Routing PC Audio to Phones without Mains EQ

[Kibosh]

Hey all,

My room setup is the cause that I have to much bass. In Ableton en JRiver I can use my ARC II correction plugin, but when I'm streaming from Soundcloud I can't.

To compensate the bass build-up, I now added some EQ on the Main-outs of the MOTU 828 mk3 Hybrid. But sorry enough, this also affects the phone outputs.

Also in CueMix FX I didn't find a PC audio input or something? Does anyone have an idea how I need to setup the routing, so the main-outs are affected by the EQ, but not the headphones?

Thx in advance.

[bayswater]

I'd guess that you have the Phones output set to mirror the Main Outs. You should be able to turn that off or have it mirror a different pair of analog outputs (in MOTU Audio Setup, or Cuemix, I can't recall where), and then have a separate mix to the headphones with it's own effects settings.

[Kibosh]

Ok, thx for the reply,

But with that MIX, where do I find the PC audio? I only see all the different IO off the Motu itself. In the Windows driver you select the output Mains and I don't think it actually passes a mix through the CueMix software.

[NazRat]

Can you select a different output pair for the system audio and have the phones mirror that pair? i.e. DAW output on the Mains and Windows playback device Analog 1-2 with the phones set to Analog 1-2. Or as a workaround create one Configuration or Hardware Preset with EQ, one without EQ and switch between those as needed. The PC audio is not available for the mixbus in CueMix.

[RonaldDumsfeld]

The PC audio is not available for the mixbus in CueMix.

This.

The easiest work around to get you going is to select S/PDIF as your main out, connect the S/PDIF out to the S/PDIF in (loopback) and then use a different mixer to output to speakers and phones.

[Kibosh]

ok thx. I'll order a S/PDIF cable then.

Is there loss of quality with that aproach? I guess not because off the S/PDIF which keeps the loop digital?

[RonaldDumsfeld]

I didn't get round to all the faff involved in a full on ABX test but I did reassure myself that any differences that did exist were so hard to detect it wasn't really worth worrying about.

Anyway if you want to do some critical listening it's easy to swap yor config. back.

While you wait you might want to try simply connecting up an analogue loopback. A chap on gearslutz posted samples of audio passed round the loop 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x and 5 times on a 828. Even the 5x is hard to tell apart from the original. Then again some people hear 'night and day' differences in different brands of cable so ymmv.