Audio Z2300 with Xonar DX a good combo?

Dunno about Hadapsar, but chances are you'll be ripped off. Better drive down to Shankarshet road, (Near Golibar maidan) opposite IBM building there is STech Computers there. They've got both 5021 and Z5500 on demo last I went there. :)
 
Well take Sarang's advice. S'Tech is kinda affordable with his rates. Other all ppl literally rip you off...
Vasim is a member and not a dealer.. IMO :ashamed:
Met him took a demo and got it off his hands. It is a 1 month used piece.. (well hardly 1 month) and its AWESOME !!!!!!
If you spot a good sound card shop do let me know I also want a sound card.. not a optical out one but one which can power the 2.1 system. I'm having doubts about my P5Q Pro's onboard card :(
 
djmykey said:
If you spot a good sound card shop do let me know I also want a sound card.. not a optical out one but one which can power the 2.1 system. I'm having doubts about my P5Q Pro's onboard card :(
Click to expand...

You should, even my P7P55D-DLX' onboard sux bigtime. Considering you have decent speakers its about time you got a soundcard. My recommendation, start with an Audigy Value and slowly move up the card chain. I did the same. Else if you can splurge go get the Xonar straight away.
 
Thanks for the inputs sarang.. I guess since the Audigy Value card is something of a starter card so it should be available almost anywhere. BTW I was also thinking of the same coz directly splurging doesn't make any sense... lets see..

Vishalrao: Would you also go the same way or directly the Xonar DX ?
 
Sorry @DJ, didnt notice your latest post til now. I'm going directly for a DX, price seems decent, its "future proof" meaning if I want to upgrade to 5.1 surround speakers for movies/HTPC I dont have to change it, plus its (apparently) got good Linux support now.

But... BREAKING NEWS: I just reached home about an hour or so ago with the MX-5021 from STech for just under Rs 7k and have been playing music on it since :D

Here's the summary:

* Definitely a clear upgrade in sound quality/clarity/deep-bass - easy for even me to notice this.

* Love the larger size of the satellites (a little flattened looking and lightweight feeling though) and the massize subwoofer compared to my old Creative 2.1 el cheapo at Rs 1.5k I got 5 yrs ago.

* Some music (a couple of my favoutite electronic numbers) seems to boom a little more than I hoped for, but more on that a little later :D

* I'm sure its a better deal than my initial pick the Z2300, I guess that is Rs 2 k more? Definitely value-for-money this MX5021!

* Love the quality feel of the bits and wires etc.

Now for the kicker/punchline:

* I am still listening to these - playing my existing MP3 collection from 1998 to the present day (12 yrs) with ON-FREAKIN-BOARD sound and it still sounds super :eek:hyeah: I will get the DX soon and try to download some good lossless (FLAC) samples ASAP and report back on any further difference I notice.

* I am hoping the booming on some of the MP3s is a problem not with the speaker but the onboard/mp3 limitation itself. I did read on TE that ALMX5021 may not be as good quality as it was originally and also that Z5500 has MORE boom and less midrange clarity - so I'm not too worried.

* Pretty much all my existing music sounds way better already - whether its electronica (old prodigy, orbital or latest GDJB sets etc, RAP, trance, rock/pop, disco, hindi pop/remix... classics.. ALL of them sound better - so i dont have to recollect/throw away anything - but I already knew that because I heard them on my car stereo and they sound great there too.

So, thanks to all (mainly those who recommended the MX and sarang for telling me to go to Stech only), I am very happy with this purchase. I have asked STech to call me back if he can get me a DX, coz I am not too happy with response of some of the TE dealers here (but thats okay it may just be because its out of stock til next week) so it may be a while before I get that.

@DJ: How much would new Klipsch Promedia 2.1 you have cost me if I were to get them? (just curious for future reference).

Also, one concern: Did I rush too early to start playing music? Should I have "broken in" the speakers carefully? Can I still "run in" the speakers (if so, how?) or is it too late?

@Gannu: No, I am not interested in modding these babies :D :p

Thanks again all.
 
@Vishal: First, congrats on the purchase, a wise decision for sure. :) About the burn in part, let it play its burn in enough for the babies.
 
thanks sarang!

some updates:

just got to listening to some of my newer higher bitrate (192 - 320 kbps) collection of mp3s and it allays some of my concerns - i can hear clearer highs and deeper lows - hardly any sign of the booming and i can make out the "tighter bass" mentioned by some others in other threads here :)

one nifty point of interest i should mention is that i was wondering where to get a rubber mat for the sub which i place on the floor and it turns out it already has 4 rubber "feet" in each corner - sweet.

as for flacs, downloaded a few samples and i cant really make out the difference between them and the high bitrate mp3s. can anyone point out good test audio (flac or anything else) samples/demos available to try/download to test the speakers?

edit: just noticed the flacs are also like 320 kbps and some are 1 mbps - the higher ones of course sound better, are these "lossy flacs" ?!?! :D

so now im just waiting for the DX...

edit2: @DJ nevermind , i found vasim's sale post for the speakers you got :D they look good and damn good price ... IMHO if you're going for soundcard dont go half-way, just get mid-level DX (or similar) rather than entry-level audigy/whatever...
 
vishalrao said:
@DJ: How much would new Klipsch Promedia 2.1 you have cost me if I were to get them? (just curious for future reference).
Click to expand...

Well a new one should cost ya somewhere around the 9.5k mark. the worst part with this spkrs is the stock. No one has it when its needed. That's why I jumped at this sale as soon as I saw it. Now everything vibrates in my room at 25% volume :eek:hyeah:

vishalrao said:
edit2: @DJ nevermind , i found vasim's sale post for the speakers you got :D they look good and damn good price ... IMHO if you're going for soundcard dont go half-way, just get mid-level DX (or similar) rather than entry-level audigy/whatever...
Click to expand...

Well after a driver upgrade the sound level has come up quite a bit. And I cannot increase the volume more than 45% :bleh: So the snd card is on hold.. I have dead ears anyway so :p Btw ur talking about old songs look at what I'm listening to these days here
 
hehe, yea those speakers do look good. and i think i saw/heard them playing at an apple store also.

ok, good to put card purchase on hold. i'll let you know (probably by next weekend) whether it was really worth spending 4-5k for a sound card even though onboard was sounding "good enough" :eek:hyeah:
 
vishalrao said:
as for flacs, downloaded a few samples and i cant really make out the difference between them and the high bitrate mp3s. can anyone point out good test audio (flac or anything else) samples/demos available to try/download to test the speakers?
Click to expand...

Re: what folks here have said about FLACS vs mp3. It depends on the mp3 encoder settings used. If you use any of the alt-presets which are designed to be transparent you will have a difficult time telling the difference between the two.

lame alt preset standard < extreme < insane

standard is considered high and will be good for 95% of what you have, extreme will cover the remaining 4% and the last can be done with insane.

Maybe on extremely good equipment it might be apparent but otherwise not. Sometime back I challenged superczar to ABX test these and he & Chaos had a tough time telling things apart. Yeah, with stuff you're familiar with you can tell the difference if you tried hard but with unknown stuff you'd be none the wiser. That is what 'transparent' means :)

What you do is rip a few tracks then encode to both FLAC & alt-preset- standard then use a program to ABX the two, It will play stuff and let you vote which is better. It's a double blind test in the sense you don't know which version is playing and neither does it.

So clearly the alt-presets win out over the CBR's, space wise with no discernable loss from the original. When ppl talk about mp3s being bad they mostly refer to stuff encoded CBR below 192kbs. Even 192kbs might not be good enough for some genres and thats where the VBR comes in .

Having said this if you've done everything in FLAC then good, you have a perfect archive copy. But if your mp3s are properly encoded to begin with there is no real pressing need to re-encode. The more important point is whether a secure ripper was used or not otherwise speaker damaging spikes through clipping can occur. Its impossible for stuff to clip on CD's but a bad rip will do it. A secure riper will ensure this does not happen.

About the various compression levels in FLACs, all they do is squeeze more into less space there is no quality difference as the resultant WAV output is bit perfect with the original. There is no power penalty decoding the higher compressed FLACs over the less compressed ones either unlike with other lossless codecs like APE.

Why use mp3 ? Space and near perfect compliance with 99.9% of players out there, portable or not. Its a legacy std that is still under active development and is not going anywhere soon.

vishalrao said:
edit: just noticed the flacs are also like 320 kbps and some are 1 mbps - the higher ones of course sound better, are these "lossy flacs" ?!?! :D
Click to expand...
Prolly because they were encoded out of a lossy source ie make a FLAC out of a decoded mp3 aka fake FLACs. FLAC is lossless all the way through no lossy at all.
 
Thanks, useful post! :D Repped (if you care) heh.

Will read up that ABX/null-hypothesis wiki link later when I have time!
 
Still waiting for that SC upgrade, will it still be the DX or [STRIKE]STX[/STRIKE] ? -- ST is better ;)

Another consideration is if you use USB2 + external DAC for similar money you could get still better sound as a dedicated component would outbeat the one on the SC as well as being immune to any noise within the PC.

The maverick looks quite interesting for the price but I was put off by their answer to this question. They tell you their DAC is better than that of a SC but will not reveal what chip it is !!

Also cranky's post on it is an eye-opener.
 
+1^ if u mainly listen to musicand have the moolah get the audioengine A5,
if your budget is tight at 6.5k then get the altec lansing mx5021 they are avbl at primeabgb mumbai my friend got them last week.
A5> Mx5021 for music
 
ive already gotten the mx5021 and @blr_p still thinking about getting the DX wonly not any other model at the moment... dont want to go too far/fancy, just simple plug-n-play (linux support consideration too) quality sound at reasonable budget :D
 
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

Doh, its been about half a year now. The speakers (MX 5021) going strong with my onboard AC97 audio. Just ordered a Xonar DX from ebay.in for 4800/- (can you believe the laziness?) hope it shows up soon with no hassles. Can't wait to hear if there's any difference :D
 
The card was a "DOA" sept 1st (non stop hissing/crackling sound) so just collected my replacement today - it was here last week though no time to go pick it up earlier.

It was plug and play on Linux - had installed Win7 just to confirm the first DOA card wasnt a software issue.

Was skeptical that it would be any improvement over onboard sound -95 dB vs. claimed -116 dB but is not bad. Not extraordinary either but I'm okay with it.

Bass seems less boomy/cleaner/tighter - as if the sub volume was just turned down a little - but not so since I'd tried out various settings with onboard before.

Now the mids and highs are even more clear and stand out more - again, as if you turn up the highs on an equaliser :) But what I can hear is those "high hats / cymbals" now go "tsss tsss" instead of "tshsh tshsh" - you see what I mean? Less distorted.

Not all my music has improved but I guess its the quality of the files and the actual sounds/instruments being played. Most of what I listen to (electronica) has

improved.

In short: I'm no audiophile/techie but to try to explain in layman terms - about 80% of the improvement came from the speaker upgrade from creatives to the mx5021 (that was very satisfying) - the remaining 20% from the xonar DX :)

(Or in other words, if you listen to DI.fm 32kbps AAC free streams then switch to the paid 64kbps AAC streams - its that kind of improvement)

Spent 6700/- on the speakers and 4800/- on the sound card. So the extra " 20% " bump in sound quality was worth it for me.

@djmykey - you probably want to avoid buying a card just for this kind of small improvement :)
 
Back
Top