Help me understand equalizers

[Kohta]

I have a Xonar DG.

My headphones are: Tritton PC510HDa - they are my 24/7 usage for PC sound now.

Right now they sound pretty damn good, but i have that feeling like they could be better? I played with the equalizer settings, once i thought i was done i started missing sounds that i heard when it was on default, swapping back and forth revealed i didn't do something correctly, is there some sort of universal setting?

I'm trying to aim for deep thumping bass, i'm no willing to sacrifice the lows to hear foot steps, i don't play online FPS, i do play MMO's so my goal was to get fireballs and lightning strikes to thump, all while not sacrificing the clarity of the highs and mids.

The next thing i am wondering is the settings, this control panel has more things than i know what to do with, first off:

The PCM, i understand that is stereo only, so i have that off now, these headphones are 5.1 with 8 drivers, the sound needs to be separated thru each analog jack.

The Audio Channels, i was assuming this had something to do with 7.1 ( 8 channels) 5.1 (6 channels) etc... but switching between i'm hearing more sounds and 8 channel almost appears to be more "crisp" but sacrifice a little bit of bass.

My analog out has 3 settings that confuse me, there is Headphones, which is what these are, 5.1, which is what these are, and FP Headphones which i don't know what that is, however i can only select one. So far "Headphones" sounds ok with netflix and youtube or music, where 5.1 sounds better in a game, i find it annoying to switch between though.

EDIT: I turned off that stupid Smart Volume, i didn't realize it was one, i thought the headphones were cutting out for a minute there.

 

[Pinky]

What does the "FlexBass" button lower right look like?

The Effect button area looks like it offers EQ control. I'd raise the 30hz a few notches, then the 60hz a notch or two. See if that helps. Raise the 30hz as much as you want until the booms are at the desired level.

 

[Kohta]

What does the "FlexBass" button lower right look like?

The Effect button area looks like it offers EQ control. I'd raise the 30hz a few notches, then the 60hz a notch or two. See if that helps. Raise the 30hz as much as you want until the booms are at the desired level.

From my understanding, it cuts out certain frequency from xxxhz and down, one example i saw was, if a particular type of music is using alot of 60hz but has overwhelming bass drag, you can set it slightly lower than 60hz and clear up the bass rolls, i didn't totally understand that but i'm not that picky about that type of thing.

After doing some reading around it seems like every headphone.speaker etc will need different equalization, along with the way you perceive sound, to one person a gun shot can be 2000hz, to another it might be closer to 1000 on the same speaker/headphone, i'm kind of asking/soaking in a lot of this at once it's pretty overwhelming.

Right now i have been playing with the mixer to see what sound -ok- and i think iv'e cleaned up alot of the curve in the audio, though i honestly can't tell an immediate difference moving these sliders around in real time with music or sounds.

Down below is what iv'e come up with so far, i labled it High Fidelity because i'm aiming for a crisp high, and warm low.

EDIT: What i can do is listen to a variety of different things and list here what i think sounds wrong, maybe i can get that translated to what i need to adjust in the equalizer.

 

[Kohta]

So this is interesting...

Here is why i can't quite get the sound the way i want it. I turned every speaker in the headphones down manually on the in-line controller, Front, Rear, Center and Sub, now when i turned each one up while in my games (Skyrim, Tera, etc) none of them played the surround speakers, that being, the Front left and right, and rear left and right. The Center was fine and the sub was okay.

When i play the tests from windows and the video card, my sounds match to the appropriate positions, when i play a .vod in 5.1 everything is correct, WMP also, just fine all the speakers work independently.

Skyrim actually 'works' but i will say it sounds like ***, the breeze sounds like someone blowing thru a PVC pipe in your ear, no kidding, i'm not an audiophile, this just doesn't sound right and i came from $15 sony sport earbuds that sound better all but the bass so far.

EDIT: I put it in my onboard sound and it did not have that tube sound to the wind, however everything else was lacking in comparison, so... would appreciate some help on that.

 

[Pinky]

What audio controls do you have within the game? Are there any effects enabled there?

On the flexbass screen, having LFE set to 50hz is rather low. I'd set it to 80 or even 100hz. It also appears the 'mute' button on the right hand side (below the large volume control) is on. Not sure why the mute would be enabled there unless you just happen to have it muted at the time.

On the EQ, you may want to replicate your curve to below the 0db theshhold. In other words, have the highest points on the curve be at 0db and the lowest points at -20db. Having the lowest and highest maxxed at +20db might have an undesireable effect depending on how the EQ is being utilized by the sound card.

 

[Kohta]

What audio controls do you have within the game? Are there any effects enabled there?

On the flexbass screen, having LFE set to 50hz is rather low. I'd set it to 80 or even 100hz. It also appears the 'mute' button on the right hand side (below the large volume control) is on. Not sure why the mute would be enabled there unless you just happen to have it muted at the time.

On the EQ, you may want to replicate your curve to below the 0db theshhold. In other words, have the highest points on the curve be at 0db and the lowest points at -20db. Having the lowest and highest maxxed at +20db might have an undesireable effect depending on how the EQ is being utilized by the sound card.

In Tera and Skyrim the only thing i can do is adjust volume. There are no effects or enhancements enabled in the windows control panel for the sound card nor the sound cards control panel.

Though i have discovered that when i lower the L&R surround separate of the Front left and right it takes care of that echo sound (sounds like you're listening thru a tube) But tha tmeans the rear L&R or the Front L&R are going to be louder than the other and it sounds really unbalanced. still playing with it.

The bass crossover was disabled in the photo's and mute isn't enabled, it gets a brighter red than that when you actually mute and the button/valum turns grey.

This is what i have going so far and the rear and front can't be anywhere near the same volume or i start to hear that tube effect, my center is kinda low already, enough to take me out of the immersion but the issue i have with that is, it sounds really tin-boxy, it has no depth to the sounds so my best effort is to hide it behind the left and right front, which over power it tremendously because the rear has to be a certain amount lower than it while still being audiable... RMA is beginning to pass thru my mind, i'm no audiophile like i said and this has been a rough ride already just to get them to sound 'ok'.

 

[Kohta]

Update:
I switched to the onbaord and selected 5.1 24bit/96k and then turned "side pair" off, I selected the front speakers as full range, and the surround as full range, now that tin box sound is gone, the center sound crisp but still carries a low if needed, i hear things behind me with almost like a very very faint echo in front of me and it makes be feel like they are in the room with me... This.. is what i was trying to get, no more dead spaces between the speakers, no more tin box, no more of that tube sound and the onboard did it... that surprises me, i messed on skyrim for about 20 minutes and i just got sucked into the sound, the ambient is ridiculously accurate, i was able to pin point where a rabbit was hopping around without being able to see it.

My only complaint is the voice sounds in skyrim, yo ucan be 10 feet away and it still sounds like they are in conversation range, but i think this is the game itself since i don't have that sound stage issue in Tera when people are making noise (casting spells using skills etc) they sound aprox. as far away as they really are.

now.. to make this same thing work on my wife's onboard, a Titainium X-Fi Supreme onboard a Crosshair IV formula.

How it was:
Sound Quality 2/10
Sound Stage 5/10

How it is now:
Sound Quality 9/10 - literally as good as a my Sony 5.1 system, maybe even better clarity
Sound stage 7/10 - I still feel like something is missing, and it's probably because two of the speakers are sharing a channel, however it's still pretty good in comparison to a 5.1 room.There is a pretty large gap between the Left front and Left rear but i think i can fix that via software.

 

[Pinky]

If you enable the LFE on the Xonar (and set it to 80hz) that might resolve your issue. That what it sounds like the onboard is doing (note the Xonar flexbass setting page also asks about speaker size, etc... ).

 

[Kohta]

If you enable the LFE on the Xonar (and set it to 80hz) that might resolve your issue. That what it sounds like the onboard is doing (note the Xonar flexbass setting page also asks about speaker size, etc... ).

Thanks for the help, i had already taken the Xonar out, but it was a bass issue, i was getting bad sound quality coupled with it trying to emulate 5.1, where i needed to set the speakers to full range, i can't do that with the Xonar, where-as i can with the on board, i'm pleased with how it sounds now, pulled my hair out trying to get it to sound better than a tin box with the xonar, now i'm ready to just enjoy it Seems like i overcomplicated it trying to use a dedicated sound card.

 

[Pinky]

The flexbass screen had the speaker size settings for the Xonar.

 

[PicodeGallo]

Maybe we can help each other. I've never owned a "surround sound" headset. Here's my issue: When using surround sound and considering a typical home surround sound system, each speaker, via its own channel of amplification, receives it's own 'cut' of the total audio. Now, when using headphones, there are typically 2 channel (left+right). Unless there are multiple plugs for your headphones to plug in to all the surround sound plugs on your mobo/sound card, how in the heck can you achieve true surround sound from the source without a DSP filter in the middle for the headphones?

Here's what going on in my head. If your headphones have one plug (left+right), and you set your audio on the mobo/SC to surround sound, say 5.1, then the various plugs on your mobo will output the proper signals. What happens to the lone headphone jack? My best guess is you get some crappy DSP derived summed signal which would result in a poor excuse for surround sound. The source signal, in this case your mobo/SC, has done it's job for the 5.1 jacks, but NOT for the headphone jack.

I don't care how many speakers you have in your headphones. If they each aren't receiving a dedicated signal from the processing point (your mobo/SC), then there's DSP processing going on to give you the illusion of surround sound. Your headphones have an in-line filter. It appears to be volume control. But is that all it does?

So here's my guess as to your problems: If you set your mobo/SC to surround sound when and if the headphones have DSP build in, you're effectively screwing up your sound. My guess would be to output a full-range normal signal from the mobo/SC and let the little in-line headphone box do it's thing.

I've always wondered this about surround sound headphones...