Does a cheap sound card makes difference in audio quality?

[alcoholbob]

SPDIF would sound the same either way lol, it's just streaming digitally and letting another device decode it.

 

[Born2bwire]

If you are going straight digital out most cards sound the same. Difference would be if the drivers are doing some sort of processing. Realtek chipsets from last 3 years do zero processing for digital output unless you tell the drivers to do it.

If you are doing speaker connections or headphone connections straight from the pc then sound card choice matters. Cheap amplifiers will not have enough power for quality headphones. Connecting the outputs to other amplifiers is also more likely to result in noise and ground loops.

In short , get a board or card with digital out and use an external amplifier with its own DAC and it really doesn't matter what sound card is used.

Yeah, it used to be such a damn hastle to get the digital or analog streams to be left unmolested by the card and but it's easier now if you have a player that supports WASAPI. Of course you still can have the soundcard munch up the stream from WASAPI but you at least know it's not the OS messing with it and you don't have to mess about with ASIO or some pseudo-ASIO driver.

If anyone is interested, usually the easiest way to check for bit perfect output is to play an audio file that is the bitstream for something like DTS or Dolby Surround and have a reciever check the integrity of the received digital output.

http://www.dansdata.com/images/practicaldevices/xm5_vs_yumcha1280.jpg

Oh my God. "What do you mean we need a filter after the zero hold DAC?"

 

[sdifox]

Yeah, it used to be such a damn hastle to get the digital or analog streams to be left unmolested by the card and but it's easier now if you have a player that supports WASAPI. Of course you still can have the soundcard munch up the stream from WASAPI but you at least know it's not the OS messing with it and you don't have to mess about with ASIO or some pseudo-ASIO driver.

If anyone is interested, usually the easiest way to check for bit perfect output is to play an audio file that is the bitstream for something like DTS or Dolby Surround and have a reciever check the integrity of the received digital output.



Oh my God. "What do you mean we need a filter after the zero hold DAC?"

op is talking about TV sound...that comes from cable company...

 

[Born2bwire]

op is talking about TV sound...that comes from cable company...

Wait... what...

I thought we were talking about soundcards versus onboard audio...

 

[darkswordsman17]

Sound in Windows 7 is all software based. The sound card matters very little, assuming it doesn't have total crap amplifier.

sure. with everything being software nowadays and digital out - save your money for the amp/pre-amp

This is not even close to being true, and you guys realize that outputting digitally means there's still processing left to be done, right? Plus, its almost always better to defer to the hardware versus letting the software handle things, even when using integrated audio (again, you guys realize that these things process audio, right?). Sure, you can do some software processing and then focus on the DAC, and Vista and 7 handle it better than XP, but you're still best off handing it off to hardware (and generally that software processing you'd be best off not using anyways, or getting hardware that can do it better). The software is tied to hardware and a big reason why Vista and 7 are better is because of much improved integrated audio chips.

As to the original question, yes, but there's a lot of other factors. Will you notice it on cheap computer/TV speakers? Possibly, but you'd be better off improving those than getting a better sound card/processor/DAC.

 

[sdifox]

Wait... what...

I thought we were talking about soundcards versus onboard audio...

Looks like I am the one who is lost 😱

 

[Emulex]

would cuda have more processing power than a cheap dsp?

 

[f4phantom2500]

That's probably because S/PDIF would sound the same out of either lol.

i have a hard time telling the difference between the analog headphone out on the modded x-fi and the s/pdif on the motherboard. but good headphones sound better than the z-5500 when connected to the analog headphone out on the modded x-fi.

 

[frowertr]

Take my opinion with a grain of salt but people who say that onboard audio vs a quality audio card sounds the same probably haven't listened to a "real" quality audio card. I use http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=zCDHPnfR1jymHK2f&templete=2 as my audio solution in my gaming rig. I have it paired with a pair of Audio Technica headphones and I am blown away everytime I listen to the damn thing. I'll never go back to onboard audio nor cheapie sound cards.

It like drinking top shelf burbon (Knob Creek) and then sipping on well liquor Jim Beam - What a difference!

 

[f4phantom2500]

Take my opinion with a grain of salt but people who say that onboard audio vs a quality audio card sounds the same probably haven't listened to a "real" quality audio card. I use http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=zCDHPnfR1jymHK2f&templete=2 as my audio solution in my gaming rig. I have it paired with a pair of Audio Technica headphones and I am blown away everytime I listen to the damn thing. I'll never go back to onboard audio nor cheapie sound cards.

It like drinking top shelf burbon (Knob Creek) and then sipping on well liquor Jim Beam - What a difference!

i don't think anyone said that there isn't a difference between onboard audio and a good sound card...it's been said that the difference wouldn't be as noticeable with lower end speakers/headphones, and that the onboard s/pdif bitstreaming to an external amplifier would be harder to distinguish from a good sound card (rather than the motherboard's headphone out)...but nobody said they sound the same.

that looks like a pretty badass sound card, though. i'd probably go with something like that if i needed a pci-e sound card.

 

[frowertr]

i don't think anyone said that there isn't a difference between onboard audio and a good sound card...it's been said that the difference wouldn't be as noticeable with lower end speakers/headphones, and that the onboard s/pdif bitstreaming to an external amplifier would be harder to distinguish from a good sound card (rather than the motherboard's headphone out)...but nobody said they sound the same.

that looks like a pretty badass sound card, though. i'd probably go with something like that if i needed a pci-e sound card.

That is what I get with skimming through before my first cup of coffee! 🙂