IMHO...if you are using the sound card for mp3's especially, then it is good to have a better sound card. The difference in quality is extremely obvious when the music is loud.
and a sound which can decode mp3s will take stress off of processor and let you do more stuff without sound "skipping"
Do cheap soundcards work? Yup. I just bought some old ISA clunkers for my toy machines. Would I use a cheap soundcard in my main system again? Hell no.
Ok, so some might consider a Diamond MX300 a cheap card these days, but it's decent, comparable to a Live. I've had way too many friends have problems with cheap ass cards - either starting to make noise which continues until they reboot (my SB 16 would even do that occasionally) or when they do try to play two audio streams in windows - whether it's hardware or software doens't matter - problems arise. I do voice chat now and then, one friend with a cheap got along ok with speakers, but soon as she hooked up a headset she noticed a constant whine/hum noise, and afterwards realized it was there through the speakers as well. Another friend had the problem where if she was talking on the voicechat and a windows system beep occurred, everyone started hearing her talk at 1/3 speed. Ok, the voice of satan was funny the first time, but about drove her to tears one night and made her quit using the chat.
Sorry for the long rant, point is, for an extra $20 you can ward off a lot of problems. I used to be a hardware bottom feeder, no name motherboard, ancient soundcard, generic ram (with tin leads), etc - until I realized that I could have spent a hundred bucks more overall and saved myself uncounted hours of annoyance. I still don't do the highest of high end, but I don't cheap out either.
--Mc
Ok, so some might consider a Diamond MX300 a cheap card these days, but it's decent, comparable to a Live. I've had way too many friends have problems with cheap ass cards - either starting to make noise which continues until they reboot (my SB 16 would even do that occasionally) or when they do try to play two audio streams in windows - whether it's hardware or software doens't matter - problems arise. I do voice chat now and then, one friend with a cheap got along ok with speakers, but soon as she hooked up a headset she noticed a constant whine/hum noise, and afterwards realized it was there through the speakers as well. Another friend had the problem where if she was talking on the voicechat and a windows system beep occurred, everyone started hearing her talk at 1/3 speed. Ok, the voice of satan was funny the first time, but about drove her to tears one night and made her quit using the chat.
Sorry for the long rant, point is, for an extra $20 you can ward off a lot of problems. I used to be a hardware bottom feeder, no name motherboard, ancient soundcard, generic ram (with tin leads), etc - until I realized that I could have spent a hundred bucks more overall and saved myself uncounted hours of annoyance. I still don't do the highest of high end, but I don't cheap out either.
--Mc
Uh, Syborg1211, can you tell me what soundcard handles mp3 decoding in hardware? I don't know of any - just because it says on the box that it plays mp3's it doesn't mean the decoding is done in hardware.
The only hardware-based mp3 decoders I have seen are very expensive professional devices used by the broadcasting industry.
The only hardware-based mp3 decoders I have seen are very expensive professional devices used by the broadcasting industry.
About 6 years ago I purchased one of those cheap SB16 clones from some computer magazine. Well, as soon as I turned on the computer with the sound card in it, it caught on fire (not joking!). I'm not saying this will happen to you, but its a good indication of the quality you might get : )
At a signal/noise of 60dB hiss will be barely audible, but some of the cheaper cards are much worse, around 45 dB, which is the kind of quality you get from a cheap cassette player with no Dolby. But frequency response tends to be good with almost all sound cards.
If I couldn't spend more than $15, I'd try to find a genuine Ensoniq 1370 or 1371 card. Other brands of these cards are often noisy, thanks to bad circuit board layout. Otherwise I'd get a Soundblaster Live Value card.
If I couldn't spend more than $15, I'd try to find a genuine Ensoniq 1370 or 1371 card. Other brands of these cards are often noisy, thanks to bad circuit board layout. Otherwise I'd get a Soundblaster Live Value card.
jamarno, BS. It just depends on how loud you listen. If you crank up your Klipsch to 70dB or higher it will become quiet apparent. Even with 96dB S/N (SB Live!), cranking up the Klipsch all the way you will hear it.
dszd0g or however you spell it 
Sorry to break the news to you, but you are actually the wrong one. A 60 dB S/N ratio means that the signal (i.e., music) is 60 dB louder than the noise (i.e., hiss) at some reference level (usually 0 dB, or else some other specified gain). But a 60 dB S/N ratio is still pretty poor by todays standard, and probably is about the minimum you would call "high fidelity".
The hiss you hear when you crank your Klipsch's is noise from their amplifier combined with noise from the soundcard, not the sound card alone.
A S/N ratio of 96 dB means that if you set your volume level to, say 106 dB, which is as loud as many rock concerts, the noise level would be at 10 dB, which is barely audible, and would only be apparent when there was NO music signal present, like during a moment of silence.
And as a point to remember, dB's, or decibels, are not an absolute unit of measure, but rather a ratio of one quantity compared to another. And it's a logaritmic ratio, at that. Oh, and a decibel is 1/10 of a Bel (named for Alexander Graham Bell)
So anytime you see a dB spec or value, it is meaningless unless you know what the reference unit is. So when I said 106 dB is as loud as a rock concert, what is really meant is that 1/10 the logarithm of the ratio of the sound of the concert compared to the implied 0-reference is 106.
The mathematical formula is 1/10 log (value of interest/reference value) for a result in dB. And since we are speaking in logarithms, the scale is not linear, i.e., 20 dB is not twice as loud as 10 dB, it's 100 times as loud!
Sorry to break the news to you, but you are actually the wrong one. A 60 dB S/N ratio means that the signal (i.e., music) is 60 dB louder than the noise (i.e., hiss) at some reference level (usually 0 dB, or else some other specified gain). But a 60 dB S/N ratio is still pretty poor by todays standard, and probably is about the minimum you would call "high fidelity".
The hiss you hear when you crank your Klipsch's is noise from their amplifier combined with noise from the soundcard, not the sound card alone.
A S/N ratio of 96 dB means that if you set your volume level to, say 106 dB, which is as loud as many rock concerts, the noise level would be at 10 dB, which is barely audible, and would only be apparent when there was NO music signal present, like during a moment of silence.
And as a point to remember, dB's, or decibels, are not an absolute unit of measure, but rather a ratio of one quantity compared to another. And it's a logaritmic ratio, at that. Oh, and a decibel is 1/10 of a Bel (named for Alexander Graham Bell)
So anytime you see a dB spec or value, it is meaningless unless you know what the reference unit is. So when I said 106 dB is as loud as a rock concert, what is really meant is that 1/10 the logarithm of the ratio of the sound of the concert compared to the implied 0-reference is 106.
The mathematical formula is 1/10 log (value of interest/reference value) for a result in dB. And since we are speaking in logarithms, the scale is not linear, i.e., 20 dB is not twice as loud as 10 dB, it's 100 times as loud!
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