Good device for Headphone output

barrykap

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I have a peculiar hearing defect. I can hear bass well and need this to give me a 'bassline' to try and follow music being played. I therefore need to have an adjustable 'filtered' output on my PC sound out which I would connect my Sony MDR-XB700 headphones. It's not just a matter of attenuating the higher frequencies (or even boosting the bass) as I do wish to try and hear some of the mid-range (all high freqs are lost to me). I also need good quality output of what I CAN hear, but to be able to have a sort of 'graphic equaliser' output that I can experiment with and set the filtering to suit my hearing. Is there a good sound card or a plug-in USB device that has good control of the tones in this way and will power my headphones, which are quite hungry for power and need some woof.
Sorry if this sounds complicated but my hearing defect IS complicated.
Thanks.
 
This is what the equaliser on my Creative X-Fi Titanium looks like:

Temp1.jpg


I believe that model is discontinued and the current equivalent (£50-60) is the Sound Blaster Z but I'm guessing it's capabilities will be similar.

I drive a pair of Audio Technica ATH-AD700 headphones and it has plenty of power for that, typically I use 25-30% volume and haven't ever had to use more than 50%.

I don't have any experience of it's rivals so I can't say whether it's a particularly good option but it sounds like it may meet your criteria.
 
Thanks very much. I will look at the Soundblaster Z. Presume the output will always be as set by the graphic Eq no matter what source or programme is playing on my PC? (ie youtube, MP3, BBC iplayer etc)

Cheers
 
Thanks very much. I will look at the Soundblaster Z. Presume the output will always be as set by the graphic Eq no matter what source or programme is playing on my PC? (ie youtube, MP3, BBC iplayer etc)

It's presented as the settings for the sound card but I haven't actually tested it.

I would expect it do so, except perhaps if the program requests exclusive mode access to the sound device. If I get sufficient time over the next few days of christmas I'll try and do some testing.
 
Tried it over a variety of programs using different APIs and they all worked (Foobar2000 set to exclusive mode, VLC, iPlayer through Opera/Flash, Rollercoaster Tycoon). That's using the analogue output to my headphones.

Unfortunately I don't have any S/PDIF equipped speakers or receiver so I can't try it with my sound card's digital output. I did try it with my graphic card's HDMI output and it didn't work but I'd imagine that's because it's independent of the sound card rather than because it's a digital output.
 
Wow! Many thanks for taking the trouble. All I will ever need is headphones (analogue) output so seems this will do the job.

I have located a Creative Sound Blaster Z High Performance Gaming Sound Card - OEM (30SB150200000) at £51 from local PC store which I hope to purchase tomorrow. Presume this will be the same you recommend? Incidentally with it being an OEM I presumed i would need to download the drivers nad software but evrey time i try Soundblatser site for download them they either almost stall at very low download speed or just simply crash. But maybe Windows 8.1 will have drivers for it anyway?

Thanks again for your help.
 
Presume this will be the same you recommend?

I don't have any experience or knowledge of that particular one. Creative no longer make the one I have though and that's it's replacement so I assume it shares a lot of the capabilities and software.

Searching the web found Sound Blaster Z Equaliser brings up results suggesting it's very similar:
Equalizer settings for deep bass | RejZoR's Little Secrets

Might be worth asking your local shop what their return policies are though.
 
Thanks again.

I will risk it. Amazon accept returns if not satisfied. That link shows the same setting I am using at present with my audio separates GE unit.

I've found an alternative download site for the software too.

I'll let you know how I go on with the card.

Cheers.
 
Card fitted

Pretty good. With good equaliser control of output. Can save any configuration to suit different types of playback too.

Thanks for your help on this.
 

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