speakers crackling?

[Hipnotic_Tranz]

I run my computer through my reciever for sound and all and it seems no matter what, I can't get the speakers to stop crackling! I have the volume in windows at 80%, I have the volume in all other apps (media player, my ati players, etc.) all down half-way. I went into my creative mixer and made sure they were all set to 80% and it hasn't helped any? I thought at first the volume was just to loud so it was sending a distorted signal but nope.

And it doesn't happen all the time. I can play music fine, but as soon as I jump into DOD or quake where there are some loud, abrupt explosions, they'll crackle slightly. It's just annoying and I can't think of what it might be?

I'm running Win2k with the latest drivers for my Platinum 5.1. Got any ideas what might be causin' this?

[edit]
by the way, this happened in Win98SE also, so I don't think it's the OS or the drivers. It sounds to me like I have a setting in windows that is outta whack but I can't think of what.

[dadx2mj]

I had that problem with my SBLive when the volume was set to anything over 60% you might try lowering the volume in Windows a little more and see if that helps.

[FlyingPenguin]

You're over-driving the receiver. What input are you using? You should be using a tape or Aux input. Use whichever input that has a LOWER gain (tape is usually lower than Aux).

Some receivers have a gain control located on the back near the input (mine does). If so, turn it down.

Only other thing you can do is turn down the volume in the Windows Mixer. To start with set all the input volumes (CD, Wave, etc) to 30%.

Set the master volume to 50% and try that.

If it's still distorting, try 30% on the master.

If it's still distorting try bringing everything down to 20%


Also, if you're running your bass level too high on the SBLive it'll also cause distortion.

If not already enablen, bring down the Options menu in the Windows mixer and check Advanced Controls. This enabled an "Advanced" button on the master channel.

Click the Advanced button and set the treble to 50% and bass to around 40% (I've found all SBLive cards distort badly with bass over 40%) - you may beed to bring it down more. You should have bass control on the receiver to compensate if you want more bass.

[Hipnotic_Tranz]

I'm using tape on my reciever.

I played around with the mixer settings and set everything to 58%. I still have my bass up to 90% and my treble to 75% and I've ran through some games and all seems well. That's kinda stupid that it's distorting when the volume isn't even that high. I would have thought 80% would be enough to eliminate any distortion. Maybe it's just more sensative when you have a reciever and all in the mix...

Thanks for the suggestions guys-- always a help

[FlyingPenguin]

90% Bass in Windows mixer is excessive. I'd crank it down. That's too much with ANY sound card, but SBLive cards are notorious for distorting Bass so I don't like to run them higher than 40%.

I made a living for nearly 20 years as a sound engineer before going into business for myself as an IT tech, so let the old fart lecture for a bit......

The rule is you ALWAYS run your volumes from lowest to highest starting at the input as you work towards the output stage.

So you generally want your input sliders lower than the mixer master, and you want your mixer master lower than the master volume on your amplifier.

This applies to ANY audio system, be it concert sound, studio sound, car audio, home audio or computer sound.

You NEVER want to introduce ANY distortion at the beginning of the signal path because every subsequent stage AMPLIFIES the distortion, along with the audio.

You also always want to introduce equalization and other effects as late in the signal path as possible for the same reason - all signal processing inherently introduces distortion and noise to some extent.

In your case, the ideal situation is to run the tone controls FLAT on the SBLive in Windows Mixer (50%) and add your treble and bass at the final stage: the receiver.

I recommend this as well with any computer speakers. You should always buy good quality speakers with a tone control (preferably seperate Bass and Treble, but even a single tone control is better than nothing). Set the tone in Windows mixer flat, and then add bass or treble using the speaker's controls.

A lot of people also make the mistake of relying too much on the EQ in Winamp or Media Player. Your primary equalization should be done at the speakers, only use Winamp's or Media Player's EQ to tweak the shape the sound of the particular media you're listening to (this is why I like using Winamp's EQ presets - I have a preset for rock, a preset for classical, one for Shout Casts which tend to sound tinny unless you drop a lot of treble, etc).

Never use large setting changes in an EQ - the EQ graph should be a smooth transition from one eq channel to the next, not jarring & large transitions.

The best all around basic setting for an EQ for listening to music is a "smile" graph:


This is a good starting point. Human hearing is tuned to hear best at mids, so the smile compensates for this by boosting the bass and treble a bit (human hearing accuity on a graph is the exact opposite of a "smile": a "frown" because nature intended us to hear best at the frequencies of human voice).

The smile is a good starting point, then adjust for taste. If you like rock, you probably want more bass.

DON'T slam the left 4 sliders up to full! Just make the left side of the smile raise higher than the right in a sort of smirk maintaining the smooth curve of the smile:


If you like orchestral string music, you'll want more high-mids and highs:


Avoid the temptation to crank ANY slider on the EQ to either extreme.

I just love it when I go to someone's house and their EQ looks like this:

or this

and they want to know why they keep blowing their speakers....

[Hipnotic_Tranz]

I appreciate the in-depth explanation. Not many people care about others problems like you Again, thanks.