Sound differences with different sources for IEM

[Jiraya369]

Hello, I'm new here, I've checked out some stuff here and there for a few years but I have a perplexing, genuine, audio issue right now and i trust that people here are knowledgeable enough to help

I'm using a Moondrop X Crinacle DUSK, with the analog 3.5mm cable. I have a windows laptop and an android phone. My laptop is an Asus Vivobook 15, Ryzen 7 7730U, and my phone is a Vivo X200 Ultra.

I was using the IEMs with my laptop's 3.5mm cable and saw that the volume was too low, i had to max it out to have a nice experience with modern songs and with older songs i just couldn't do much. So I decided to research and saw that the Jcally JM6 Pro was a nice enough DAC for some loudness, couldn't find it near me so i went on amazon got one that had the CX3199+Max97220 combination.

I tried em on my laptop, the iems got real loud and stuff and i was happy with that but i decided to try the 3.5mm to check for noise floors and saw that the sound was just drastically different. The whole sound felt a little more compressed in terms of soundstage, but the tuning was just completely different to my ears, the bass and highs felt completely different and the bass just lost all punch sadly.

I tried it on my phone and everything felt even fuller and closer to what i heard on my laptop with the 3.5mm cable.

and even weirder is that if i go to Neutron music player and use the Direct USB Access thing on my phone, it just makes the songs so much nicer to listen to and the sound is actually far louder, i actually have to put a massive negative pre-gain lol But the quality by itself was actually even better, the sound just felt like it was actually coming from an expensive IEM (expensive for me at least).

I don't really know what to do honestly, a bit lost about stuff. I'm quite fond of EQ and really like making multiple presets to listen to and also, the IEM had DSP/some default presets which i liked and saved in Wavelet and switched to at times, but i cant do that with the direct usb thing in Neutron.

At first I thought I got scammed because the DAC was from a random brand but it does its job with my phone, perfectly with the bypass thing. Just wondering if there's something i can do on pc. Ofc, i turned down all the weird "hall"/"home" effects windows puts in, makes the sound extremely poor imo.

So, in short, my CX31993 DAC sounds exceptional on my phone with USB bypass but on pc it sounds mid-poor and without the bypass it sounds good but not great, and not even that loud either. I want to know if there's a fix for it on my pc. Thanks in advance, guys.

 

[antcollinet]

Can you make it more clear what you are comparing - which device - which interface, because

but i decided to try the 3.5mm to check

Doesn't help us much to work out what you are doing.

Also - please don't just give part numbers

got one that had the CX3199+Max97220 combination

Either describe the device or provide a link. I for one am not prepared to do google searches to find out what people are talking about.

In general though - make sure all the sources have any DSP EQ, tone controls, etc turned off. And that you first compare level matched. You will need a DVM and appropriate cabe to check levels - unless you can measure at at the output of your iem cable.


PS - welcome to the forum.

 

[Jiraya369]

Can you make it more clear what you are comparing - which device - which interface, because

My phone doesnt have 3.5mm, my laptop only has a usb-c and 3.5mm port. I used the 3.5mm port in the beginning on my laptop and found the sound to be nice.

The part numbers are basically the DAC/Amp. The JCally JM6 Pro is a popular one, here , the product basically has the CX31993+MAX97220 combination, from what i've heard, any other dongle available with these names is the same as the JM6 Pro.

So the combinations i went through were (with ratings of what i think the sound is like) :

3.5mm laptop : 9/10
usb-c laptop : 5/10
usb-c phone : 8/10
usb-c phone with usb bypass in neutron player : 10/10

And idk about level matching but the volume levels were similar for me and the sound itself was just vastly different, irrespective of volume. There isn't any other wonky EQ or DSP going on, at least not to my knowledge.

 

[antcollinet]

My phone doesnt have 3.5mm, my laptop only has a usb-c and 3.5mm port. I used the 3.5mm port in the beginning on my laptop and found the sound to be nice.

The part numbers are basically the DAC/Amp. The JCally JM6 Pro is a popular one, here , the product basically has the CX31993+MAX97220 combination, from what i've heard, any other dongle available with these names is the same as the JM6 Pro.

So the combinations i went through were (with ratings of what i think the sound is like) :

3.5mm laptop : 9/10
usb-c laptop : 5/10
usb-c phone : 8/10
usb-c phone with usb bypass in neutron player : 10/10

And idk about level matching but the volume levels were similar for me and the sound itself was just vastly different, irrespective of volume. There isn't any other wonky EQ or DSP going on, at least not to my knowledge.

So - if you are sending the same digital data to the DAC, it will send the same sound out to the amp (Excepting ground loop noise - but you don't hear that as a sound quality difference, you hear it as noise - hum/hiss/crackles. I assume that is not what you are getting.

What is telling is that the phone with USB bypass, the neutron player is bypassing all the OS processing and sending direct to the DAC

So if you are hearing dramatically different sound compared to that, then the software in the device (PC or Phone) is changing the data in some way, and you need to find out how and stop it. It will be DSP, equalisation, effects settings - something. Even a digital volume setting - a small level difference - that is not perceived as a difference in volume - will be perceived as a quality difference.

I can't help you in windows - haven't used it for audio for a couple of decades.


I had a similar situation when sound from my browser was horrible - but everything else was fine. I eventually found a setting in Sound Source on the mac - which had a "per app" equaliser set. The Browser app had a treble reducing EQ set on it.

 

[Jiraya369]

yeah that's what im sayin man, idk what's going on.

Maybe the laptop isnt sending enough power to the dac or something? idk, but it SUCKS.

 

[Jiraya369]

@antcollinet ok i fixed it somewhat!!

i was just messing around with settings and stuff for so long and i went ahead and changed the bit depth from 32 bit 48khz to 32 bit 384khz, my dac had 384 khz written on it, so i just used that number and it's basically how i expected it to sound, only with foobar2000 in exclusive mode tho. I feel like there's a noticeable shift outside of it but hey man i can enjoy my tunes now!!

Windows and Android SUCK! They tamper with the sounds too much and the default settings are horrible! On windows, i always get normalization and "width" effects by default when i plug in something, it's so nasty....

ANYWAYS just wanted to give an update! So happy now!

P.S. God bless the Foobar team and the MathAudio folk for making such a powerful software and such an excellent eq, for free!!!!