Hello all, I'm new here, and new to the world of lossless audio compression. Just the other night I was under the impression that 256kbps mp3s were the best thing since sliced bread, and any higher would not be detected by the human ear. Anywho, after trying out some lossless audio compression via monkey's, i'm hooked. I'm in the process of re-ripping my entire jpop collection and encoding it into lossless.

So, my problem is this... I've got a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card with Altec Lansing ADA885 4.1 speakers. Now obviously these aren't the best, but I'd like to think they were an average pair of speakers capable of offering crisp, rich sound. All the time I've been listening to music on my pc i've been using the Winamp (2.91 currently) equilizer. After poking around on these forums, I see that that alot of you either don't use an equilizer or use it for very slight adjustments. Well, without the equilizer, my music sounds like crap. It has a very muffled sound, like the artist is singing into a blanket or something. There's also an annoying sound in the background that almost sounds like a car driving down a smooth road... a very steady and soft static I guess.

Like I said, I'm very new, so I have no idea what to tweak or what to test with... I was hoping that someone with a Santa Cruz card could help me out. I should also mention that I'm using the Stereo mode on my speakers, since I do not use surround sound (I have a home entertainment system for that...). Anyway, any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

I have a santa cruz. It isn't muffled by a long shot - if anything the highs are very brilliant. In general pc speakers are muffled for music but ok for movies. Try standard bookshelf speakers or a decent set of open headphones without EQ or dsp first. Going for lossless using pc speakers makes little sense to me.

Is the backgound noise present all the time or just when playing music ?

my santa cruz is great.

it might be the speakers.

also have a look to make sure some weird sound effects arent enabled in the santa cruz control panel

At one point the Santa Cruz was the highest rated consumer level sound card with respect to signal quality. It obviously does not have many of the features of some of the high end pro stuff, but performed admirally. I have a Santa Cruz in the box I use to rip my vinyl and I think it sounds pretty damn good.

My guess is that the problem is your speakers. Test this by getting (borrowing) a good pair of headphones (not from a computer store) and driving them off the Santa Cruz and see how they sound. Something like a good pair of Sennheisers or Grados would be good for this. If the cans sound good, it is likely that the SC is fine and your speakers are not very good.

BTW, I used to like to use a lot of eq, but since I bought a decent pair of speakers for my stereo and a good pair of headphones for my computer and other portable listening, I feel I don't need it because they do such a good job of reproducing the music as the artist intended it to be heard, ie the way it is recorded and mixed. Lots of eq really only makes up for deficiency in the speaker system. I am not saying that is bad, since eq on a lower quality system can make it sound better, it is not as necessary with a higher quality system.

The Santa is sounding pretty clear and can handle complexer electronic values reliable than some of the newer "high-end" competitors due to its very good output stages.
I had an Aureon Universe around here and wasn´t impressed how it drives my headphones and even returned it due to the acoustic HD-Detector (I heard tiny noise when the HD was active)

Must be another problem...


Wombat

Make sure you dont have any wacky equalizer or effects settings, and disable 3D stereo enhancement.

I own a Santa Cruz and a hundred dollar set of Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers. The card works great. Make sure that you have your speakers connected properly to the pc. I know of some people who complained about bad sound to find out that their speaker plug was only plugged in halfway

Thanks for the input guys... In answer to shadowking's reply, the background noise is only present during playback; however, I wouldn't call it background noise so much as just... muffledness. It's hard to explain sound eh? It's basically like the highs aren't high enough and the lows aren't low enough. The sound is very flat. I'm pretty sure it's not my speakers... they are pretty decent quality I thought? Maybe I was wrong.

I don't have the equilizer on the sound card utilized, nor do I have any effects active. Some settings that may or may not make a difference:

Under the main tab, I have it set to "2 Speaker" under speaker mode, and "Analog Out" under versaJack.

Under the Synth tab, memory resident is checked, and it's set to 32/64 hardware/software notes with Voice allocation set to Dynamic.

Finally, under the Other tab, I have acoustic echo cancellation set to never.

I've messed around with these settings myself, but with no luck... but I thought I'd post them anyway. And I am using the latest drivers =/

A lot of stuff that is sold as high quality really isn't, and if you only spent $100 on the speakers, they probably aren't very good. The only way to tell is to try a different set of speakers, or a set of nice headphones and see if the problem goes away or not. If you don't have the effect with something else, then it is the speakers, if it appears with a different set of coils, it's the sound card.

I've got the Altec Lansing speakers too and i'm VERY satisfied with them. They absolutely don't sound muffled... more like too bright.
I don't use any EQ except for the bass on the speakers itself. I turn the bass almost to the max and keep treble in middle.
EDIT: and i just use my front speakers in stereo mode and the sub is on my desk.

However, i connected them digitally. I've never used the analog before. I just tried it to see if i could hear any difference. And I have to say that analog does sound a lot less crisp than digital. I prefer the digital connection any time. I hope the Santa Cruz has digital out.....

btw i've got a Terratec DMX 6fire 24/96 soundcard.

EDIT2: Some more important information. Note that the surround input for the rear speakers is out of phase. The reason for this is that these speakers used to come with a DELL computer with a soundcard with the rear speaker output out of phase. That's sad eh? .
So it's not recommend to use the analog surround sound. Dolby Digital doesn't suffer from this (but seems to be very low quality anyhow). So only use stereo, 2xstereo mode.

Using the digital output improves the sound slightly, but it is still muffled. I guess it really is my speakers... as it doesn't sound good at all.

Anyone want to recommend a nice set of speakers? Price isn't an issue... unless they're like 1,000 bucks =P

1) do you some weird eq on teh player?

2) Is it possible you're just not used to hearing a "flat" sound?

This was certainly the case with me. I used to listen to all my music on a Sony Discman with the Megabass turned on all the way. Maybe 7 years ago, when I started playing MP3's on my PC, I had my SB Live! soundcard's bass and treble controls turned to max. After about 6 months, I turned down my treble control to maybe 80%, and then six months later, bass went to 80% and treble to 65%. Every few months, I'd turn the controls down a little more, until they were finally neutral.

It literally took me years to wean myself off the EQ. In the beginning, turning the EQ off made everything sound really bland. I'm not sure what made me start lowering the EQ--maybe the reintroduction of midrange made my music sound a bit better. But now, if I ever crank the bass and treble back to where I once had them, the music sounds very harsh and unpleasant.

When I use headphones today, I have a couple extra dB in the lowest frequency band for some extra "pressure" with the beat. That's all the EQ I use.

If turning the EQ off makes your music sound bad to your ears, then don't stress! Just turn it down a little bit at a time, over a long period. You can't enjoy the benefits of a flat and natural EQ if it sounds totally alien to your ears.

That is very possible, and I was considering that myself. But could that really be the case? When I turn off the EQ, it's like I just came out of a live concert and the music sounds, well, flat and muffled I guess =/ But if you guys say that's normal... I will try to wean myself off of the EQ. I'd still like to upgrade speakers though. I was looking at this klipsch set. Any input would be much appreciated.

My recommendation if you were gonna upgrade would be to get a reciever with a digital in and good set of bookshelfs.

Our Turtle Beach card sounds very good to me, with older Altec Lansing speakers (2 + sub). My musical hearing seems to be pretty good, altough I do not claim to be an expert. You might try setting everything (e.g. tone controls, equalizers) at "neutral", then checking the speaker placement carefully. Poor placement can have a definite effect. You may also be used to a lot of boost from your other equipment.

FYI, on our main stereo setup (Yamaha CA-810, ADS 710 speakers, Sony DVD-CD player, Onkyo T-4090 tuner, Sony cassette deck, Thorens TD-145 mk2 turntable), we rarely use any boost or reduction in the bass and treble. It may be hard to get used to if you have used a lot of tone boost, but consider trying listening at "neutral" for a while.