Sound Quality In Centrafuse

thenick100 · 04-22-2006, 05:49 AM

Hi,

I've been using centrafuse for a few months now and havent been able to get the sound right coming out of it. I have a pretty big system with gold connectors all the way through and a sound blaster audigy nx soundcard so its not the hardware.

In centrafuse the sound seems very flat lacks loads of depth. I have tried correcting this with the eq, but this does not help much, and using a lot of eq correction induces clipping and distortion in the sound. I was sure that pcs sounded better than this so I tried playing a bunch of mp3s with a flat eq on both centrafuse and the only other music player on my system:intervideo dvd.

With the dvd player, the sound was soooo much better - it had loads of bass, depth, kick and was much warmer. I then tweaked it with the sound blaster eq and it sounded even better, better than my old top of-the-range pioneer head unit. So i then tried flattening the eq on centrafuse and making sure normalisation was left off and leaving the sound blaster eq as it had been... And the sound went back to being flat and tinny.

This really bugs me because i love centrafuse - its by far the best frontend and i really dont want to use anything else! Why could this be happening? Is it the decoder? If so, can it be changed? Also does anyone else experience this?

Any answer/comments would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Nick

kbreeden · 04-22-2006, 08:16 AM

There are a couple of other threads on this that you may want to check out. David reworked the DSP for version 1.6 and the sound quality is significantly improved over 1.5 according to most people, including me. To me, the quality of 1.6 is equivalent to the quality of Winamp without any enhancements. That being said, there are enhancement plugins available for Winamp that significantly improve the sound quality of Winamp and therefore make the quality of Winamp based frontends, such as RoadRunner, higher than CF. I believe David is looking into ways of giving us more control over sound quality in CF.

JCSawyer · 04-22-2006, 08:42 AM

I'm a noobie...but I have tried several frontends in my car now, and Centrafuse 1.6 gave me VERY nice sound. I am not a "kicker" and tend towards jazz and blues...but I was really pleased with CF 1.6. I shoot for tight and smooth with the richness you are speaking of. Now if I can get the phone figured out!

Jim

coucouillu · 04-22-2006, 08:43 AM

Forme, I have a bad sound since ages...

I can't put the sound to the MAX (100%) because of some "SCRUNCH" sound.

I am obliged to let it to 93-95% max ...

My sound setting in CF (MIXER module) has "PREAMP" to max .. If I put it down ths sound low down a lot...

thenick100 · 04-22-2006, 10:55 AM

yeah i did see a change in the sq since 1.5 also, and i do think the sound in 1.6 is pretty good as long as the eq isnt played with very much.

I listen to mostly rocky sorta stuff, anywhere from blues to jazz, acoustic to heavier rock, and it does it across the board... I only really noticed it when i tried a song outside of centrafuse and heard it all come to life. I thought i had suffered in sq from my old headunit but was always told that they could perform the same - apparently they can.. now just need to figure out how to get centrafuse to do it!

I figured that if i left all its eqs and bass and treble sliders on flat, it would come out as it had in the dvd program with the eq from the soundblaster software running in the background. But it doesnt at all, which leads me to believe its the decoder centrafuse is using, but dont know how to find out how they differ!

If it could be found out, would it be a case of just swapping the dlls and their references? or does it get much more complicated... (im sure it does get much more complicated...!)

tempi · 04-22-2006, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Hi,

I've been using centrafuse for a few months now and havent been able to get the sound right coming out of it. I have a pretty big system with gold connectors all the way through and a sound blaster audigy nx soundcard so its not the hardware.

In centrafuse the sound seems very flat lacks loads of depth. I have tried correcting this with the eq, but this does not help much, and using a lot of eq correction induces clipping and distortion in the sound. I was sure that pcs sounded better than this so I tried playing a bunch of mp3s with a flat eq on both centrafuse and the only other music player on my system:intervideo dvd.

With the dvd player, the sound was soooo much better - it had loads of bass, depth, kick and was much warmer. I then tweaked it with the sound blaster eq and it sounded even better, better than my old top of-the-range pioneer head unit. So i then tried flattening the eq on centrafuse and making sure normalisation was left off and leaving the sound blaster eq as it had been... And the sound went back to being flat and tinny.

This really bugs me because i love centrafuse - its by far the best frontend and i really dont want to use anything else! Why could this be happening? Is it the decoder? If so, can it be changed? Also does anyone else experience this?

Any answer/comments would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Nick

Yes, it is true. I have the same problem. I have tested the sound with RR or iCT and it is better in this front ends. I really love Centrafuse and I like to use it, but the sound quality is the most important to me. I hope this point will have improoved in the next versions.

thenick100 · 04-24-2006, 12:38 PM

so will this problem be addressed? I would think it was pretty important to a lot of people?!

scott_fx · 04-24-2006, 12:45 PM

guys...if you're interested in soundquality please respond to this thread:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/centrafuse/73224-vst-plug-support.html

let get some interest in the vst support so we can have greater adjustability w/in centrafuse

mbkowns · 04-24-2006, 01:01 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by coucouillu

Forme, I have a bad sound since ages...

I can't put the sound to the MAX (100%) because of some "SCRUNCH" sound.

I am obliged to let it to 93-95% max ...

My sound setting in CF (MIXER module) has "PREAMP" to max .. If I put it down ths sound low down a lot...

sounds to me like you need to turn your amp level up becuase you should never be peaking your sound card. The more volume the more noise on that end so its better to maybe go 50 - 75 and 50 - 75 on the amp but not full on etheir.

coucouillu · 04-24-2006, 03:31 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by mbkowns

sounds to me like you need to turn your amp level up becuase you should never be peaking your sound card. The more volume the more noise on that end so its better to maybe go 50 - 75 and 50 - 75 on the amp but not full on etheir.

That what i do now...But I can not understand why I can't put the PC volume level to 100% without problems...To my mind it is not normal.

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