need help - hercules game theatre xp

i bought a hercules game theatre xp and it's great except for one problem...the equalizer and sound options are kind of messed up. when i use the equalizer in the gtxp menu, the bass sounds get extremely distorted to the point where they hardly even sound like bass. i tried turning off that eq and using the winamp eq but same problem happened, just not to such an extreme extent. i then played with the master windows volume levels, with the gtxp eq on and bass up...i turned down wave volume a tad and now it sounds perfect...so i would keep this except there is one more problem...whenever i turn down wave volume, it sounds fine. then the song is over and another song begins...but somehting weird happens - although the wave volume still says it's down to where i last had it, it isn't. it plays as if the wave volume were all the way up and the distortion happens again. then i have to click the wave volume mover button...just click it, not even move it, for it to become undistorted and sounding great again...

this is really getting on my nerves and i would really appreciate any help. thankyou in advance.

btw, it's not my speakers...i have tried both my yamaha speakers and my aiwa headphones...they sound the same. and i tried both winamp and windows media player...they both also have the same problem.

I would use only the cards EQ and stay away from any of the windows settings. Also it could just very well be your speakers cant take the gain in bass that you are creating.

it's not my speakers...believe me, i've pumped the crap out of these things AND my headphones before i got the soundcard and it didn't distort. i'm going to reformat soon, so maybe that will help with the problem.

i was using the cards EQ...but windows still likes to control wave and master volumes, so i still have to set them to a level.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by moouers
it's not my speakers...believe me, i've pumped the crap out of these things AND my headphones before i got the soundcard and it didn't distort. i'm going to reformat soon, so maybe that will help with the problem.

i was using the cards EQ...but windows still likes to control wave and master volumes, so i still have to set them to a level.

---

Have you installed the latest 4.10 drivers for your GTXP sound card? It might help you on this. Your problems seems very familiar to me. I had the same problem when watching DVD´s and playing some heavy bass songs with my Klipsch PM 4.1.

The reason why your wave slider turns up and down is due to the Winamp volume slider I think. This is because Winamp is controlling the wave options in your Windows options automatically when playing songs. Try set the winamp slider at 50 % or 33%.

If this doesn´t work, try go into control panel, sound options and choose from Full Acceleration mode to Standard Acceleration mode. This could also be a possible solution. It was for me in the past.

Edit: I don´t recommend you to use the Hercules EQ if you have a 4.1 sound system or higher. Of course, this is all personal preferences but the EQ seems to color the sound too much. If you have a 2.0 or 2.1 speaker system, the EQ can help the speakers in pushing the effects.

thankyou very much for the help. i had already installed the newest gtxp drivers, so that wasn't the problem. and i think your idea about the wave problem being winamp is right...i set it to 47% and it sounds just great now. that would explain why switching songs in media player didn't change wave volume but switching songs in winamp did. i don't think i will have to do the acceleration thing since it is working pretty well as of now, but thanks for the further suggestion. and thankyou so much for the help...such an easy fix and i overlooked it.

when winamp is set to use the WaveOut device, it directly controls the master volume settings in windows (hence the distortion) - you could try using the DirectSoundOut device (under preferences->output), as the newer versions of Winamp also include crossfading settings.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by moouers
thankyou very much for the help. i had already installed the newest gtxp drivers, so that wasn't the problem. and i think your idea about the wave problem being winamp is right...i set it to 47% and it sounds just great now. that would explain why switching songs in media player didn't change wave volume but switching songs in winamp did. i don't think i will have to do the acceleration thing since it is working pretty well as of now, but thanks for the further suggestion. and thankyou so much for the help...such an easy fix and i overlooked it.

---

Your are welcome. I´m glad that it worked out for you :)