Help Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 owners pls!!

[max-power]

Hi there,

I have reciently bought a Fortissimo III 7.1 card and running it on Win XP Pro.

I have connected some Limit PB503 speakers to it (6ch system). For some reason, I am hearing mid-range in my subwoofer as well as the bass...and that bass doesn't seem to be deep enough. I have all leads in correctly, and 5.1 selected on the control panel, but this happens for some reason,a nd it could damage my sub since its not suppose to be playing that..

I've emailed Hercules but they aren't that helpful telling me to try different combinations. Anyone else notice this and know a solution? I am using Hercules latest drivers (6.09a), but no good

Also noticed that the game theature from Hercules seems to have RCA outs as well as 1/8 Jacks...dunno if that makes much difference, and if it does, can something like that be bought separatly? (excuse spelling ).

[Dudster]

Interesting, I've got the same setup and am on my second set of 5.1 speakers already. My first set - Altec Lansing 5100s - just died after 4 months (wouldn't power up). I've now got the Logitech Z-640s and thought the sub was a bit high-pitched at times; not something I noticed with the 5100s. I thought it was because they were cheap speakers, but now I'm wondering.

I can't think of any different combinations of things that I could try. 3 leads from my speakers correctly plugged into my soundcard. The only thing I can think of to try is enabling/disabling the Small Speakers option in the GSFIII control panel. I normally leave it disabled as it kills the bass on my setup.

Have you been able to confirm that mid-range is being sent to the sub?

[max-power]

Nice to know its not only me

The only way I can confirm there is mid-range in my sub is that with the on-board six channel sound, I don't hear the high-frequecies through the center/lfe output channel on there. Its pure bass, and also its deeper as well! On-Board audio I have is cheap ass, so I would expect better from a Hercules card...

I would imagine that if I had any other 6channel card, I wouldn't have this issue. I've been backward and forward with Hercules, not reached a conclusion yet.

Only thing I would say is that you shouldn't keep running your speakers like that, high-frequencies are not designed for the sub and might damage it

I'll keep you posted on what goes on with Techy support.

[max-power]

Dear Customer,

I appears that everything is functioning properly. The crossover of the LFE is indeed fairly high, this is done because most speaker system have their own and we didn't to interfere with them. Doesn't you subwoofer have a cutoff control?

There we go

What to do, gonna see what I can get outta techy support.

[Dudster]

Just been reading an article at Tom's Hardware Guide that I read before buying the card.

http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/2...rcules-05.html <--- explanation of the Small Speaker setting. Doesn't mention anything about stopping high frequencies from going to the sub.

http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/2...rcules-14.html <--- details of the filter on the center/LFE channel.

Hercules has added a filter to it to cut out low frequencies on the center-dedicated channel. This results in a 300 kHz crossover on the output which explains the crosstalk results because the two channels are not getting the same sound information. The reason for the filter on output 3 is to allow Fortissimo III 7.1 and Digifire 7.1 to be easily connected to a subwoofer with no integrated cutout system. It is a technical compromise which is detrimental to sound quality but advantageous for compatibility with speaker systems

Just looked at my speakers manual and it says nothing about cutoff controls or anything

So Hercules put a filter on the center channel (which unless I'm mistaken, could also be achieved with the Small Speaker option) but not on the LFE channel?

[max-power]

The small speaker option does nothing on the subwoofer for me, and as for the explination on the output of the center channel...doesn't mention anything about effect on the subwoofer channel (since both come out same port). Its a mystery

I've emailed them back about any future drivers where it'll change this methodology, or i'm going to get my money back and change to a different sound card (like creatives audigy) or another hercules that doesn't have this strange setting.

I await their email tomorrow

[max-power]

Unfortunately, I am afraid that I do not have a solution for you. We do not have other drivers or tweaking application to change the crossover. The crossover was set by our enginners to obtain the best possible quality with the majority of speaker systems currently available.

I'm stuck with a card I can't use now, what a waste of money.

The GTXP does have similar filters. The Fortissimo III is a cut down version of the GTXP.

Definatly not going for a different Hercules sound card

[Dudster]

Just received this from Logitech about the Z-640s:

The system does not cut out the mid and high range signals entirely but it filters the bass signal from all channels. The speaker may still pay some small mid range effects but only at very low volume. It is not capable of high range.

Forgot to ask them if this could damage the sub though I'll take my chances, their reply gives me the impression that they'll be ok; and if not, they're only cheap anyway.

[Inferior]

I have a GTXP, and it also has no subwoofer crossover settings, it's pretty much a full range channel, but it does seem to go to lower frequencies.

I was aware of this, but since I planned on buying the Velodyne CHT-12 subwoofer (which i did ), which has a built in adjustable crossover, I really didnt care that the GTXP doesnt have one. Even though I do think it should have one.

And as for the small speakers setting, that only comes into effect in DVD movies. It sends all the low frequenics that would normally go to the main, rears and center channel to the subwoofer.

[Dudster]

Originally posted by Inferior
only comes into effect in DVD movies

Sounds like it could be different on the GTXP then. On my setup, the small speaker setting affects everything AFAIK. I sometimes enable it to make Quake3 sound less muddy (or if I'm trying to keep the bass down generally).