gr80's on laptop are distorting

[Jameth1 0]

I recently bought some Grado sr 80s to use on my laptop, as my previous headphones had started distorting (crackling at certain points on certain tracks). On plugging in my new headphones, i find that I get the same thing! I use Itunes, and all my music is decent quality. I have tried turning off equaliser and everything but still get the same thing. Could it be that my soundcard has broken or something? I thought the Grados were not supposed to distort. Would I be best off buying an external sound card? any help would be appreciated. Thanks,

James

 

[iewgnail 0]

prob it's your laptop sound card.

 

you can look at a DAC/AMP option. Like the ibasso.

[1bit 0]

It's also possible that your song file is not properly encoded so the sound clips

[iewgnail 0]

prob check with another person with the same song. see if it clips too on his com? or does it clip on your mp3 player?

 

narrow down the reason why it clips

[gene83 0]

i would agree that its your laptop sound card.

maybe check the settings of the sound card under control panel > sound

[milkpowder 0]

Also check to see if you can get updated sound card drivers.

[Jameth1 0]

Thanks for your suggestions. I just checked with a couple of tracks that distort on my computer on another computer, using itunes sharing, and they distorted on that as well, as well as when i pluged my hifi into my laptop. One of them I have just ripped using itunes lossless, so it is good quality. Might it be possible that I have a dodgy pair of headphones? I have also looked at my sound card details, but to no avail. I do not seem to get any distortion when using my radio with my headphones. I notice the distortion quite a lot (in the background) on most tracks on my computer, although as I know nothing about sound, I am at a bit of a loss as to what to do. James

[Jameth1 0]

After much searching on the internet about Itunes and distortion, I found out that it might be that the Pre-amp needed to be set to low. I have now done this, and the distortion just melts away! Thanks for your help, James

 

[milkpowder 0]

Hmm distorting on iTunes... I had that problem when I over-boosted certain frequency ranges in the EQ panel. Does it distort when the EQ is off or configured at 0dB?

[mamboman 0]

I recently bought some Grado sr 80s to use on my laptop, as my previous headphones had started distorting (crackling at certain points on certain tracks). On plugging in my new headphones, i find that I get the same thing! I use Itunes, and all my music is decent quality. I have tried turning off equaliser and everything but still get the same thing. Could it be that my soundcard has broken or something? I thought the Grados were not supposed to distort. Would I be best off buying an external sound card? any help would be appreciated. Thanks,

James

You might want to try an external sound card or you can also try running mp3gain through some songs and see if they distort. If the distortion goes away, it's because pf clipping of the peaks by iTunes.

 

[Jameth1 0]

OK. It is now sorted thanks. I may look at an external drive, but lowering the pre-amp on Itunes solves the problem. It does not seem to matter how I set up the equalsiser. thanks