Onboard - Not Enough Bass?

[Zarotu]

I have a ASRock H97M Pro4 motherboard. I just bought an ATH-M50s headphone to listen to high quality music, mainly the bass. But the bass on my onboard is negligible. On my laptop, the bass is there, and the music is awesome. I tried playing around and do not find Bass Boost on my Enhancement tab. Using the equalizer seems to make the audio sound worse.

What should I do? I remember watching a video stating that sound cards are not going to help (except increase volume?) and DACs are better than software. But it seems as though DACs are really expensive.

 

[dwatterworth]

I've gotten around weaker onboard sound by turning up the hardware volume and then the source volume down. Give that a try?

There are some really budget oriented DAC's that in studies that seasoned professionals cannot discern between the budget model and the pricey part.

Give this a read:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733-19.html

 

[Zarotu]

How would I turn the volume of my headphones up?

 

[dwatterworth]

Oh I meant turn up the windows master volume and then turn down the application or media program level.

 

[Zarotu]

That really helped. Any way to make this more permanent so that all applications are low and only the master volume is upped?

 

[dwatterworth]

Unfortunately not any way i have found will automatically set it up that way unless you have a sound driver that you can adjust per application like in windows audio control, but i dont know if you can adjust per sound type like in old windows versions.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

using the equalizer included in onboard sound generally results in distortion if you increase values. Try the opposite and decrease the mid range values instead of increasing the low end. I would suggest a soundcard with a headphone amp to avoid distortion or a separate headphone amp. Asus has a relatively cheap soundcard with headphone amp (xonar dx or dsx from memory).

 

[Zarotu]

Would purchasing a sound card ASUS XONAR DG Headphone Amp & PCI 5.1 Audio Card
improve audio quality and, most importantly, bass? And what happened to the FiiO E10? Wasn't it $60? Is it a good deal? Would an E06 improve anything?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Would purchasing a sound card ASUS XONAR DG Headphone Amp & PCI 5.1 Audio Card
improve audio quality and, most importantly, bass? And what happened to the FiiO E10? Wasn't it $60? Is it a good deal? Would an E06 improve anything?

the xonar should improve sound quality, and particulalry vollume and bass without distorting easily. I have the soundblaster Z and would recommend it over the xonar if your budget allows.

 

[Zarotu]

Possibly, but would that fit in a PCI slot? I'm not sure but there's a possibility that my graphics card may or may not be blocking my second PCI-E slot. Possibly.

 

[dwatterworth]

If your GPU is blocking your second PCI-e slot, something to consider in the future if you need another add-on board, you could get a little creative and make use of a PCI-e riser cable and mount your card on the side of the case etc.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Possibly, but would that fit in a PCI slot? I'm not sure but there's a possibility that my graphics card may or may not be blocking my second PCI-E slot. Possibly.

you can get a pci or pcie version of the xonar card mentioned.
http://www.asus.com/Sound_Cards_and_DigitaltoAnalog_Converters/Xonar_DG/
its the same as the dgx only its pci where the dgx is pci-e.