New Mboard / Cpu got better sounds as unexpected bonus

[danilo]

Fresh Gigabyte board and i5cpu fitted today.
Also involved a convoluted Re-validation of my Win 10 ..and the subsequent nuisance dwnload of Win 10 'Anni version'.
Which at least was free.
Interestingly; sounds from my mediocre (at best) A Lansing desktop sound setup is now improved. Not massively but noticeably nonetheless.
Who woulda thought?
Finally realised that some music can sound better thru the desktop and MP3's.
Case in point: PJ Harveys' Let England Shake, on videos/mp3 enticed me to buy the Cd.
Which subsequently proved as a Crap quality recording.. sad but true.
Merely Pissed at my naivety
Seems MidFi gear and MP3's are exactly what the stuff was Recorded for.
And TBH it sounds decent on such.
Moderne times.

[realysm42]

Tail waggeth the dog.

[RMutt]

I have that CD and it sounds fine to me. My Rega DAC did a really good job of mp3 I thought. I've just changed to a Yulong Sabre DA8 and whilst flac sounds better mp3 sounds worse. Some chips must just work better with different file types maybe?

[danilo]

Yours sounds good on your Main Rig? Congrats ! Is all I can say.
Mine definitely does not.
Yes it's a genuine CD .. First thing I checked.

Only posted as I'm genuinely surprised that my really basic/free.. on board Realtek chip / cheap A lansing, flanking my monitor, speakers 'setup',
does a surprisingly/pleasing job .. on downloaded MP3 Muzak.
Presumably by glossing over (missing entirely?) detail nuances that otherwise reveal the mastering/recording quality.
Only explanation that comes to mind TBH.
Most other Cd's on my main setup are a whole world superior sounding to their MP3's, as expected

On the other hand... this certainly simplifies aquiring And enjoying sketchy genres. .

[danilo]

Yours sounds good on your Main Rig? Congrats ! Is all I can say.
Mine definitely does not.
Yes it's a genuine CD .. First thing I checked.

Only posted as I'm genuinely surprised that my really basic/free.. on board Realtek chip / cheap A lansing speakers sound setup,
does a surprisingly/pleasing job .. on downloaded MP3 Muzak.
Presumably by glossing over (missing entirely?) detail nuances that otherwise reveal the mastering/recording quality.
Only explanation that comes to mind TBH.

On the other hand... this certainly simplifies aquiring And enjoying .

[RMutt]

I haven't played it yet mthrough my new ( to me) DAC but it definitely sounded OK through the Rega. Some CD's that don't sound that good on my system are a bit of a surprise because they are often lauded by others, Flaming Lips CD's sound thin and tttzzzsssy on mine for example and yet I noticed one in a best albums for hi-if list not that long ago.

[Stratmangler]

New Windows installation?
Which media player are you using?
Have you installed the appropriate hardware drivers?
Have you installed the appropriate ASIO or WASAPI drivers and pointed your audio interface at them?

[danilo]

Thanks; win 10 (ani version, new download install monday)
Have/ use VLC plus a couple of others that come bundled with Win. Nothing special :-).
Not complaining about Sound Quality out of my 'Puter setup.. Which without doubt, could absolutely be improved upon.
An adventure I'll start on, given the suggestions

Initially amazed that the freebie down load MP3 replayed thru the above sounds 'better' than the CD does on my main setup

Which I just looked up by the way:
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/li...+england+shake
Clearly it ain't a winner recording.

[Stratmangler]

VLC defaults are to play files no matter what.
You could try Foobar - it's a great bare bones media player with loads of plugins, and best of all it's free.
Foobar does have the ASIO/WASAPI driver support - just browse the available plugins and you'll find them.

It's worth playing with Foobar - it just might raise the bar on your file based audio.

For ripping CDs try EAC (Exact Audio Copy), and get secure, bit perfect rips.
As with Foobar it's worth getting to grips with EAC.
It'll cost you a bit of learning time, but that's all.

[RMutt]

I must admit I've not seen that dynamic range data base before. Interesting. I've looked up a few of my CD's and got mixed results but generally not brilliant according to their scale! The Flaming Lips I mentioned came out bad but a lot of my CD's are in the PJ Harvey averageish sort of range. Maybe the music I'm into just does not get recorded that well according to the scale. The best I've found so far are a couple of albums by Gogo Penguin which maybe had a different ' jazz afficiendo' type production. I'm not going to get hung up on it. In fact perhaps I don't really want to know in case it ruins my enjoyment!