Okay, quick'n'dirty thread!
IIRC, I posted elsewhere on the board explaining what I did to my SBLive!, but in case you missed it, here is what I did:
First of all, I switched from the Creative drivers to the kX Project drivers. You should do this before anything else. It is always said that the DAC for the rear channel on the SBLive! is superior in sound quality to that of the front channel. The kX software allows you to swap the front and rear output channels so that the rear output acts as the front, allowing you to use the superior DAC for listening enjoyment.
After examing the board, it appears that this is because rather than sound running out of the EMU10K DSP to the AC'97 Codec DAC, it runs from the EMU10K DSP to a seperate Phillips DAC. Both of these DAC's are followed by an unidentifiable operational amplifier which boosts the analog output power.
The traces between either of these DAC's and the output OpAmps contain signal decoupling caps, the likes of 10uF 16V electrolytics. I don't use surround so I am simply using the rear output. In my case, I changed the electrolytics to .1uF film capacitors.
The difference is not something you have to try to hear, it's obvious. You will hear all sorts of things you did not hear in the recording previously. There is amazing seperation between sounds/instruments/voices. It is crisp and clear. The electrolytics add this horrible hash where everything is sort of blended together and it sounds quite garbagey in comparison, causing listening fatigue, very quickly. I kept the volume at exactly the same level during all modifications, which was about as loud as I could comfortably listen, but this caused listening fatigue with the electrolytics. Removing the electrolytics and installing the films removes this listening fatigue.
There are four electrolytics on the bottom of the SBLive! which bypass the power traces coming from the PCI bus. IIRC, they are originally 100uF 16V. Adding .01uF and .001uF films in addition to the electrolytic causes the sound to be blacker, in that silence is more silent.
The only con to putting the small .1uF films in the signal path and removing the large 10uF is that the low frequency cut-off is reduced, meaning you lose bass. This was obvious on my bass CD's, but for almost everything else, I never notice it because most things don't hit that low. Happily, though everything else seems to have improved bass response. Cleaner, tighter, just better.
What I plan on doing next, and what is actually ideal, is to order actual crossover caps. These are large and will have to be fastened to perhaps the backside of the board with hot-glue or something, but it should return the originally intended bass response and actually be much better in every way because the films I used are just some old miscellaneous films out of a dead monitor, whereas ideally, at least a metallized polypropylene film should be used if not a polypropylene film & foil cap. You can find this sort of cap at Parts Express. I'm going to use the Dayton metallized polypropylenes. The 10uF's are only about $4 IIRC.
You could actually use the 100uF versions to replace those four bypass electrolytics mentioned earlier, but space becomes a huge issue then. I think any other changes here should simply be quality, low esr electrolytics to replace the originals.
If you do nothing else, switch to the kX drivers, use the rear output jack and replace the signal decoupling caps on this channel. I can't stress enough how much better this sounds. Just do it, now, GO GO GO!!!11ONE XD Maybe later we can do a sticky thread with pics. Oh and if you want to try something on a different soundcard, just try to follow the traces back from the output jack you are using and find the electrolytics which are being used as signal decoupling caps. The giveaway on my card is that on the backside of the board these caps are not bypassing to the ground plane and don't go anywhere on the back, they are a continuation of the signal path on the top side.
IIRC, I posted elsewhere on the board explaining what I did to my SBLive!, but in case you missed it, here is what I did:
First of all, I switched from the Creative drivers to the kX Project drivers. You should do this before anything else. It is always said that the DAC for the rear channel on the SBLive! is superior in sound quality to that of the front channel. The kX software allows you to swap the front and rear output channels so that the rear output acts as the front, allowing you to use the superior DAC for listening enjoyment.
After examing the board, it appears that this is because rather than sound running out of the EMU10K DSP to the AC'97 Codec DAC, it runs from the EMU10K DSP to a seperate Phillips DAC. Both of these DAC's are followed by an unidentifiable operational amplifier which boosts the analog output power.
The traces between either of these DAC's and the output OpAmps contain signal decoupling caps, the likes of 10uF 16V electrolytics. I don't use surround so I am simply using the rear output. In my case, I changed the electrolytics to .1uF film capacitors.
The difference is not something you have to try to hear, it's obvious. You will hear all sorts of things you did not hear in the recording previously. There is amazing seperation between sounds/instruments/voices. It is crisp and clear. The electrolytics add this horrible hash where everything is sort of blended together and it sounds quite garbagey in comparison, causing listening fatigue, very quickly. I kept the volume at exactly the same level during all modifications, which was about as loud as I could comfortably listen, but this caused listening fatigue with the electrolytics. Removing the electrolytics and installing the films removes this listening fatigue.
There are four electrolytics on the bottom of the SBLive! which bypass the power traces coming from the PCI bus. IIRC, they are originally 100uF 16V. Adding .01uF and .001uF films in addition to the electrolytic causes the sound to be blacker, in that silence is more silent.
The only con to putting the small .1uF films in the signal path and removing the large 10uF is that the low frequency cut-off is reduced, meaning you lose bass. This was obvious on my bass CD's, but for almost everything else, I never notice it because most things don't hit that low. Happily, though everything else seems to have improved bass response. Cleaner, tighter, just better.
What I plan on doing next, and what is actually ideal, is to order actual crossover caps. These are large and will have to be fastened to perhaps the backside of the board with hot-glue or something, but it should return the originally intended bass response and actually be much better in every way because the films I used are just some old miscellaneous films out of a dead monitor, whereas ideally, at least a metallized polypropylene film should be used if not a polypropylene film & foil cap. You can find this sort of cap at Parts Express. I'm going to use the Dayton metallized polypropylenes. The 10uF's are only about $4 IIRC.
You could actually use the 100uF versions to replace those four bypass electrolytics mentioned earlier, but space becomes a huge issue then. I think any other changes here should simply be quality, low esr electrolytics to replace the originals.
If you do nothing else, switch to the kX drivers, use the rear output jack and replace the signal decoupling caps on this channel. I can't stress enough how much better this sounds. Just do it, now, GO GO GO!!!11ONE XD Maybe later we can do a sticky thread with pics. Oh and if you want to try something on a different soundcard, just try to follow the traces back from the output jack you are using and find the electrolytics which are being used as signal decoupling caps. The giveaway on my card is that on the backside of the board these caps are not bypassing to the ground plane and don't go anywhere on the back, they are a continuation of the signal path on the top side.
. Any suggestions? I'm thinking of upping the output caps a bit, from 100u to 220u
. In contrast, the AudioPCI took me a little over 30 minutes to remove & recap.
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