Medusa 5.1 Surround Headset

[frogslegs]

Same problem here spent most of the evening trying figure out if I'd done a bad wiring job or not. I'm using these with an audigy 2 zs and the front speakers seem to sound too tiny. I thought the medusas would be a great upgrade to the gainward 5.1 headset I've been using. I pretty sure the wirings correct the gainwards sound fine when I plug them in to the medusa amp . I figured that the headphones from medusa must me faulty. Does anyone own a pair that works correctly?

More people with problems here


http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=1779572

 

[n8dogg]

Well I'm in the same boat, me and 2 of my friends bought 3 sets of the headphones(recieved them 2 days ago)and all of us are less than impressed to say the LEAST! all the rave reviews made me buy a pair and they sound as if every speaker in them is blown as the above poster said also. now its 3 different people on 3 different computers with 3 different soundcards and all are having the exact same problem (audigy 2, turtle beach, and x-fi thought i know about the x-fi problems with these headphones) everything is set the way it should be i even set my main volume to 50% on my pc and tried to ajust the headphones but to no avail, even at volumes where you can barely hear anythig you can still hear the distortion and it becomes almost painful to even play BF2 where a minutes worth is about as much as i can handle since you can't make out whats going on anyway. I hope theres something that might be able to be done any ideas?

 

[AnGR5e]

My rear speakers seem to have no bass, the rear right doesn't work at all, and my vib wheel seems to do nothing. Anybody come up with any solutions to anything like this? My speakers work fine running through the amp, so I know it's not a sound card issue.

 

[Aaron McKenna]

I honestly have no idea... apart from the dodgy wiring setup, I had no problems with them at all and they did what I wrote about. *points at Speed-Link*

 

[n8dogg]

well this really sucks, speed link is not really any help if there is any help to be even had or the headphones might just suck, different people hear different things I guess and of course they have no money back garantee, so I'm stuck with a big o'l paper weight

 

[AnGR5e]

I gone done emailed Creative and Speedlink hoping to get some ideas, but haven't gotten a response yet. I did notice today though that when I turn on my desk lamp while using the headphones, I can distinctly hear it click on/off through my headphones. I think it might have something to do with the power/adapter, I think I'm going to check out some other adapters and see how those work out.

 

[n8dogg]

Well I found that I bought a actual voltage converter for the amp ($14) and bought some higher quailty interconnects and if you pull out the jacks from the back just a little bit and mess with each one you can get much better sound, but really thats is stupid and you shouldn't have to do that but if it works i guess might as well giver a try. I also found that just plug the wires into whatever and trial and error works best since its all messed up in the back of the amp. even though the test tones are messed up and on side of the left sounds muffled when in game it atleast makes the games more bareable.

 

[Medusa_USA]

Hi Aaron and all thread postees..

There are a number of FAQ's available on our support pages which deal with just about all the queries that people have thrown at you.
http://www.medusa-usa.com/support.php

In amongst them there is also a set-up guide including how to connect the cabling on Creative's ZS and X-Fi cards.

Medusa-USA prides itself on the unique one-on-one almost instant personal after sales service. Anyone with a query as to the workings, or not, of the Medusa range of headsets should contact us first for a solution to the problem rather than wasting precious time asking the wrong people. Aaron is an excellent reviewer NOT a support engineer who has all the answers.

We are here to help, just contact us via the support page.


Matthew E Mason-Phipps
CEO
Medusa-International

 

[AnGR5e]

Oh man, looks like that FAQ has all I need. Thanks Matt! I emailed both you and Creative regarding support, I was just posting here to see if anybody else had the error and what they did to fix it.

Thank you!

 

[Aaron McKenna]

Well now, problem solved. Glory be and such.

 

[Chosen01]

Hi all! Thanks for the replies. I figured out the problem with my headest. It *was* in fact the power supply. I finally managed to find an old univeral AC adapter laying around the house that I hadn't seen since the 80's.. lol. I set it to 7.5V. Its only rated at 300 mA but it does the job more than nicely. The headset is in fact very nice, just don't use the european power adapter it comes with.

 

[Cavern]

My rear speakers seem to have no bass, the rear right doesn't work at all, and my vib wheel seems to do nothing. Anybody come up with any solutions to anything like this? My speakers work fine running through the amp, so I know it's not a sound card issue.

I'm Having the exact same symptoms. I've tried turning off CMSS like it says in the FAQ if you have weak bass, but it didn't help. I'm using an Audigy 2 for my soundcard, and in games the bass is extremely weak and the rear speakers are extremely tinny (sounds like no low-range to them at all). The werid thing is, in PowerDVD when I watch a movie they sound great. The VIB knob works and the sound is fantastic. However, in any other application the sound isn't nearly as good (ie. Windows Media Player, Call Of Duty 2). I've got the speakers set correctly in windows (as 5.1 speaker set) and in the creative speaker setup utility.

I'm extremely frustrated with this headset. I guess I'll try going and buying a new power adapter (like Chosen01), but I doubt very much it will help. I'm wondering what AnGR5 did to fix his problem? Any other ideas?

 

[Medusa_USA]

Ok guys, time to stand up and be counted.

It would appear from a couple of postings in this thread that the Power Supply and Adapter that we include in the North American packs fails to work in certain situations/locations (especially in Canada).

I would state for the record that since including this combination we have shipped over 500+ units and only know of a handful that have caused concern. However a handful is enough for us to take responsibility and make the following offer to anyone who feels they are suffering poor performance purely as a result of the power supply...

Medusa-USA Customers
Please complete the support request form here.. http://www.medusa-usa.com/support.php and a replacement higher rated power supply will be sent to you free of charge from our US support desk.

Medusa-Canada Customers
Here is the one I would recommend to you .....
http://www.circuittest.com/English/Content/Items/M500R.asp
You can purchase from one of these stores close to you..
http://www.circuittest.com/english/Distributors.asp

Please purchase one and if it cures your problem we will re-imburse you fully for whatever it costs you (excluding any shipping). Average price for the M500R is around $12 CAD.


If anyone has any further queries regarding this or any other Medusa issue please contact me direct via my personal email matt@medusa-usa.com rather than fill this thread with questions that can easily be cured via email.


Sincerely

Matthew E Mason-Phipps
CEO
Medusa-International

 

[AnGR5e]

I'm wondering what AnGR5 did to fix his problem?

Actually, I had jumped the gun, I suppose, I didn't quite mean that I had fixed my problems but that I was excited that there were some things in that FAQ that I hadn't tried that I was hoping would work. I'm still getting the same problems as before, but I'm going to take them up on their free power adapter offer.

 

[Cavern]

Actually, I had jumped the gun, I suppose, I didn't quite mean that I had fixed my problems but that I was excited that there were some things in that FAQ that I hadn't tried that I was hoping would work.

Damn.

 

[AnGR5e]

You're not the only one.

 

[Cavern]

Well, I went and picked up a new power adapter today, and it noticably improved the sound quality from the rear and center channels, however it had no effect on the 'low bass' that I was experiencing in windows and in games.

That said, I was able to get the great bass that I was hoping for! As I began to suspect, the headphones were working fine (special thanks to the great customer support I got yesterday from Medusa International). The problem (I think) was that in normal applications, no signal was being sent out on the 'subwoofer' channel. PowerDVD does its own decoding of the DVD audio and as a result sent the correct output to the subwoofer channel as well as the rest of the speakers, but my Audigy card wasn't sending any signal in other applications (because they weren't specifically outputting on the subwoofer channel). Since my speakers were all doing the 'Channel Test' correctly, I figured that they were hooked up in the right order, so I'm pretty confident this was the problem.
In order to fix it, I had to enable 'Bass Redirect' and turn up the 'Crossover Frequency' in my Audigy control panel (Bass Managment tab in the Speaker Settings panel). This setting apparently analyses the signals sent to the satellite speakers, and redirects (or copies, I'm not sure which) the low frequency signals to the subwoofer channel. Since I've enabled it, I'm able to 'feel' the bass a lot more when playing MP3's and in games.

The steps I did to turn on Crossover are:
1. Open the 'Creative Volume Control' application (the Creative-supplied sound-mixer that replaces the windows sound mixer)
2. Click on the 'Speaker Settings' button (the little picture of the speaker in the bottom of the mixer panel). This opens the 'Speaker Settings' panel where you would go to change the setting for the number of speakers (2,2.1,5.1, etc..).
3. Click on the 'Bass Managment' tab on the top of the panel.
4. Click and enable the 'Bass Redirect' option on this screen (second box down) and pull up the 'Crossover Frequency' slider (this sets how high of a frequency to redirect to the subwoofer channel). I have mine set at about 90%, but you can see what works for you.
5. Ensure that the 'Subwoofer Volume' slider is turned up.

Its pretty much cleared up all the problems I've been having! The headset is sounding great now! A big improvement!

 

[Cavern]

One more quick thing, I just found this program that is great help in determining if your positional audio is working/calibrated correctly. Its called "RightMark 3d Sound" and it lets you test out playing sounds, moving them around to the various speakers, and all the EAX/Directsound stuff you could hope for.

Available from the downloads section here http://audio.rightmark.org/

Hopefully it'll help some of you out with your problems!

 

[AnGR5e]

I tried the bass redirection twice now and I can't get it to work yet. I've already used the RightMark thing and for some reason my rear right speaker isn't working, so I'm still at a loss as to why that is, otherwise I think if the replacement power adapter doesn't work I might try the USB version.

 

[Cavern]

Just as a suggestion, to test if its the speaker or the output thats the problem (for your rear-left speaker not working), you could try plugging the cord that goes OUT from your WORKING front left/right output on your soundcard (we know it works because your Front left/right are working correctly) into your REAR left/Right on the amp for the headset. If the rear left speaker STILL doesn't work, then its probably a problem with the headset itself (I'd still try the new power adapter tho). Alternetly you should try plugging your rear left/right OUTPUT from your soundcard into the front left/right jack on the amp. If the front left speaker stops playing sounds, then it would indicate the problem is with the soundcard (not the headphones).

Did you try anything like that?

 

[MadCraiZ]

I ordered mine from Medusa-USA and I ended up getting a non-us power adapter. Not a problem really a problem to me if I radioshack has a compatible adapter. If there's one thing I hate, it's waiting on shipping.

 

[Medusa_USA]

You would have received a US power plug and adapter. Contact us direct and we will advise where it is.

Matt

 

[Cavern]

I picked up one of those 'universal adapters' from radioshack to replace the european one I received. Just take in the european one and tell them that you need to get a North American replacement, and they should be able to get you the one you need.

 

[o0oSPuNKiEo0o]

Anyone bought one of these since they started including the new powersupply? I want to know if I spend 129 bucks if it's going to work right away or if I have to go play at radioshack to make it work.

Also, anyone else know anywhere I can get these for cheaper then 129? Ebay and Amazon both have about teh same price. Newegg.com doesn't even carry.

 

[ampulae]

Count me in as another US buyer with exactly the same problems as described in this thread.

Count me also as one who hasn't had good results trying a 7.5 plug.

Chime in folks. What results are you having?

Amp