General Audio Thread

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WT

Diamond Member
Sep 21, 2000
4,818
59
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Nah, Yo .. once is enough for those monster, all encompassing threads to direct all n00bs to. They come in handy simply because we can point so many same question, different week posts to this thread and hopefully answer the next question before it is even posted. Thanks for including what you could in your OP, a good ol' Google search can answer a lot too.
 

Ghouler

Senior member
Sep 9, 2005
442
0
0
I'll add a few words on sound cards.
When I was buying one I tried to research as much as possible.
I bookmarked a few sites with audio quality and performance benchmarks.
Perhaps they will help someone facing similar choice.

This is rather for gaming and general audio, not professional sound cards.

link 1
link 2
link 3
link 4

With professional sound cards I believe it starts price-wise with EMU 0404 and ends up with ProTools HD systems, with companies such as Audiotrack, Edirol , E-Mu, ESI, Lynx offering anything from stereo USB interfaces for a 50 bucks up to multitrack recording systems for thousands of $$$...

Anyway when buying a sound card I think it?s good to keep in mind following points:

1) Is it playback or recording sound card? Quality of analog to digital conversion is a major factor that determines recording quality of a sound card. If card is meant to be used for recording it needs to have good ADC. If used for pro recordings it needs to have balanced inputs for mics. If the card is meant rather for playback then decision needs to be made about digital vs analog outputs

2) Digital output vs analog output. Is it going to feed a receiver via digital input or are you going to use analog connection? You might save lots of $$$ on sound cards if going digital into the receiver digitally. On the other hand you might decide to use analog connection to the amplifier if your sound card has good DACs. All in all speakers are analog devices so conversion has to be done somewhere. If cable runs are long this might justify going digital however balanced connection might work out better if you have a decent analog amp already. But if you decide to go digital C-Media chip based cards with DDL encoding are worth mentioning. This allows for conversion to ac3 stream from any multichannel source. Keep in mind such conversion is not needed for multichannel audio that has been already encoded into ac3 such as in movies with dolby sound.

3) Type of interface. PCI, USB, Firewire and PCMCIA cards have their pros and cons. But except for USB1.1 all interfaces offer enough bandwidth for high quality multi-track recording and playback. Since recently there are also express sound cards for laptops but I did not see any benchmarks or decent reviews yet. As for PCIe there are no PCIe sound cards at present except for Digidesign professional cards.

4) Number of Inputs/Outputs. Straight forward and perhaps the first thing a recordist looks at when buying this piece of gear. General Audio sound cards have up to 8 outputs (7.1) that can be used separately for different signals if the card has ASIO support.

5) Games and movies or music only? Sound Blaster cards are de facto standard for gaming sound cards. Hardware acceleration, EAX HD support, Open AL and virual surround over headphones are the main features to consider here. As for music-only cards bit-perfect playback and high quality DACs matter most however some manufacturers offer hardware-based processing to enhance sound quality, too.

6) Bit-rate and Sample-rate CD Quality is 16 bit/44.1 kHz. Any sound card can do that. For better quality look for 24 bit/96 kHz cards.

It's all pretty generic, but I hope it's helpful enough for anyone looking for a sound card. I avoided exact product and pricing info as these things change all the time.
Any of the points made can be researched in depth when comparing any 2 sound cards before buying.
 

alcoholbob

Diamond Member
May 24, 2005
6,271
323
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Originally posted by: avi85
Originally posted by: Astrallite
I don't think YoYo has posted in 7 months O_O

his profile says: last visited on 7/11/2006 that's yesterday


In the context of the Peripherals section, it says his last post was in early January.
 

Ika

Lifer
Mar 22, 2006
14,267
3
81
Originally posted by: Astrallite
Originally posted by: avi85
Originally posted by: Astrallite
I don't think YoYo has posted in 7 months O_O

his profile says: last visited on 7/11/2006 that's yesterday


In the context of the Peripherals section, it says his last post was in early January.

he posted yesterday, 3-4 posts above yours.

In any case... I still haven't gotten around to the IEM writeup. Also, we need an electrostatics writeup!
 

alcoholbob

Diamond Member
May 24, 2005
6,271
323
126
Lol...seems like we have a issue with chronology semantics. Yes, that, minus 1. "IN ANY CASE" end of discussion.
 

alcoholbob

Diamond Member
May 24, 2005
6,271
323
126
Computer speakers are adequate if they are lined up with your ears. But they have poor off-axis frequency response. In other words, they sound good in a small listening arc, but farther away and in off angles, both vertically and horizontally, their dispersion is bad.

HT speakers are designed to maintain the same sound (frequency response) over a wide area--you see all the time, on a good set of modern floorstanders or bookshelves, the frequency response up to 75 degrees off can be 95%+ as accurate as they are when in the prime listening position. They fill the room. PC speakers don't do this, because they have poor response on the offaxis. This is why "more watts" is a fallacy. More power, more "ammo", only makes the poor off-axis sound louder, but doesn't change the fact that it sounds a lot different (more distorted, less clear) than from the prime listening postion.

This makes them less suited for home theater (where alot of people sitting in a wide area might be listening), because the guy sitting in the middle is hearing things heck of a lot better than someone whose sitting at the side angles, even if the volume is consistent, the people on the sides can't make out the dialogue or details in the sound as well as those in the central seating position.
 

Ika

Lifer
Mar 22, 2006
14,267
3
81
Hmm, I'm thinking I could write up a bang-for-your-buck headphones thingie.