Hi everyone, I am so new to this audio game that I sqeak so I apologise in advance if my question is breath takingly dumb. I did search but found nothing to clear my confusion. I only use a pair of Zalman Theatre 6 headphones for audio on my PC. I read this review http://fuckhedz.com/item/2241 on the headphones and I am confused as to what the reviewer means by this comment/criticism. * The LFE channel is totally unused. It would be nice if it was mixed with the other channels. Does he mean that a basic hardware issue is preventing LFE from working ? Or is this a mixing problem that can be solved with software like ffdshow ? The reviwer also says *Maybe Zalman could put a small delay on the rear channel to give the sound more depth. How much is a little when using Delay in ffdshow audio decoder ? 10 or 100 ? I found this LFE/crossover guide but it didn't answer my LFE channel question, it just raised more. http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/setup/loudspeakers/settingcrossoverLFE.php Thanks in advance and any links appreciated. PS I use ffdshow 29-11-05 with MPC on Windows x64 and mix everything to 3/2 5.1 and it sounds good but I am sure it could be better. At the moment the bass is too loud or too soft and in audio tests you can't hear things absolutely direct centre in front of you. Not cool in shooting games
Okey dokey, this turned into quite the information chase for me and i learnt a bit. The info below is only useful if you have these Zalman 5.1 headphones, 5.1 soundcard, want to use ffdshow audio and decoder filters and (optional) to upsample stereo anything up to 5.1 and playback thru your 5.1 headphones. My question about LFE ? Answer - LFE removes low bass frequencies from front speakers and routes them to the back woofer and the Zalman headphones handle this easily with the right codec/filter setup. ffdshow audio decoder settings Codecs - mp3 -mp3lib and whatever else you want ffdshow to filter) Mixer - 3/2 5 channels, LFE ON, normalize on, Voice control ON, Expand stereo ON Volume - Normalize ON at 500%, Show current volume levels ON LFE Crossover - 80, 2.0, Remove low freq... ON Delay - 20ms (makes the bass more noticeable at the rear speakers) Output - 16 bit ONLY !!!, connect to Direct Sound ON And that's it ?? ... You need a player that can use ffdshow decoders for audio or video. I now use Zoom Player lite for audio and have used Media Player Classic for video forever (or maybe longer).. Testing - I left ffdshow volume controls at default as I read listening per channel is not the way to test surround when upsampling. I played with LFE and bass delay till that sounded OK. I used boring test samples d/l off the Net and sometimes a wav or mp3. I used Mariah Carey "Emotions" for treble/clarity and most songs by Rammstien distort like heck until you get LFE and the bass stuff sorted. That's it. The LFE and bass still need a lot of work but that's all personal choice. Any feedback or information welcomed.
>> Output - 16 bit ONLY !!!, connect to Direct Sound ON You can use 32 bit but it crackles and pops on low bitrate audio. Took me a long time to work out why the crackles. Happens on most sub 192kbp/s CBR mp3s. Happens on some DivX and not others. Doesn't seem to happen on XviD regrdless of audio format. My results were so inconsistent that turning 32bit off was better. I couldn't hear or see any differences when using 16 & 32bit except for the above crackles and pops. Your mileage will vary.
