Huh?! Laptop sounds crisper than new desktop!

[dosquito]

I have recently been getting more into music and have built up my library to around 1500 songs in the last few weeks ever since I got my new desktop. Previously, my laptop, a 3-4 year old Dell Inspiron 5100 (with integrated sound, I am pretty sure) had about 400 songs on it. I listen almost exclusively to hip hop and rap (I am going to branch out later). Now, here is the weird part. I have Enter the 36 Chambers at 320 kbps on my desktop, with a Creative X-fi Elite Pro sound card nonetheless!

I have noticed that, still, my audio playback doesn't sound as crisp as I had expected with my new sound card. I have all the new drivers and in Creative Audio Console pretty much everything is turned off that could be considered bad. It is not synced with windows. X-fi crystallizer is off, it is set to headphones (I have sennheiser hd485's) in the speaker section, the 3d mode is off, it is on entertainment etc etc etc.

So, meanwhile, the internet on my desktop isn't working so I revisit my laptop. I plug in my HD485s, put on 36 chambers, and I am blown away! Although it is only 172 kbps VBR, it is twice as crisp as on my desktop. Things I never paid much attention to are much more pronounced. At first I thought I was fooling myself, so I went back inbetween several parts of different songs, and...sure enough, I could *HEAR* them on my desktop if I paid attention, but on my laptop they actually seemed like part of the song. Also, much subtler things such as voice tones are much more pronounced.

Both computers are Windows XP.

So, my question is - how the hell is this possible and how can I fix whatever is obviously wrong with my desktop that it is playing audio with a pretty darn good sound card worse than my laptop? What are some common things that might be wrong here?

PS: I have noticed my laptop sounds better on several different albums as well, including The Infamous (320 kbps on both computers) and a few other random songs.

 

[dosquito]

This is so weird! I keep noticing things in songs that I never noticed before, such as the cymbals in Life's a *****, but then sure enough when I go to check on my desktop it is still audible. However, it doesn't sound nearly as crisp. Could this be a power thing? Maybe my audio card isn't getting enough power? I have a 500 W power supply. I can't even begin to think how this is explainable.

 

[bandphan]

is the sound from the deasktop headphone out being processed by the card or the internal audio chip? try the out on the card to some audio gear.

 

[dosquito]

Yep. It is plugged directly into the card. IIRC there are either 4 or 5 gold plugs and only one works with the headphones. None of the other audio outputs work with the headphones anyhow.

 

[dosquito]

For some complicated reason the cd drive on my new computer is not yet functional so I downloaded the newest drivers from the creative website. Could this be a problem?

 

[dosquito]

BTW I know a link to get the elite pro and a shitty pair of headphones for $80 after rebate if anyone is interested. The card retails for $300

 

[mr-ben]

Do you have the external I/O console box that connects to the sound card? Try plugging the headphones into the external console box, and not into the sound card itself. I assume that the console has its own separate power supply and it doesn't get power from the card?

 

[dosquito]

No, I bought a bundle that came with just the sound card.

I finally got my CD drive working and installed the proper drivers on my desktop. It has more interactive software now and sounds better, but it is still TOO weird that my laptop audio playback is better. Just now I have a CD in that I just dug up that I am noticing stuff on my laptop that passed me by when I listened to it on my desktop.

 

[dosquito]

This is driving me crazy. Now as I go back and forth I think maybe the desktop might sound better. I am just going to learn to get used to it, but if there are any common problems with the X-fi elite pro that any of you are aware of, or it seems like there might be something wrong here, please let me know. Because regardless, I should be able to tell the difference between a $300 sound card and laptop integrated graphics.

 

[dosquito]

Is it possible that there are some old drivers, possibly from the integrated audio, still interfering? if so what would these be called?

 

[dosquito]

Sorry to be posting so many times in a row! I am just trying to clarify my problem

It seems like the sounds are "muffled" when compared to on my laptop. Because of this, I can "hear" the sounds but I can't "experience" them nearly as well. Does that make sense?

Also, some drum beats, when they get louder, just irritate me, instead they sound crisp and refreshing on my laptop. As an example (bare with me you guys who don't listen to hip hop)

In the song "MVP" by Big L, there is a constant drum beat in the background: "dundun DIN (loud drum noise)" on my desktop when the volume is high enough this sound can be annoying as hell. On my iPod, with the same headphones, this sound isn't nearly as bad (320 kbps MP3 on both desktop and iPod btw).

 

[mr-ben]

Since I can't hear your setup, I'm going to make a guess at what you're hearing.

The soundcard in your computer is creating an analog signal for your headphones based on the digital input. It requires a nice stable power source in order to do this - any noise coming from the power supply is going to be present in the analog output, in amplified form. There's a lot of noise in your power supply in the computer - in other words the +12v +5v etc aren't a perfectly flat +12 and +5 volts, due to the design of the power supply itself, and all the components running off it. This isn't a problem for digital devices which are on or off, but it's a problem for analog devices like the amp in your soundcard. At least this is how I understand it.

Laptops have a battery in them, and I guess it's possible that your battery is providing some stability to the voltage in the laptop. Some of the best headphone amplifiers use a battery as the power source for this reason. You might hear a difference if you remove the battery from the laptop, but maybe not.

To get the best sound from a computer, I suggest you send the digital output of your soundcard to an external headphone amplifier, or a receiver with a headphone output. There are also some external soundcards that have their own power supply that attach via USB, which again perform the digital to analog conversion outside the computer. Do you have access to a receiver that has a digital input and a headphone output?

There's also the possibility that your new soundcard simply doesn't have the power needed to run your headphones, while the laptop does. Larger headphones need more power.

 

[audioman00]

I think you really just need to connect everything to an external USB sound card via a digital (TosLink) or coaxial digital. This is the best way to get crisp sound to my knowledge. This will only work if you have a receiver / preamp with digital in's. I had a similar problem with my Zune vs. desktop PC. The soundcard was a $200 SB Audigy ZS. The only way it did not sound like garbage was if I let the receiver do the processing, then the sound was way clean, i can hear every little keyboard effect in hip hop and every guitar string slide on rock and metal. good luck!

 

[dosquito]

Sorry, I am a bit of noob when it comes to this technical stuff! What do you guys recommend I do? Your advice was kinda confusing to me. Will this problem likely be fixed if I just get a decent headphone amp?

 

[dosquito]

Hmmmmmmmm.......the packaging that this came in was pretty sketchy and I noticed that some of the sticky out things were bent. I thought this was normal, but after looking at some pictures online it seems to be out of the ordinary. Also, there are a bunch of pins on the back that are bent while the others stick straight up. Could this be the culprit?

 

[dosquito]

^It seems like there might be one cap that is out of place, but the rest seem pretty normal. I couldn't find any pictures of the pins, but lots of them are bent, and seemingly systematically, so unless someone with an Elite Pro can confirm that that is bad I won't worry about it.

Is it really possible that my onboard sound was enabled all this time? The headphone jacks that weren't on the soundcard never worked, however I booted up BIOS, went to onboard configurations, and onboard sound (could have been something completely different, but it had a name to that effect) was enabled! I disabled it, rebooted my PC, and although I am only 1 song in, I am noticing subtle things on it that I didn't notice on my LAPTOP.

Will provide you guys with updates after more listening

 

[dosquito]

Meh, after a few more songs it seems like it was placebo. Especially those Wu Tang songs are so much better on my laptop.

 

[bandphan]

feels like a day of dragging baits offshore, is this thread going anywhere? which bios version are you running and and can you take a screen shot of th "onboard" configuration?

 

[mr-ben]

If you want a simple suggestion, buy this: http://www.headphone.com/products/headphone-amps/the-mobile-line/headroom-total-bithead.php