How can I get the best sound out of my Logitech z5500 speakers?

[bollemanneke]

Hi.

I was not satisfied about the Logitech z506 surround speakers, so I bought the Z5500 speakers. Everyone on the internet claims they're gorgeous, fantastic and amazing, but I don't think they sound very good, and I am not familiar with expensive speaker systems.

What's the best way to improve the sound quality?

Digital instead of analog?
I use tha analog connection, I put three different jacks in my pc. Would the sound improve if I used the Optical Digital Output, or wouldn't it make any difference?

Bad soundcard?
I am very pleased to tell you that I'm the proud owner of Terrible Windows Vista, and I have a builtin- REaltek HD soundcard. Could it be that the soundcard is the problem? I don't know about REaltek HD Driver quality, but it can't handle external rear speakers: they always play too soft, whatever speakers I use. Does anyone know a good external soundcard that's better than the REaltek HD driver? How would I have to connect it to my pc? Or do I just have to use the Digital Connection to improve the sound? The speakers now sound very dull.

[dansrfe]

Latest and most expensive Creative SoundBlaster card with latest drivers. Windows 7. ffdshow decoding in 32-bit and outputting in 32-bit with proper channel mapping and maybe a custom audio matrix.

[nurbs]

Creative is notorious for their bad drivers. Most soundcards only support 24bit.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

bollemanneke, please edit your thread title to comply with rule #12. Also I will move this thread to the hardware section.

[dansrfe]

By the time it reaches the sound card the audio degradation calls for a higher than needed bitdepth. In parallel one could ask why audio isn't recorded to 20Khz (the maximum frequency humans can hear) as the standard. The answer is that the sampling theorem that states you need double the max frequency in order to attain the max frequency and on top of that you need a little extra in order to cover the inherent degradation that occurs when transmitting the signal.

on a side note to Lord_Mulder: your x264 gui is the best thing since x264's cli.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Z5500 is a very good set of multimedia speakers. I have a similar set (Klipsch ProMedia 5.1).

A few thoughts

1) Make sure each of your speakers is getting a good connection to the sub/amplifier
2) I'd suggest outputting 24 bit 48 KHz
3) Upgrade to Windows 7 for god's sake.. why deal with Vista anymore?? :)
4) I use onboard SoundMax audio, and am fairly happy with it, save the nasty chunk of EMI I can very clearly hear at high volume. Get a dedicated sound card or use a digital inteface to avoid this.

Z5500 is pretty badass though.. what are you "missing"?

Remember that if you're using a digital connection, your sound card basically doesn't matter. Sure, there's the whole jitter over S/PDIF, but only a true psycho could detect this ;)

My speakers don't have digital I/O, i'd suggest that you use it!

Consider adding dynamic range compression / equalization to your system if you're not happy with the sound, but consider that these alter the original sound quite a bit.

Derek

[Ghitulescu]

1. you should have mentioned that the speakers are for a laptop, as laptops generally lack a digital out and force the owner to route only analog signals. One can use an USB card with digital-out and a set of loudspeakers with digital-in.

2. jitter can be heard, one needs only an optical splitter, a jitter-removal device (there are several) and an above-media player with 2 optical inputs.

[nurbs]

By the time the audio reaches the sound card it hasn't degraded at all since the transfer has been all digital. During and after going through the DAC you can't even reproduce anywhere near 24 bit accurately let alone 32 bit.
Higher bitdepths are good for processing, but there is no reason to artificially increase them just for playback, especially not beyond the capabilities of the audio hardware. Lossless formats aren't available in >24bit precision anyway and while you can usually decode lossy ones at a more or less arbitrary bitdepth going that high won't help.

The reason why higher frequencies than humans can hear are stored has to do with the conversion (e.g. anti-aliasing filters not being perfect), not the transmitting. If you transmit digital there will be no degradation and if you transmit analog the higher frequencies being there won't help the lower ones being transmitted more accurately AFAIK.

edit:
Ghitulescu, where does it say laptop?

[Hagbard23]

@nurbs: we know from another thread, that he has got laptop problems...

You wrote another thread about buzzin speakers ..... i believe that were the LogitechZ506 speakers....is that problem gone away with the new set of speakers? Or do you get the buzzin' again?

Back to topic: I assume, that you havent set up the drivers correctly AND maybe you have the wrong DS-Filters installed. Check in the System Properties of Windows the sub-Menu "Sound" and set up all needed parameters for 5.1 Sound. You also can switch on/off some other parameters.

If you are using a directshow-based media player (like media player classic) i would recommend to install AC3-Filter. You have more control over the Sound, then and you can switch on extra features like Dynamic Range Compression and Upmixing and so on.

If you play back Stereo-Content (mp3's and so on) it is just normal, that the sourround speakers are quite calm and the main sound is coming out of the front speakers. Only if you play back real 5.1 content you will hear "louder" back-channels. Unless you fiddle with the levels...

You shouldn't encounter ANY problems with your way of connecting the speakers. NORMALLY all should work without problems. Connecting via SPDIF/Optical will raise complexity but i doubt, that you hear differences in Quality. Further on: SPDIF is limited in Bitstream-Witdh and so limited in SamplingRate/Number of Channels...

[Ghitulescu]

edit:
Ghitulescu, where does it say laptop?

He didn't, but check his other posts ;)

[Hagbard23]

ah....

and to your second question:

An external USB-Soundcard is <qualitywise> nearly always better than onboard-solutions like Realtek. Especially with laptops, there are problems in grounding ... the sound-chip and its "connectors" are surrounded by EM-emitting sources ... laptop-boards are very narrow built and i will nearly always recommend to use external devices nearly only just for this reason.

Ok - Soundcards/Chips don't play a role, if you connect digitally but that doesn't make the situation always better, since SPDIF is quite limited (cable-length for example, maximal Bitstream-Witdh for example, and so on)

[bollemanneke]

Thanks a lot for all your posts!

Um, I'm a bit confused now, I'll just answer some questions.

I don't use Media Player Classic, I use VLC. Does anyone know why every time I connect surround speakers to my laptop, the rear channels never work properly? They do work when I use the on-board 5.1 speakers, so why don't they work with external speakers?

So an Optical Output won't make the rear channels harder or the sound better?

Yes, the buzzing problem is fixed now, but I have to turn the surround volume really hard, and when I increase the surround volume on the control panel of the speakers, the front speakers play too soft. Why is that?

I'll update to Windows 7 asap, but does it make a difference? Will the computer make the speakers sound better when I have w7?

Would a good soundcard be expensive?

[Hagbard23]

A "good" soundcard should be available for -lets say- 50 Euro's...and it is definitely worth the price...

i STRONGLY recommend, that you check you soundcard-settings in the windows vista system panel (submenu: Sound)...something is wrong with your set-up...your last logitech speakers were OK too..as i said, the problem lies not in the speakers, but in your laptop...maybe there is a confrontation between your onboard-speakers and the externally connected, and you should be able to fix it in the system panel...

You should see something like this:

http://www.vistax64.com/attachments/sound-audio/4202d1211990785-vista-sound-isnt-working-pls-help-untitled.jpg

or this

http://mbforum.gigabyte.de/forumdownload//Sonstiges/Sonstige%20Grafiken%20fuers%20Forum/RealtekAudioConfigVistaAnalogBild1.jpg

this is the important part:

http://res2.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/Windows%20Vista/Main/4/3/43c09cc7-3939-4596-8938-16d1d3a4d0f5/43c09cc7-3939-4596-8938-16d1d3a4d0f5.png

[bollemanneke]

My settings are all right. I just don't understand why the internal rear channels work and the external play too soft.

[bollemanneke]

Okay, I found a soundcard:

Creative SB X-Fi Surround 5.1 - External USB 2.0

Would this soundcard be enough to have fantastic sound? Will it definitely be better than my REaltek HD Driver analog result I'm getting now? (it may be a stupid question, but I really want to be sure that I'll get good sound out of my speakers when I buy this one).

[Hagbard23]

check it out by yourself - if you are disappointed, send it back... ;)

[Ghitulescu]

Actually the quality of a soundcard resides not only in its specs but also in some other items as well. With a 5€ loudpeakers not even the LakePeoples' most expensive gear can beat an integrated sound.

So no need to invest in an expensive (and probably good :)) soundcard if you use cheap loudspeakers.

A good card is immune against external noise and provides you with good drivers. What good a S/N ratio of 120dB when the optical units' spindle motor is heard, or the HDD's one, or the fan, or even the SpeedStep switching modes (for laptops).

I generally advise people against Creative, for the same amount of money one can get prosumer solutions like M-Audio or similar.

[bollemanneke]

Oh God, I can't see the wood for the trees anymore. someone on a Logitech Forum topic strongly advised me the Soundblaster, and these speakers are not cheap! They cost 300 euros and have THX certificate.

[Hagbard23]

Creative is okay....qualitywise...you get a robust, good supported soundcard then...Creative has not the greatest fan-community, because of its company-policy and the pure-capitalistic way of marketing.

But the products are a solid base to work with ... like a BMW in automotive industry...

Ghitulescu is right, when he says, that you can get prosumer-products from M-Audio for the same price, but those products are only of use, if you plan to use professional-software with that...means: If you plan to make music...

If you are more the consumer type (hear music, play movies, play games...) then you are surely better off with Creative, due to THX/EAX support...which you can surely not get for the same price elsewhere..

[bollemanneke]

Ok thanks, I just ordered the soundcard and I really hope it will work, because those speakers cuased me more trouble than I could imagine. :D

[Ghitulescu]

Hagbard23 is right, I often forgot that people use the soundcards also for games and stuff, not only for pure music. For this kind of activities, yes, the Creative series seems to be more than adequate as it provides all kind of drivers and modi. I would still tend to alternatives, like Terratec & co. But that's me.

[dansrfe]

So in ffdshow's audio decoder under "processing options" it shows 16bit, 24bit, and 32bit processing also under "Output" it shows 16bit, 24bit, 32bit and 32bit floating point. As of now I have 32bit processing and 32bit floating point output. Please tell me when which set of options need to be used and why some of these options exist if they are never supposed to be used.

[namaiki]

output 24 bit or less.

[Hagbard23]

yep...you could try 32bit float, but on my hardware i get ugly high-noise-sounds, when i activate it via AC3-Filter, which has the same processing/output-options...

generally spoken, the more bit-resolution, the higher the mixing-quality - so theoretically 32bit-Float should be on first place, but hardware-support is still not as it should be...;)

24 Bit should be a good and reliable option

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yeah, basically if you output 32 bit float, your sound card is NOT outputting 32 bit float ;)

Output 24 bit integer... try a resample to 96 KHz too :)

Also, take a look at this interesting new review on techreport.com, where they look at integrated Realtek audio versus two sound cards from ASUS, one a $30 cheapie, and one a $300 monster with a bundled Sennheiser headset. It's quite enlightening!

http://techreport.com/articles.x/19997

Derek

[Ghitulescu]

32-bit floating point is not for playing, is for editing. No device I know can play or transmit 32b float. The result is dithered back to integers, like 24b or 16b.

[dansrfe]

ok so what about the "processing" option in ffdshow? i would guess 32-bit processing is the best option in that arena.

[Ghitulescu]

Floating point is used to get better computational results, eg when one applies say -3dB attenuation to the signal - these values are better computed in floating point. On the other hand, shifting the values 1 position to the left or to the right (corresponding to doubling/halving) is losslessly done in integers (a floating point +-6dB would always round the values). In the end is an issue of perfectionism, or a helping hand lend to purists (floating point processing is more "analog" than "digital").