On Tue, 29 Apr 2014, michael norman wrote: > On 29/04/14 15:52, Balduin Waldmeister wrote: >> Hello and THX for ALSA - I'm using it on Ubuntu/Linux Mint to get the >> best out of my ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card and it just works great. >> >> The new STX *II* has (on Windows at least) an interesting feature for >> use with low impedance (< 32 ohm) headphones, see Impeccable headphone >> amplification <http://www.asus.com/Sound_Cards/Essence_STX_II/> (below >> "Exquisite headphone gain control" oh the linked ASUS site). >> Unfortunately this is the only upgrade from STX -> STX *II* that I would >> need regarding my low impedance headphones (22 - 25 ohm e.g., Denon >> AH-D7100) and of course that's not worth buying a new and rather >> expensive sound card. Furthermorde I'd need that feature on Linux and >> not on Windows. >> >> So my question is whether it's possible to add the low impedance support >> (16 - 32 ohm) to ALSA for use with the old STX? Currently it stops at >> the normal gain setting (< 64 ohm). That has to do with the capabilities of the amplifier on board the sound card, not the settings of the card. The amplifier needs to be able to deliver high current and have a low output impedence-- ie it is a hardware issue. Not at all sure what the impdence settings on the card would do. Maybe the output impedence has a reactive part and thus one would get a bad frequency response on lower impedence. That would indicate a badly designed output stage. Having looked at the advertising that seems to be what it is. Instead of saying "we badly designed the output stage, and these settings are a half assed attempt to compensate" they make it sound like a positive feature. And what's with the swappable op-amps, which "allow users to create different timbres and tonal combinations." which sounds nuts to me. A sound card should take the input and produce an output which was an exact copy of the input. Not something that "creates different timbres and tonal combinations." Note that buying a separate headphone amp for the soundcard might be the way to go, rather than buying a new soundcard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free." http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
