Computer speaker/sound problem (1 Viewer)

[Angelo.M]

I have virtually identical computers in my office and at home (Dells w/ Pent4), but they have different soundcards. I use the same basic speakers (basic harmon/kardon stuff that comes w/ Dells). I use Winamp3 at work and Winamp2 at home for playback of MP3 files.

At work, I can add bass via the EQ in Winamp3 and things sound pretty good. At home, if I raise the bass side of the EQ just a bit, I begin to get audible distortion.

Which leads to 2 questions. The first: what is likely the source of the problem? The second: where is the best place to adjust volume: in Winamp, in WindowsXP or at the speaker itself?

Thanks, in advance.

 

[Matt DeVillier]

a few things:

1) winamp 2 has better SQ than 3
2) winamp's EQ is pretty crummy - there are a few plugins that do better
3) the preferred setup is to max out all the volume controls in windows (including winamp, which is just adjusting the wav output volume) and then adjust the volume on your speakers. extra crummy sound cards may distort with this setup, but most shouldn't. a decent sound card will run you $40 at most (TBSC)

 

[Angelo.M]

Matt:

The setup I'm having problems with uses Winamp 2, not 3, so that shouldn't be the problem, I guess.

Maybe it's the soundcard, which is a stock Creative Labs Integrated that came with the Dell. My Dell at work has SoundMAX Integrated. I thought they'd perform roughly the same; right?

 

[Matt DeVillier]

hard to say - integrated sound is always a toss up because the same audio codec chip can be combined with different DACs/filters etc resulting in greatly different SQ