Q? for kx driver experts

[rembetis]

So, for my next project I am building a large enclosure to house a DIY 15" LCD projector and cheap HTPC for my little brother, so that he can run outdoor movies on his walled-in patio. A main concern is sound output -- it has to be loud enough for a dozen or more people to hear but not loud enough to piss off the neighbors. I settled on the notion of old-school drive-in sound, with multiple sets of small speakers placed close to individual or clusters of listeners. Yesterday I scored 4 pairs of Logitech x-120s on woot.com for the modest sum of $30.

Now, I'm fairly certain that using the kx drivers and a cheap soundblaster card, I can output the same stereo signal to 3-4 sets of speakers, but what I am less certain of is whether I can switch to full 5.1 if I decide to incorporate a subwoofer and go for a more standard surround setup. Can the drivers do bass management (send everything below say 120Hz to the sub)? What about AC/3 decoding? My searches are turning up conflicting reports..

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Yes u can switch from 3 stereopairs (same or discreet content) to 5.1 with custom DSP with bunch of stereo mixers and with my kXd plugin u can do it even directly from xlobby.

Bass management, im not sure off...

Also i have been trying to AC-3 decode external source with my Live card trough livedrive!s inputs without much of success... but notice that im speaking about external source...

and now that bear has spoken... lets hear the experts

[rembetis]

Thanks, bear. I think you're as expert as we're going to get on the kx drivers around here. So 3 stereo outs is max on the SB Live cards? Could I do 3 stereos and a .1 sub, you think?

[Marbles_00]

In therory, with an Audigy 7.1 card, you may be able to get 4 stereo pairs by taking advantage of the side surrounds as well. I haven't tried it yet, but it is on my huge "to do" list. You will want to path the video player to KX output 0/1 on the FXBus, then route to each output on the epilog.

See my post here for some basic information/setup of the DSP:
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4704
It mainly pertains to zoning, but the jiff may help you here.

Also you can check out:
http://xlobby.myphotoalbum.com/view_alb ... me=album06
to see two setups, one for a SB0400 (Audigy 7.1 Value) and the other for a SB0220 (Live! 5.1).

Could I do 3 stereos and a .1 sub, you think?

You could run one output through a cheap active crossover (like a basic car stereo type), and run an amplified sub from that. The other thing to remember is after you save the DSP settings you can always re-vert back to the default factory settings of the card with a simple click of the button. This way you can regain true 5.1/6.1/7.1 audio for when required, load the DSP setting to acheive individual stereo pairs for the outdoor movie setting.

Hope this was helpful.

[rembetis]

Hope this was helpful.

Thanks, Marbles. It was. But I'm going to stick with the SB Live 5.1 (SB0100), which I just picked up on fleabay for $3. Guess 3 stereo pairs will have to do.

[sharp_1]

http://xlobby.myphotoalbum.com/view_alb ... me=album06
to see two setups, one for a SB0400 (Audigy 7.1 Value) and the other for a SB0220 (Live! 5.1).

I have the SB0350 Audigy2 7.1 card. I have the FXbus going strait to the epilog instead of thru all the stereo mixers and EQ's (since xl is configed for winamp EQ I'll thought I would stick with that). Any comments?? Do you think it will work??

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

I have the SB0350 Audigy2 7.1 card. I have the FXbus going strait to the epilog instead of thru all the stereo mixers and EQ's (since xl is configed for winamp EQ I'll thought I would stick with that). Any comments?? Do you think it will work??

Sure itll work. but stereo mixers exist for reason in marbles setup. Its the party zone, ull need to figure some otherway configure that, if u need it at all. Actually way marbles is doing it is waisting output stereo pair, for example with VAC i suppose u can achieve same result, with some added complexity but saved hardware resource for other use, like extra zone.

[Marbles_00]

P3rv is correct in that I'm not taking advantage of the side surround speakers as well for an additional zone. I could never get good realiable sync using Steven's command, so I opted to use outputs 0/1 for an all party zone instead of driving 0/1 direct to the side surrounds. Also the size of my house and property, driving a party zone into the three areas that I have defined for the party zone (Livingroom, Familyroom and backyard)...well once my kid's get up to the ages of having house parties, the house should be rocking. As I've stated before, I may have been able to use 0/1 to drive the side surrounds, but I have never gotten around to try it. This is the reason that I used the mixers but they don't really have to be there.

As P3rv states that is the reason for mixing the 0/1 output with each of the other outputs. I only added the EQ stages to modify the sound outputs per room if required. They can be set so the frequency spectrum per room can be as flat as possible, taking out any anomalies. These would not be open for modification by the end user, but pre-defined by myself with my wonderful hearing (talk to the wife, she'd begs to differ ). Then individual listeners could then modify the Winamp EQ to their own personal preference and that would/can be edited in the xlobby skin. Really the EQ stages don't need to be there.

Also note, that the Audigy Value was a bitch of a card to work with. The 5.1 card that I have, I barely had to mobify anything to get it to work for me...DSP routing...never touched it...at the time I didn't want to. But that all changed with the Audigy card.

If you get into playing around with the DSP map, just remember, the "Peak" meter is your best freind. The only purpose it serves is to let you know if audio is getting to a certain point, when you can't hear anything from your speakers. Very handy little tool.

Hope this helps.

[sharp_1]

Another question...I played around a bit with some of the mixers and found the mono mixer. I was able to do this:

FXBus0/1----------Epilog Out0
FXBus4/5----------Epilog Out1

I wonder if there is a way to use each individual channel as a zone in mono, I can see this as being a way to have additional zones (not in stereo) to a garage, patio or landscape speaker.

Example:

FXBus0----------Epilog Out0
FXBus1----------Epilog Out1

and so on...

[bmblank]

To have it in mono each zone, just have one zone running only the left side and the other zone running the right side...

[sharp_1]

To have it in mono each zone, just have one zone running only the left side and the other zone running the right side...

I think something like this should do the trick:
Winamp running in mono to 0/1>FXBus0>Epilog Out0
Winamp running in mono to 0/1>FXBus1>Epilog Out1

I would need 2 instances of winamp running to the 0/1 channels in this example. Thus making 2 separate zones from one stereo output from the sound card...right?

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

not that i tested... but it sure will work.

U just need to use balance of those two winamp instances to control where output is headed (since u cannot really adrees FXBus 0 and 1 separately, since they dont have their own ports)... same way i wanna use eight channel matrix mixer to route each pair (from 4 separate winamp instances) to right jack for onboard (non kx) audio since it doesnt provide each pair separate output port.

Im using fdshows audio part for this. Since it can be made behave differently depending which one of winamp instances is running it, based on filename of instance. This works totally well without xlobby in picture. Unfortunately xlobby cant control winamp which name is not traditional. It can launch it but not control. So mayby i could replace fdshow audio filter with some winamp plugin, any ideas which one is good and can pull this trough?

[Marbles_00]

Ah man, it's getting late and my brain is beginning to not work right (doesn't say much about the rest of the day ) , but I'll try and add my 2 cents worth.

If you try and run two instances of winamp and direct each to output 0/1, it should work providing:
1) You are running a version of Winamp which allows balance control. I think any of version 5 will allow this
2) It will sound fine if the music your playing doesn't have much stereo seperation. Meaning that if musical instruments and vocals in a song are very defined to the left or right speaker, and your only running one speaker, you are going to lose out on some of the audio. Not to mention if you listen to a song where music or effects pan from left to right, well you'd lose out on some of that.
3) I'm not sure, but I added 3) here incase I missed something.

Now I've breifly looked at the winamp site and found a plugin called Somewhat Mono. This may be what you need to combine the effects of stereo to a single speaker. You'd have to try it out yourself.

If you use Foobar, then everything that I have said may...or may not... go out the window, as I don't use Foobar so I can't comment on it.

Hope this helps.

Night

[sharp_1]

Thanks for the help...I saw that "somewhat mono" plugin and intend to use it. This will be a perfect solution for zones that really are just for background music.

[scottw]

Thanks for the help...I saw that "somewhat mono" plugin and intend to use it. This will be a perfect solution for zones that really are just for background music.

Just wondering how this worked out???

My intention was to install 2 speakers in each room but after installing 1 each in 2 different rooms I think that is all I need. Now I either need to bridge 2 channels of my amp to one for each room so I don't get somethimes half audio like Marbles explains OR I can gain 2 zones using the method you are using.

Thanks,
Scott