The X-Meridian 7.1 Thread - Page 71

Can anyone tell me the order of the opAmps? I need to replace my center/sub but unsure which one it is.

It's the one with one larger capacitor next to it as well as the smaller one. The other three op-amps have the small capacitors.

There's a new download combining the drivers for all the OS versions. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like there are any functional upgrades.

Hello everybody.

Today I've purchased an XM 2G.

Everything seems fine, but I'm unable to get 2 channel sound when 5.1 enabled... Is always doing upmix or whatever, also with DTS Neo, Dolby Pro-Logic, and everything disable. Does anybody knows how to get in Windows XP when the selected speakers are 5.1, tue stero sounds? It's no good to change the speaker config every time you want to play stereo or 5.1...

I've looked on the thread and as someone asked about it, there are no solutions, becouse it seems that it does not happens to everybody.

Thanks for your help.

Is there a driver that finally provides channel delay settings on Windows 7 x86/x64? Tried some older links for c-media drivers without success. Also tried the Razer Barracuda driver which offers the delay option, but I'm not sure it works, since some other settings in its control panel don't have any effect, and its installation feels tacky. Auzentech releases driver "updates" without making any real changes...

have you tried the thx console patch? it works on my prelude and it introduces channel delay. it is an unofficial add-on ripped from another x-fi soundcard's official driver package and it works flawless for many x-fi cards from auzen

Thanks for replying, can you give me a link on where/how to do that? Never heard of it.

update: οκ, I found the file. If I understand correctly, I have to uninstall the current drivers first, not install over them. Hope it'll work, although the xm is not mentioned...

the file i found could be installed directly over the official drivers, and can also be uninstalled at any moment. it may be only for x-fi prelude home theatre and forte since meridian is not reported

I've been using headphones plugged into the socket for the main stereo front pair of speakers.

Using Windows XP.

In the 'Oxygen HD audio configuration' window:

Information tab: C-Media Audio driver version: 5.12.8.1731

Main Setting tab: In 'Output Device' 'Analogue Output' I have the headphone setting enabled and also in the DSP mode area.

This gives a very good effect of the sound from the headphones not being on the sides of my head or in my head, but pretty much the same as that of sitting in front of two full range near field monitors. For film and TV it looks like the words are coming out of the actors mouths on the screen.

I've recently got some high definition music; 192kHz and the headphone setting stops working with this.

Can anyone here tell me why it's stops working and how to make the headphone setting work with high definition.

Or point me to somewhere or someone who can tell me how to remedy this.

Thanks.

Maybe the source isn't 192kHz. I've ran in to that problem a lot and basically have mine set to 96kHz.

When it's playing in Winamp, the bitrate shows as 6144 KBPS and the kHz as 192. The file size for a 4 minute song is 190MB where a normal CD sized wav file is about 40MB, so about 5 times larger.

If I right click on the file and select properties it says 192kHz 16 bit.

Either way, can you tell me more about what you mean by
Set where, in what application and how?

I just had a play with the QO labsAudioBurst FX System. With loudspeakers I use it with the re-sampler enabled and it seems to sound a tiny bit better. But with that enabled it switches off the headphone effect so I leave it off normally. I just switched it's output to 48k and then the headphones setting worked with the 192k input. So basically, feeding the soundcard / it's software with more then 48k disables the headphone setting. This also reduces the sound quality meaning there'd be no point in using the 192k file. So that's not a fix.

The soundcard options window for the version I'm using does not have any settings for input. Only analogue output or S/PDIF output. Only the S/PDIF allows frequency settings and these appear to have no bearing on the analogue output.

Thanks and Happy new year

Selling mine, in perfect shape, no upgrades, in box with everything.

Upgraded to a Dacmagic Plus with USB2 ASIO

I have been enjoying for some time.my X-Meridian totally modded with opamps, a new clock and premium caps, which I have been with for some time.

ln the meantime, l have been informing myself on the latest tech hardware ever since. Numerous soundcards and external dacs (digital to analog) processors have been introduced on the market which are 2 channel only which don' t fit my system being 2.1 playback. Multichannel 2.1 capabilities which at my budget really doesn't exist.

As well the use of an EQ for control over for my room acoustics. The XEAR3D control is also my requirement.

Well have l found the ULTIMATE software. Before l mention it., let me also explain l also acquired a new media player being J River. $50.


So the new software utilizes professional studio tools. My interest is re-sampling or up-sampling tools and bit conversion.

iZotope is a well established professional studio software development company. Highly regarded. There resampling, bit conversion tools are well acknowledged. They have licensed their tools to other professional studio software developers.

SONY SOUNDFORGE PRO 10 is the one l acquired. WOW did l do the right investment. $250.

Do the research. It paid off for me.

Upsamples every thing up to 192Khz . l use WAV. for my ripped cds. Also if you download 24 bit hi-rez albums from HDtracks.com at say 88Khz or 176Khz which the X-Meridian cannot handle, you can still resample to 192Khz utilizing the iZotope resampling tools in the SONY SOUNDFORGE PRO 10 work station. Just save the upsampled file or track from an album thru the workstation. Which you can save to your HDD. This replaces the previous sampled file to the resampled file.and have no playback issues on J Rver Media Center.
Edited by morfeeus - 2/21/13 at 7:56pm

Were you able to tell if the re-clocking module make an improvement to the X-Meridian? Which clock mod did you use?

Thanks for you information regarding up-scaling software. I've been vaguely looking for some for a while.

I use high quality headphones now, driven from the L,R, line out feeding a headphone amp, not from the X-Meridian very low quality on-board headphone chip, and it's essential to use the CMedia headphone algorithm. Alas, using 192 sources, or the WinAmp AudioBurst FX-System re-sampler, stops that effect from functioning.

Edited by morfeeus - 2/21/13 at 7:31pm

Also .....just to expand on the importance of this subject of the clock. This high end audiophile company has always been at pinnacle for STATE OF THE ART music playback systems including downloads capabilities and whats ahead with DSD . They have a four component CD, SACD, DSD and Hi Rez DOWNLOAD playback capable system $110,000. With one component of the four being the MASTER CLOCK.

http://www.dcsltd.co.uk/product/vivaldi-master-clock
Edited by morfeeus - 2/22/13 at 6:16pm

Edited by Socio - 2/22/13 at 6:08am

Thanks for spending the time it took to write and post all that Much appreciated (Edit....Just realised that you posted that in October 2007!! I never did get around to reading pages 60 to 70 of this thread!)

A clock mod onto this sound card is one of the things I've not tried.

How did you know which way around to connect to the two wires to the two holes where the Crystal was? And did you remove the 22pF's and the 1M Ohms?

I think that companies like that one prey on vulnerable people who have enough money and no technical knowledge. Parts connection are asking €430 for that http://www.newclassd.com/index.php?page=36 which is a huge rip off considering that's something like a £5 board with perhaps £10 of parts on it that are doing nothing particularly special. There are many clock modules that are much less expensive and offer squarer wave forms than that one appears to offer, or sine wave like the one I and a RF engineer friend designed in the 1990's . People felt ours sounded better than the square wave form, but eventually I seemed to find that just giving the digital filter chip and good power feed meant I could no longer hear the difference between the different clocks. Maybe the difference was never more than the quality of the regulation and decoupling that the various clock boards came with!?

That long lead with the one you're using likely smears the wave form so it no longer has sharp transitions, and may be ringing a bit. Recently, I and a friend, using his state of the art professional DSD recording studio and mastering suite, compared leads from the DSD recorder master clock output, maybe a dozen different clock leads of all expenses, including the Siltech Crystal, and they all made a different change to the sound. Shorter was better.

You can get A LOT MORE from that sound card that you currently are. I own and tried those NX Black gates, they are boomy, smeared and blurry. That double cap on the left of the DAC chip is to AC couple the DAC chip ground to the ground plane. It's of critical importance to the speed and dynamics of the sound. It needs a polystyrene 10n or so across the 10uF. I stuck with the original 10uF value in case there was a time constant or filter or anything that required that value. For the caps on the right of the DAC chip, I went up to 2460uF in the form of three parallel 820uF caps, more caps lead to more and stronger bass volume. I used the Nichicon Polymer caps as they were the cleanest and fastest sounding, far better than black gates, all be it with less bass but a cleaner and much more informative bass which we preferred. Favourite Op-Amps are the metal can TO-99, not plastic, and single, NOT DUAL, LME49710HA. Some people are liking the newish LME49990 surface mount chips now, but I've not tried those.

That capacitor you've replace with those two large Black Gates is the muting time delay for the switch on de-thump control. Nothing at all to do the pre or post regulation power supply, it doesn't decouple anything in the audio path. It's a common and astonishing mistake that people throughout this thread have been making; instead of finding out what the parts on the board do, they just change the largest capacitor!!!!

Here's my X-Meridian:, I've not changed it much, or at all, since those posts about 2 years ago.
Spread over a couple of pages:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/792354/the-x-meridian-7-1-thread/2040#post_19865855
http://www.avsforum.com/t/792354/the-x-meridian-7-1-thread/2070#post_19921435
http://www.avsforum.com/t/792354/the-x-meridian-7-1-thread/2070#post_19933186

I've measured it's sine wave output and found that it's not even at all frequencies. I'd like to re-do the output stage but off the board, on it's own board, with Vishay resistors and polystyrene capacitors. Or I maybe moving toward a Sabre ESS DAC and am considering running I²S to it from the X-Meridians CMedia DSP. I think it's just three or four wires. Take off the AK4396 and take those wires from that point, over to the new DAC on it's own board with it's own far better PSU. That then preserves the cross feed for my headphones.

I ran the headphone amplifier from the ± 8 Volt X-Meridian rails, soldering take off wires just after it's regulators and earth wires to the solder side of the line output sockets, then instead, I changed the headphone supply to my own PSU and wow what a big improvement! The supply rails on that sound card are VERY noisy! Hence I want to feed the output stage and DAC chip separately too.

If you change your sound card to be like mine you totally won't believe your ears when you hear it! And you may find your eyes water a bit! And the cost in parts? Maybe £61. MUCH less that your clock module and FAR better.
Edited by Ian AS - 2/22/13 at 6:36am

WOW.....thank you for your input....a lot to digest here, you got my attention. l for one am not by any means a electronics tech . The work or patching and soldering was done by others capable at my request.

You are well educated in this world. KUDOS brother. l am soaking up your thoughts. Good to have connected in this way......

You may have opened a door to new alternative audio tweeks for this soundcard.

You maybe informed about the opamps l use. Front channels being Burr Brown OPA637AU along with AD8065 for the sub channel which l found more extended and defined than the LM4562 's.

About your listening playback preferences. Is it all headphones or external speakers as well. Please elaborate.
Edited by morfeeus - 2/22/13 at 6:59pm

I never liked the 627. The 637 has limitations, data sheet says only use where there is no gain at any frequency, or something like that, I've forgotten now. So according to that it shouldn't be used in that sound card. I never tried that one. The various video player softwares wouldn't make the sound card play the rear or sub / centre. I didn't find out why. But for home theatre I used a Yamaha E800 as the processor / pre-amp feeding power amplifiers for front and rear speakers. No centre. Tried some subs but they were not as good as the main speakers which were rather big. I changed to headphones for film and TV a couple of years ago. Didn't like that one. The TO99 version, LME49720HA, was better. But instead of a dual op-amp, two single LME49710HA were much better, good straight away, dynamics, balance, clarity. The 4562, etc, was taking three weeks of non stop use to run in, sounding very bass light and nasty for the first week or two and not all that great in the end.

I use speakers from time to time for music, but do very little music listening these days. The sound card remains the source for music which I have just in stereo. The Yamaha sound quality was not as good as the sound card.

The development for the sound card ran out of motivation over a year ago after a friend who also had one and did play music all the time, decided to sell his big PC and get a laptop. I used to modify one sound card at a time with him then running it in, then we'd compare the two cards. Often I'd have parts running in on the card in mine too that, after a few months use, I'd then take off and we'd do a compare with.

We found the the mains supply to the PC was very important to the sound quality.

We got an improvement by earthing the PC case chassis direct to the mains supply earth. A big improvement on his, a small improvement on mine and small on another friends with an Asus sound card.

And we found that expensive IEC plugs sounded a lot better than low cost ones, and doubly so if they are soldered to the mains cable.

You're in Canada with different electrical mains supplies so your mileage might vary. But these things a worth a try.
Edited by Ian AS - 2/23/13 at 3:40pm

I must totally disagree with you about the 637's. Have no issues. Its not about the technical specs or numbers that determines the value of sound quality that is achieved. Seems that many people pay to much attention to numbers or specs. They judge by numbers rather than hearing what a component can do during audio playback.

The 637 is not the perfect opamp for sure. It is not dynamic, and veiled, somewhat in the upper registers, not as detailed. Still not as hard as LM series l believe. As well with limitations in the lower extension being more rounded than controlled and defined. This is where the AD8065 takes over. The 637 does have an amazing fluid liquidity for midrange vocals.

Just saying from my experience previously relative to the LM4562.

Nor is one opamp ever perfect....the other components decide the overall quality one has thru a system. Obviously the soundcard too. Which still has room for much improvement for sure. You have brought some considerations for me to follow up on. We'll see where this goes. Thanks.

My card is purely used for audio playback. My sub being a Paradigm Ultracube 10 $1000. and my fronts are Energy towers $1500. soon to be replaced with Goldenear Tritons. My current reciever is the Arcam AVR300.
Edited by morfeeus - 2/24/13 at 12:49pm

It's about oscillation. That chip is stated as being not stable in all conditions. If it's oscillating then it's smearing the sound. It might be that you're hearing distortion and liking it.

An amplifier I'm working on now, here are two pictures of the same input signal, a 20kHz square wave. The second one has a 16MHz oscillation overlaid on the 20kHz due to the amplifier oscillating at 16MHz which it ought not be doing. That changes the sound and can do damage to other components, eg, four resistors had burnt out.




Edited by Ian AS - 2/24/13 at 12:29pm

Maybe so........its all relative to what l now experience, for me to determine and justify those issues, l will have change those components to seek the truth. TBD.

There is one other soundcard on the market that got my interest and has been reviewed with the Lynx 22 and others in Absolute Sound that far exceeded their SQ. It is the ESI JULI. Unfortunately its a 2 channel card. If only l had a proper subwoofer with connectivity other than LFE surround. l would probably have bought it. Then again l still need a EQ.


http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/the-absolute-sound-card-survey-tas-213/
Edited by morfeeus - 2/28/13 at 5:45pm

I had a quite look at the data sheet for the 627 / 637.

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/opa637.pdf

The OPA637 is stable in gains equal to or greater than five.

The gain in the sound card is about 3.5, so too low for this chip. AND it has a high frequency feedback capacitor reducing the high frequency gain even further.

Bottom of page 8:
APPLICATIONS INFORMATION
The OPA627 is unity-gain stable. The OPA637 may be used
to achieve higher speed and bandwidth in circuits with noise
gain greater than five. Noise gain refers to the closed-loop
gain of a circuit as if the non-inverting op amp input were
being driven. For example, the OPA637 may be used in a
non-inverting amplifier with gain greater than five, or an
inverting amplifier of gain greater than four.
When choosing between the OPA627 or OPA637, it is
important to consider the high frequency noise gain of your
circuit configuration. Circuits with a feedback capacitor
(Figure 1) place the op amp in unity noise-gain at high
frequency. These applications must use the OPA627 for
proper stability.

Next to this text, are prohibited circuit designs for the 637, where the 627 must be used. The last diagram in Fig 1 is the same as in this sound card for the inverting pin.

FIGURE 1. Circuits with Noise Gain Less than Five Require the OPA627 for Proper Stability.

You probably have oscillation going on.

Just dropping chips in can sometimes not get the best from the new chip. Other components have to be adjusted or added / removed to ge the new chip to perform well. I usually just plugged them in though! However on this sound card I did have a play and found some interesting results; fit a 0.33uF film cap across the ± pins and get a change in tonal balance and 'snap'. Can sound harsh and shrill or just wrong on other equipment but sounded good in this card with the LME49710HA.

Regarding that ESI JULI, hard for me to say from just that piece, they don't tell us anything such as the DSP or DAC, etc. There appear to be no significant PSU caps on that board.

The AK4396 was a highly rated DAC chip so it probably won't be too terrible in comparison. May even be better. But it could do with the changes I've illustrated to get more from it.
Edited by Ian AS - 2/24/13 at 3:52pm

You might hate them or like them, but it might be free to find out. Anthony Gallo Reference 3.5. About half price, brand new from AG HQ, $4000. 60 day free trial (for USA maybe not for Canada?) direct from their HQ in California. Were retailing at about double that, not sure exactly: http://www.roundsound.com/shop/reference-series/nucleus-reference-3-5-loudspeaker.html

They are very highly rated. But may not have the bass of the one you're looking at?? Built in powered sub? I own the Strada speakers which have astonishing imaging. Too bass light on their own though and need a particularly good bass unit to go with them. The 3.5 are the Strada with a 10 inch bass unit in each box and a crossover. The Strada don't have a cross over for the mid range drive units so are a bit more clear. But people rate the 3.5 as some of the best speakers under £10,000 ($15,000?)