Sound quality puzzle/problem

[heminder]

hello.

i have a strange little problem (at least strange to me), so i hope this is in the right forum.

i use a little Vox Amplug headphone amp and also the Peavey Revalver software to practice and quickly record any good ideas or riffs i come up with. i usually play with a pair of Sennheiser studio headphones.

the thing is, whenever i play either of these through my desktop speakers (logitech 2.1, can't remember model no) the sound is really muddy and lifeless. however, whenever i load up Ardour and record a take using either of them, and then play back the audio file it sounds pretty good: more or less as i hear it through the sennheisers.

now, i know that the 2.1 speakers aren't exactly a pair of monitors, but why is it sounding bad when i play direct, but not from a recorded file?


if anyone's wondering how i'm connecting these when i try to play direct:

Guitar > Vox Amplug > Logitech Speakers
amplug has an 1/8" headphone female jack and speakers have equivalent male

Guitar > Maudio Mobilepre or Behinger GuitarLink > Jack { System_Capture > Revalver > System_Playback } > Logitech Speakers
both of the interfaces are USB and have instrument inputs, so they should be buffered.


oops, turned into a long post. sorry about that...

[Jan]

So the first signal chain is the one that sounds muddy, if I understand that correctly? If that is correct, then I would think that the Revalver is simply the better sounding amp simulation. Two different amp sims, two different sounds, it's as easy as that.

Have you ever tried to record the Amplug with Ardour and compare it to your direct approach? Should get the same sound, Ardour adds or takes nothing from the sound you are getting into it, as long as you don't use any plugins.

[heminder]

no, they both sound muddy plugged straight into the speakers.

yeah, i have recorded with the Amplug and played that back sounding just fine.

both of them sound better after being recorded and played back.
i'm not doing any additional processing in Ardour either.

[Jan]

Well, that is strange. How does it sound when you record it in another app, like Audacity? Maybe we can narrow it down if it is system or program related.

[TraumFlug]

strange indeed! the soundcard should playback the same quality as it records from line-in...

are you playbacking the amplug directly to the speakers (speaker plug to the amplug), or are you routing through the line-in (or even worse: mic-input, that'd kill any quality for any signal) of the computer, and then via direct play-through (through the soundcard) to the speakers connected to the computer?

if second, try connecting the speakers directly to the guitar amplifyer, it could be the monitor amp of your soundcard sucks badly

that'd be one sane conclusion, others might be the speakers needing other signal "strength" than the line-in or the headphones (headphone vs. line signal), but I'm no electrogenius, so I couldn't tell from the impedance values...