[RESOLVED] SoundBlaster Live Question ?????

[ceedee5]

I used to have a Sound Blaster 16 card installed and the volume at 1/2 (on powered speakers)was good, Now I have brought a Sound Blaster Live and have found that I now have to have the volume level at 3/4 (on my powered speakers) just to have a reasonable amount of volume ?
The windows volume level is set the same for both cards.
Anyone had this happen ???????
Or any Idea's ??????
Thanks


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Still trying to perfect that SMILE, while thinking what the hell have I done!!!!
As the customer looks on happy in the fact he has called in a Pro ...

[MacGyver]

Three things:

Your old card likely had a stronger amplifier on it
your volume settings are incorrect
You have plugged your speakers into the LINE OUT jack by mistake instead of the SPEAKER jack

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I help others in the name of my Lord, Jesus Christ.

[Jeff the Brit]

SB Lives are quite low on output. Not a problem with a decent audio rig, just crank it up further. The line input is considerably less sensitive than the old SB16 or AWE64 too, e.g. if you're recording electric guitar straight into the line input, you'll need preamp from a mixer or similar to get the signal up to line level. Without that, the signal level is low, and will need normalising in recording software, obviously raising levels of noise in the signal too.

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I think I know just enough to know how much I don't know... I think...

[ceedee5]

Jeff the Britt ...thanks, So they are low on on the output...ahhhh that would explain it. I looked everywhere for some info on the card in respect to the amount of milliwatts that it put out but could'nt find it.
Guess I will have to get a small amp....
Thanks all ....... CeeDee

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Still trying to perfect that SMILE, while thinking what the hell have I done!!!!
As the customer looks on happy in the fact he has called in a Pro ...

[GJFowler]

Signal levels are always a balance between noise level and "headroom". More basic cards with noisier amplifier stages in them tend to use a higher signal level to keep out of the background noise, but they are easy to overload. A better card like the Live can drop the average signal level without hurting the signal-to-noise figure much because it has better, quieter circuitry. This gives more headroom to handle the dynamic range of music without overload, which would cause distortion.

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I used to be Platypus...

The platypus, proof God has a sense of humour.