling that Turtle beach makes a usb soundcard with the > head transfer function for headphone built into the soundcard, and it's $39 > or so. No idea if it is any good however. Turtle beach did make some > pretty good soundcards but I do not know if this is one of them. If I understand correctly this system adds surround effects to a stereo signal? I think I'd prefer the dolby headphone solution which - apparently - uses a surround input signal and converts it into stereo. Maybe that chopper will actually appear to be coming from behind then :) > All I want to say is that if you expand your range of options to include > headphones, your options are increased and your pricing drastically > decreased. Of course if you want two or three people to all enjoy the sound > together, headphones do not really cut it. You could buy two or three > pairs of headphones, but that tends to isolate the people instead of > bringing them together. > (But then 5.1 makes little sense since you pretty well have to sit in the > sweet spot to get the 5.1 effect) I agree with you. I do use headphones a lot and currently my room is also quite small so that I probably couldn't fully enjoy a surround system. And if I can get some surround sound with headphones - even better. However, since a bigger a room ain't too far in the future I want my equipment to be ready for bigger challenges. Uli [1] http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology/headphone.html [2] http://us.marantz.com/Products/1881.asp ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
