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The State of PC Audio
jonesy writes "The Tech Report has put together a pretty decent six-card sound round-up that covers the most popular audio controller chips around. DACs, ADCs, DSPs, and the other important acroymns are explained. One interesting revelation: Creative's Audigy card doesn't do 24-bit/96KHz sound, despite Creative's claims. Gaming benchmarks are provided, and the authors even take a crack at the subjective side of audio, although they seem aware of the difficulties in doing so."
I have a tutal beach and it proforms nice and the software is nice
Got Athlon?
What were they looking for ?
Tester 1 : Play that bit again
"Aaaaaaarrrrghhhhh...Kabooomm!!"
Tester 2 : Definitely a pitch lower than the previous card.. bad Audigy.
Rapid Nirvana
I was just thinking about the limits of sound cards the other day. What features are still in demand from them, considering they can play damn near any sound that we can possibly hear already, and do it directionally? Seems to me that there's really not much more to squeeze out of them, other than maybe making them faster for more advanced applications and cramming them full of memory so any of them can be used professionally. More speaker jacks might be nice, so you can have some really surround sound.
And to think I am satisfied with my $12 computer show OPL3 special...
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
I use a sound blaster 16 on machine. It cost 12. Its grand , plays mp3's ... and games...
Am I the only one who doesn't have an orchestra in the back of my pc , or are most people on this type of older card ?
Cruise TT
It's good to see sound getting some of the attention that has always been given video in the past.
I've always been impressed with the sound card drivers on Linux. They are usually up to date and reliable, much more so than video cards, especially new ones.
If this article is indicative of a growing interest in PC audio, then I don't see how that can be anything but good for Linux. This is one area where Linux can truly compete against Windows.
Open source, victorious once more!
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
That none of these cards support dual inline stereo couplers, and that in order to maximize throughput you will need to get a card with a subsonic harmonic A/D converter with logic analysis onboard.
I have a soundblaster 32, and I have had it for years now putting it in faster machines. I find I just don't care about audio quality and '3D sound'.. so long as the sound works, I'm fine with it.
maybe I'm just picky because I'm a musician, and expect perfection anyway, so I just settle instead of riling myself up with the newfangled chips?
I am the lord of the pun. Dance Knave!
From their site Yamaha says:
"Yamaha developed a wide range of products, having started from FM sound generators in the background of its musical instruments manufacturing technology, while expanding them to wavetable sound generators and multimedia CODECs supporting standard PC functions.
Conforming to the Microsoft PCX standard, and including Windows drivers, these products provide a complete and standardized PC audio environment.
Additionally they specs the chips that make this possible.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
What I'm intrested in is 16-bit, 48kHZ sound out ether a Parallel Port or PCMCIA card (for soundless laptops). So far, the only thing you have is 8-bit sound that the computer itself has to make sure it runs at the right speed. I'd like to offload that a bit.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
that Creative's inferior and overpriced products are taken to task.
I bought a Platinum with Live Drive thinking the digital IO is 44.1KHz, it's not, it's resampled.
My computer goes "BEEP" when I hit Ctrl-g. What else do I need?
I've been thinking of getting a new soundcard lately but I'm really not sure what I'm looking for. I honestly don't know what kind mine is, but I do know that it's PCI. (not built in to the motherboard.
I currently have a Y connecter coming out of the line-out, hooking up to Audio/Video Cables and going into the CD input on a reciever I have. That is then going out to two bookshelf speakers. It sounds good, but I think that I can get better sound by a newer sound card. What should I look for in a soundcard. I run win2kpro.
There's no "I" in Linux.. err..
omg, evreyuone knows teh REAL BEST sound cards r the ones that overcl0kc teh BERST.
like, i oc'd my mediavision proaduiuospectrum16 (don't laff its teh BEST) and now i can hear sounds b 4 they happen!
like, omg. this guy was gonan shoot me with rocket launcher but i heard it before hje shooted then i was gonna shoot him first but tehn i heared my shotgun fire b 4 i even press the button!!1!!
HE WAS DEADRESTATED B 4 I EVEN SHOOTED HIM!
I R TEH S0 GLAD I READED THIS REVIEWS.
MY SHOTGUN SOUNDS SO CLEAN AND CRISP AND CLEAR AND BECAUSE I R TEH AUDIOPHILz0RZ I KNOW IT SOUNDS AS BEST AS REALISTIC YES IS.
seriously, sound card reviews like this are a crock, providing little information above the specifications provided by the manufacturers themselves. as evidenced by the previous story about the s00per c00l vacuum t00b sound card, people can't be fooled into thinking these things will provide "audiophilez0rz" quality.
a little excessive, don't you think?
Is good speakers. You can't have one without the other. So what if your Sound Card is 100% buzzword compliant with 128bit 9GHz output, if your 2 cents piezo buzzer is connected to it the its a waste of space. Equally if you are playing Quake 3 and just want surround sound then there isn't much point in the card without the speakers in the right places.
For most people a basic card will, shock horror, do everything they want these days when allied to a decent set of speakers. So much of this is upgrade hype driven rather than actually reality. I've had a creative 5:1 set up for a few years now and why should I upgrade ? I listen to music mostly on the train and at work from my laptop on headphones so what would it get me. And what extra would I _really_ get for a 3D game ? Rather than marketing hype.
Get good speakers, get an okay sound card and buy lots of RAM.
If you want a top of the range sound system, buy seperates don't buy a PC.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
...sounds pretty good to me [16-bit].
Then again IANAA (I Am Not An Audiophile).
--arcades
Besides the obvious fact that they often use a bit of slight of hand in what features they support (ie 96KHz), every couple years they introduce their new sound card, and promise that this won't ever have to be upgraded again. I think they first did it with the AWE64, but then two years later, BOOM, Live!, and two years later, BOOM, Audigy. Each one they claim is upgradeable via Liveware. But these updates NEVER come.
I think I should've just stuck with my solid SB 16.
I think "The Tech-Report" should do some reporting on web hosting options!! It appears /.'d in only 5 minutes..
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Are there any good websites out there to learn about professional audio engineering? As a musician I'd like to be able to produce my own music but also as a musician I don't have the money to go to school for it.
I just bought a msi kt3u and I was wondering if anyone knew where to get the s-bracket?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
If one is to look at PC Audio, why would one not look at one of the best PC Audio chips, The ICE Envy24.
There are several cards based on this chip and they are
supposed to be great. Digit-life has reviewed them
in the Midiman and Hoontech cards as well as
the terratec card. I wish that audio reviews
looked at cards other than gaming cards and
tried to look at real audio cards.
Conclusions
Now that we're nearing the end of the road, as it were, we'll sum up with our overall impressions of each card and then make some more general observations.
Hercules Gamesurround Muse XL ($15 OEM, $26 Retail)
In spite of its bargain-basement price and its all-in-one C-Media chip, the Muse XL is still worth considering if you're aware of its limitations. Ironically, those most attracted to its low price (people with older, slower machines who are looking for a budget sound card upgrade) may be the ones who would do best to avoid it. Judging from our benchmarks, these people would do best to step up a notch to one of the other cards, all of which were kinder to slower machines.
The C-Media onboard audio solutions found on some newer motherboards will likely have similar performance drawbacks, but if your motherboard is new enough to have one of these chips, your processor is almost surely fast enough that it doesn't really matter. The fact that this, the cheapest card of all, managed to take a win in one of our listening tests is just icing on the cake. For those who are looking for a sound card for a new system, the Muse XL isn't a bad choice at all. You can get decent quality sound for a lot less than you might think.
Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II ($36 OEM, $49 Retail)
While the Muse XL is an excellent value, those who are looking for a little bit more in a sound card could certainly do worse than the Fortissimo II. With six-channel outputs and optical digital connectors, the Fortissimo II will appeal especially to those looking to interface with home theater components or Minidisc players. In addition to its unique feature set, the Fortissimo II was a good performer, taking the trophy in two of our listening tests and tying for first in another.
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz ($57 OEM, $65 Retail)
The Santa Cruz is a card that didn't stand out in any of our tests, but performed capably enough in all of them. Its VersaJack feature, while unique, was overshadowed somewhat by the Philips' abundance of connectors. Like the Fortissimo II, however, the Santa Cruz will garner some fans because of its wavetable header; of the cards we looked at, only the Santa Cruz had one of these connectors. Compared with the other cards here, however, it's difficult to justify the Santa Cruz's price relative to its features and performance.
Philips Acoustic Edge ($55 OEM, $62 Retail)
After our experience with QMSS, we feel completely comfortable recommending the Acoustic Edge to gamers above all other cards. QSound features aside, the Philips has other assets. The Edge has a fantastic number of connectors, and while it seemed we were pretty hard on the audio quality in the listening tests, we don't think the deficiencies we perceived are anything that would jump out at you when you listen to the card by itself. Plus, the card did score a win in one of the positional audio tests, and that was without its secret QMSS weapon.
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! ($18 OEM, $55 to $115 Retail)
The Live! card isn't a bad performer, and it's difficult to argue with the price of the $18 OEM version, but this is a card that is showing its age. The OEM version aside, the retail models just aren't terribly competitive. We would find it difficult to spend $55 on an X-Gamer instead of $49 on a Fortissimo II, and the Acoustic Edge and Santa Cruz are only $7 and $10 more, respectively. The Live! card also has a reputation for causing PCI troubles. At least some of these issues can be blamed on motherboards, but if newer, better products are available for just a bit more or even less, why tempt fate?
Creative Labs Soundblater Audiy ($46 OEM, $75 to $195 retail)
For all the complaints I had about the marketing and software bloat, I was pleasantly surprised by the sound and performance of this card. It won three of our listening tests and tied in a fourth, but even that doesn't describe the difference in audio quality between the Audigy and the other cards here. If you spend much time at all listening to music, and you have more than $20 or so to spend on a sound card, the OEM Audigy at $46 is a very tempting purchase indeed.
Generally speaking
In most cases, the differences we uncovered here aren't anything to write home about. The Muse XL was notably slower than the rest in the benchmarks, but otherwise everything was pretty even. As for the listening tests, all of the differences we heard were the results of back-to-back tests, but no matter what we said about any of the cards, none of them were objectionable. The days of ISA Sound Blasters that hiss like a cat are gone; unless there's a really bad card out there that we didn't include, the state of PC sound today is that even the worst card sounds pretty darn good. If one were to listen to any of these cards by itself, one probably wouldn't find any gross deficiencies in audio quality (with the possible exception of the overdone EAX effects in Serious Sam, but we're not sure whether to blame that on the sound cards or the game developers).
Now that we've said all that, if we had to pick an overall winner, we, umm, wouldn't.
Instead we'd pick two: the Sound Blaster Audigy for music and the Philips Acoustic Edge for games. Many may find our choice of the Audigy ironic considering how hard I slammed on the card earlier, but the Audigy's sound quality (especially in the MP3 playback) is head and shoulders above the other cards here. Ironically, it's likely that the Audigy's Philips DAC (the one that gives Creative ammunition for their farcical 24/96 claim) bears the most responsibility for this outcome--not that that means they're any less full of it.
Meanwhile, on the games side, the Philips Acoustic Edge does more for 3D audio than any of the positional audio techniques we listened to, and it basically does it by pulling an extra two channels out of thin air. If the Acoustic Edge's QMSS abilities hold up in other games the way they did in the ones we tested, gamers everywhere will be very happy with this card.
Finally, for the first time in who knows how long, the sound card arena is starting to look interesting. If Envy24HT cards start to intrude on the space occupied by the cards we tested here, it's difficult to say exactly what will happen next. But I have a feeling it's gonna be good
Only three comments in and the page seems to be slashdotted. I used to think a SoundBlaster 16 worked fine for me. I didn't need a crappy wavetable synth for MIDI. But I got an AWE32 on the cheap from a friend, and was amazed to hear the dramatic increase on the low and high ends of the spectrum. And I then felt, alright, now that's taken care of, an AWE32 will do me just fine. Until my roommate bought a Delta 1010. This soundcard is rackmounted, has ten inputs, ten outputs, and 24bit/96khz audio with top notch A/D & D/A converters. And all that stuff's grand - when it comes to recording and playing back music. And it's got Linux drivers, which doesn't matter for us because we record with Sonic Foundry software, because we're too cheap and uneducated to use Macs, or something. Whatever. But I'd say for 90% of computer users out there, any old two-channel sound card is as good as the next. As far as I'm concerned, if I want to watch DVDs, I run those through my stereo (I guess that's not a proper term, with 5.1 and such...) and watch em on my TV. The 5.1 implementation in most PC stuff is laughable at best. Can't wait for Doom III though... there's some wicked sound engine design going on there...
I am Leviathant and I approve this message.
The only drawback in my mind is you cannot use the USB interface for 24/96 audio. That, and some issues like jitter and delay, should be solved by the next generation of IEEE-1394 interfaces.
This article neglected two important players in the PC Audio scene. Where is the nForce 420D and the Hercules Game Theater XP? Why were they not included in the roundup? Instead, we got reviews of a bunch of low end cards and high-end Phillips and Creative cards. I think the nForce and Game Theater would have been worthy competition.
I was supposed to say
But you can't hear it!
I still run an AMD K6-450 for a single reason: it's got 3 ISA slots that I can put my dual-port joystick board, my Advanced Gravis Ultrasound MAX and my SoundBlaster AWE32 in. Those 2 sound boards kick this living [explative] out of everything else I've heard in the (affordable) PC sound dept. And, the AWE32 has 8 megs of RAM for something useable: putting sound samples into for MIDI/MOD playback.
Sure, I don't get 18bit, 48KHz playback (which, I'll admit, may be nice for homestudio stuff) but all my 16bit, 44.1KHz stuff (practically everything, since that's what CDs are) sounds fantastic. Nice CODEC chips, nice analog output stages, descrete amps, etc. And, yes, I do listen to it through something worthy of playing back good sound.
I'd like somebody who has a good A/B comparison rig, good ears and a newer whiz-bang audio card to campare it to a GUS or AWE32 and tell me if they agree. Have these newer everything-on-one-piece-of-silicon cards caught up in sound quality? Keep in mind, also, that I payed only $35 for both of these cards (having dated hardware is nice on the wallet :).
-Josh
Sound cards in PCs are finally getting to the point where they are almost the same quality as the ones in my old rusty NeXTstation. We need to start seeing DSP accelerated sound (almost no CPU overhead and can still do mixing and transforms in real time).
I buy the Mac, I plug it in, it works, it makes beautiful music. What is this sound card of which you speak?
The extigy or anything comparable on the market? I like the idea of a separate box with all the jacks handy. I like the remote idea for watching DVD's. Has anyone seen any reviews or competitors?
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
Need better sound out of a laptop? Lots of them do have cheap soundcards. Try USB audio "boxes". Here are a couple from amazon:
Yamaha AP-U70 CAVIT External Audio.... $350 or so. Include a built in amplifier.
or
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Extigy Sound..., for about $134.
I don't know about Linux support, but they will makes a Windows Laptop rock.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
I'll repost (most of) the comment I put on TR this morning. TR's comments don't get much feedback usually, and I'd like to get responses/pointers on the points I bring up.
The review is completely oriented toward gaming though, with only a slight nod toward music listening or DVDs (and the cards reviewed aren't particularly good toward those). With that in mind, the review isn't all that bad. And it brings up several nasty issues with Creative Labs - their drivers continue to suck, they seriously overdo reverb in EAX (uh, guys... you wrote the standard... why can't you do it right?), bloatware on a massive scale, and some of the comments indicate possible spyware.
Anyway, my original comment is now below, sans a few bits that pertained only to over there.
Sigh... well, not what I was hoping for, but still a decent review (as soundcard comparisons go at least). Should've marked this as a review for gamers though - for those looking to build a Home Theater PC it's reviewing the wrong cards (the M-Audio 6-channel is pretty much the standard nowadays, but there are competitors).
It would've been nice to get a few motherboard chipset reviews in with the cards. I know, you were already in review hell. But to whomever is going to try this next, do include a review of the cheapo AC97 codecs, the upgraded ones (such as CT5880), nForce, and such.
There are also sampling/playback issues - CL has long had an issue with automagically resampling from 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz. This introduces errors during playback. Testing to see which cards do this (on either record or playback) would've been nice.
Testing to see if the connectors provided are actually standard conforming would've been nice too. The digital output jack on the SB Live series, for instance, conforms to no standard known to man. It will work with most Dolby Digital decoders, but not all of them - it runs the voltage far, far, FAR too high, has absolutely no noise protection, and a few other issues. CL deciding to label their IEEE1394 connector as a "SB1394" makes me suspicious of it as well.
...is that the speakers are the worst part of any audio chain. $1000 worth of speakers will do more for the listening quality than $1000 worth of cards, adaptors and cables (wavetable synths aside).
Hell, with most dedicated PC speakers, you don't hear much above 14kHz, so 96kHz DACs won't make an iota of difference, and ones that are based on IC amplifiers usually produce their maximum rated output at 10% distortion (note that PMPO is a totally meaningless number), so the improved linearity of 24 bit doesn't really matter either.
2 from an audio engineer.
I have an ibook and work with G4s at work.. The sound capabilities suck compared to what you can get on the pc side. I have Dolby Digital, DTS, 5.1, EAX 3D running on my Thinkpad.
Anyone have much experience positive and/or negative?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Insert obligatory "What about comparing the Linux support of all these cards?" comment here.
Two years ago I bought a three-piece set of Kinyo $50 USD speakers at Wal-mart. They've served me well. I probably don't get all the performance I should get out of my card, but the speakers aren't powerful enough to annoy my fellow apartment dwellers. I think that's a plus for folks who don't live in houses.
One of my neighbors has a gigantic horking custom-built stereo and he rarely gets the chance to use it because it blasts the neighbors out of their barka loungers when he turns it up.
The Stereophile website reports that San Jose based AOpen is about to release a Pentium 4 motherboard with a tubed audio stage. It also uses expensive capacitors and Cardas wiring in the audio stage. Check it out at the Stereophile web site:
http://www.stereophile.com/shownews.cgi?1368
I'm sure all you digital geeks will be running out to buy one!
I think somebody has hacked slashdot. Maybe alien-driven conspiracy. Or do you really think that this very poor review (card X costs $ Y and has chipset Z, the driver doesn't work in Windows XP and the control panel has fancy buttons) was submitted intentionally?
Alas, you did not, you ass.
I just started using an Echo Mia, which is a 24 bit/96 kHz digital audio card. No MIDI, no gameport.
Pluses:
FANTASTIC audio quality! The highs are crisp and smooth, and the lows are round and roomy.
Integrates/plays nice with gaming/everyday soundcard. I'm using the Mia in conjunction with an SBLive! Platinum (under WinXP) with no problems.
Negative: Finicky about which motherboard chipset you're using. This is a HUGE consideration for this card, but if Echo says your chipset will work, you're ok.
Two weeks ago, here.
I just tried because one of my soundcards stopped working (Soundblaster AWE 64) and I still had that one lying around. To my surprise it didn't work (no driver support). Oh, wel, a good friend helped me out and gave me his old Soundblaster 16 (thanks andr0meda...it still works perfectly well ;-))
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
What I want to know is when the PC sound card makers are going to build something that can encode a Dolby AC3 stream on the fly like the nVidia n-force motherboard and xbox do. This is a useful feature for HTPC's attached to a nice Dolby decoder in the livingroom... I didn't like the n-force chipset so I hunted all over for another solution... with no luck.
Have any of you slashdot geeks built a compelling livingroom solution that does this another way? And I'm not talking analog-ins for six channels to your receiver here but rather a real AC3 stream over coax for the receiver to decode.
"Creative's Audigy card doesn't do 24-bit/96KHz sound, despite Creative's claims."
This is old news. We knew this when the first reviews of the card came out.
The only way to get 24bit 96KHz audio from a creative sound card is to buy the Extigy. It is the only audio card Creative makes that actually does 24bit 96KHz audio.
To have information about onboard noise levels.
Onboard noise makes it almost impossible for computer sound cards to live up to audiophile standards. Especially in the area of do it yourself home recording. I know on my SB Platinum the noise floor is always about -56 db, which is annoying.
The problem I see with PC audio is not the quality of the cards but getting people to hook up decent speakers and listening to them. People seem to reserve their best amps and speakers for the living room and car. Already in 1991 the Sega Genesis and SNES were putting out better sound than cheap TV speakers could reproduce. DVD consoles at least may get hooked to home speakers reserved for movies, and incidentally also use it for games. MP3s have got a lot more people to listen to their PCs, but that's just a drop of the sound today's PCs and consoles can put out.
One way I see of getting people to get better sound out of their PCs and consoles is headphones. For just $20 the Koss KTX-PRO (also called the Optimus Titanium 35 Pro at Radio Shack) headphones will get you better sound than hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of amps and speakers. As for the surround effect, the Dolby Headphone algorithm supposedly simulates it with DVDs made for 5.1 speakers. It's nice that most PCs have headphone jacks; I wish consoles would as well. Many console games, and PC games as well, I would assume, have great soundtracks that never get heard.
I am convinced that most on-board sound cards are totally worthless. Am I not correct in saying so? They may have ok quality, but I'm positive that they cause many of the DirectX problems/crashes I experience from time to time. Probably also comes with bad drivers, even though they were taken directly from the microsoft update site.
sorry but the review at Here at pcavtech is dead on.. tests done with audio calibration and testing hardware to give real numbers and real information not this "pull something out of our butt" review.
any review on audio equipment that doesnt use real testing is pure crap and needs to be loudly labelled as such.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
PC audio will forever suck, unless we can manage to sheild our sound cards from all of the "noise" generated by the rest of the computer.
PC audio will forever suck, unless we get real speakers with real amplifiers to reproduce what we want to hear.
PC audio will forever suck, unless we get better compression methods for music (like Vorbis, MP3, etc). Anyone who spends more than $50 to listen to MP3s at 128K needs to be beat with a tuning fork.
And yes, the review sucked. It was a nice explanation of the specs for each card, but that's about it.
UW PICO(tm) 4.2 File: complaint.troll
.net adverts! Why the FUCK are you letting the
The ADS on $la$hdot and the O$DN ANNOY ME.
Ones that annoyme most,
$hit forge adverts, no one want's to risk developing critcal applications
with you so fuck off!
AnimeFu/Megatokyo adverts! Japanime sucks, so does slashdot!
Microsoft Visual Studio
devil advertise with you. Oh now I remember, open sores have no way to
make money so they ask big companies to support them!
Conclusion. Don't tolerate it! Don't subscribe to $la$hdot. Instead go
and install Junkbuster and say no to sh$
ones found here are worser than the pr0n sites!
I thought it was interesting that they compared the Audigy to the Midiman Delta 66 (Envy24 based), and then mention that the Midiman Delta 2496 (Envy24 based) is a good match to the Audigy. One of the things that I have been looking for in a sound card, is versatile S/PDIF stream generation. Cards like the Audigy and the Live resample all digital output from 44.1khz to 48khz, a process which is done digitally and can introduce artifacts. On the otherhand, the CMI8738 cards, like the Midiman Delta 2448 or the Zoltrix Nightingale Pro 6 both offer both coax and optical digital in and out, and offer 32, 44.1, and 48 khz output.
And, the advantage of digital output - now, I can buy a nice, good rig for doing the digital to analog conversion and amplification. Personally, I bought a Sony STR-DE675 for it (It certainly delivers more power than your average computer speaker set.)
For a while, I used a $18 FM801 based card, with resampled digital out - which still sounded damn good.
My point is this, With digital soundcards, the most important part is the quality of the chipset. The rf and analog design of the soundcard is inconsequential because the digital sound will either work, or it won't. If anyone is interested in digital audio for playing back DVDs and/or Music, but not playing games - I'd sincerely suggest finding a CMI8738 based card.
Oh, and on cables: I've ran digital audio over 50 feet on hand-terminated speaker wire. You could tell when there was too much interference, because the audio would drop out, and the stereo would display 48Khz PCM again, as it resync'ed the signal. The point? The Nature of the Audio transmitted over the digital audio is not affected by the cables. With Analog transmission, the capacitance and inpedence of the cable and connectors could act as a filter, and degrade the audio. However, that does not hold true with digital audio. If you have a truly awful cable, you're going to have spots of audio, if it plays at all. However, that $300 three foot long piece of gold plated, insulated cable is not going to do any better than a $20 video-cable.
fnord.
I have a Monster 3D sound card based on the Vortex 2 chipset. I payed $30 for it a few years ago and I have been well pleased with it. I use it for playing MP3s to my stereo all the time and it sounds great. I really enjoy using the Vortex setting in games like Descent 3. It adds some nice 3D effects to the game.
Most Audigy users that have looked at any of the sound card forums out there have already discovered their claims are false.
Creative seems to have really dropped the ball with the Audigy line. A look at any audio forums (Creative's own even) will show a large contingent of unhappy customers. Audiophiles that think it's a piece of crap sound-wise, gamers who are pissed off with its driver performance. Calls for people to return their Audigies and get a Game Theatre or Santa Cruz.
Compatibility issues with different hardware configurations, WinXP, etc.. are also popping up. The biggest seems to be an issue where the EEPROM on the card gets scrambled, disabling the rear speakers, and causing the card to be recognized as EMU10K instead of an Audigy, thereby making proper software/driver upgrades impossible for it. The only known solution for this so far is to get the card replaced and hope the new one doesn't get FUBAR as well. There are a lot of very annoyed Audigy owners out there.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
www.audioforums.com
www.harmonycentral.com (hunt around for the forums)
www.recording.org (free trial period, then pay-for subscription)
I also have to make the comment that all 6 of these soundcards reviewed are hopeless toys. They are cheesy "gamer" soundcards only. To do REAL recording and audio work, you need a professional soundcard. For two ins/outs (regular stereo), the best bang-for-the-buck on the market is an M-Audio (Midiman) "Audiophile" which does true 24/96 recording. It is worthy of a recording studio and you can get one for around $150 street price. As for myself, I prefer genuine multitrack units. I just bought an Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96 that has 4 inputs and 6 outputs plus midi ports too. The 4 inputs have real mic preamps that can provide phantom power for studio-quality condenser mics, and have combo Neutrik XLR+1/4" jacks. Comes with a full copy of Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 which can then be used as a basis for buying a $199 upgrade to Sonar XL 2.0 software.
So you dont discriminate against notorously machine-like-hammering-excellent-performing ACs getting First Posts, beating the Clit out of you?
Thank you!
On April 5th, Philippe Ramelet wrote an article about the Extigy's alleged 24-bit, 96kHz capabilities at Tom's Hardware Guide. Here's the debunking part.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
(No, I haven't read the article. It's conveniently slashdotted right now, so I can use that as an excuse to let other people read it for me.)
I've had nothing but trouble with Creative Labs products, mostly due to really terrible and/or non-existent software. I'm pretty sure that CL's programmers stopped writing new drivers and applications years ago, and have since devoted all their time to cramming more advertisments and spyware into existing products.
I've been trying achieve a CL-free system for years, and I'm down to two components now: My Nomad Jukebox (which will be replaced just as soon as there's something worth replacing it with,) and my Sound Blaster Live. I keep the SBLive because it's the only way that I know of to output six channel SP/DIF digital audio. Call it a fetish if you want to, but I just like not having to care about noise until the signal reaches my speakers.
So, does anyone know of any sound card and speaker combination that would get six channel, real-time digital audio out of my computer, without using some form of Sound Blaster?
MSK
You want quality audio in a PC? Go get a card made by these people, these people, these people, these people, these people, or these people. Then we'll talk.
Fabulous dive from Totti!!.. Worth of an Oscar..
I would only recommend this to musicians or engineers though, since it's a bit of overkill for RTCW.
Recording? Wow! It is absolutely quiet.
If you just need something that goes beep every once in a while, then don't bother to read this.
I'm one of those people with a PC at the heart of their entertainment system. I use it as to control my sony CD jukeboxes with the nirvis controller. I also use it as an MP3 jukebox and to play DVD's scaled up to high resolution for my HDTV rptv and my front-projector system. I use it to scale standard-defintion tv up to HDTV resolution with dscaler. I use it as a tuner and PVR for HDTV using the MyHD hdtv tuner card. And I also play games on it.
So, if you are like me you probably want the following:
1) External USB2 or firewire based ADC boxes to support input from all the external devices like CD jukes, SACD, DVD-A, satellite tv and a few sp-dif inputs too.
2) External USB2 or firewire based DAC boxes to connect directly to external amplifiers without having an intervening receiver or pre-amp device.
3) Software support for all the consumer audio formats like Dolby Digital, DTS, SACD's DirectStream Digital, DVD-Audio's MLP (Meridian something or another), Dolby Prologic 2, Logic 7, etc.
4) Support for all the gaming sound formats, OpenAL, DirectSound3D, EAX, etc.
5) Open flexible software to tie it all together and to provide a good WAF (wife acceptence factor).
The reason #1 and #2 are outboard boxes is to keep them away from the electrically noisy interior of the PC. The idea here is to create an all-in-one audio device that can replace a high-end multi-thousand dollar pre-amp with a ~$1k PC that may look uglier but is both more functional and much easier upgraded to new functionality as it arrives in the marketplace.
I've got to agree with this: EAX on my Creative SB PCI-512 bites the big one. The reverb is so outrageously over done (when playing HalfLife:OpFor, anyway) that the game's unplayable for me.
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, will be quoted out of context on
I know that I usually troll here but I'd like to make a honest comment about this article...
Creative Labs does indeed suck big green donkey schlongs!
Don't mod me, bro'!!!!
Try these:r l.wustl.edu/~adl/mastering/
( a site run by a bloke who used to design for SoundCraft)
http://homerecording.com/
http://www.ess
and to help you sort out good info from bad:
http://www.dself.demon.co.uk/subjectv.htm
A copy of the book (what an old fashioned concept!) "The Audio Engineer's Handbook" is a good place to start. Its getting a bit old now, but the accoustic fundamentals haven't changed.
Most importantly, experiment. There aren't any rights or wrongs, just what makes you happy.
For more info contact Tim, tapirfaramhand@yahoo.co.uk (yes, there is one 'a' too many)
I'm not surprised creative doesn't use all 24 bits.
24 bit audio in a pc is not really practical as 24-bit audio means an equivalent SNR of 59 dB.
Most sound cards run at 1V Peak, which means one needs a noise floor of around a millivolt or two or less to make this sort of thing practical.
Most measurements of PC system noise are between --50 and -60 dB, there's a fan there and what not. So you cannot really use all 24 bits. The effective number of bits one would get out of a perfect D/A (infinite number of bits) would be somewhere around 22.
That doesn't stop people from advertising 24 bit... 64 bit audio processing. People are familiar with the number of bits in a completely different context, in which they matter much more. 64 bit processing certainly has its advantages over 32 bit, and a 64 bit address bus makes a very big difference. But in this case, you'll have to shield your sound card to get that sort of performance (not impractical).
I don't trust USB completely. I've had problems with hubs deciding not to supply power, and the bandwidth is too narrow. From what I've heard about USB CD recorders, I'm not alone. For $450, you can get Digidesign's Mbox, which is firewire-based. It samples at up to 24-bit/48khz, has focusrite mic pre-amps with phantom power, and most importantly, zero latency. It also comes with Pro Tools audio recording/editing software. No, I don't work for them, I've just been drooling over this thing lately. The idea of having a decent home studio with one of these and a laptop...
c-hack.com |
Amen to that, Brother Driver. Forget about those gamer reviews of sound cards. Forget about how much CPU sound cards allegedly eat up. 24/96 is where its at, in and out.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
I love Day of Defeat. I'm married and have kids so usually get to play it at night after they're all in bed, so I seldom get to crank things up.
:)
Even if I did, my ears are so messed up from '80s metal concerts, I probably wouldn't know the difference between 16bit vs 24bit.
But the audigy gave me two things that I wanted/needed. The first is the 4+ speakers. So now when I get killed again and again, I know which way it came from
The other is the onboard 1394. I stupidly bought a proprietary IntroDV board, which the company wanted to charge me to get the 2000 version of the drivers. Plus it took up it's own slot and could only connect to dv cams. Now I have an OHCI standards based port on the same PCI slot as another card that can hook up to anything.
Oh yeah...and it was dirt cheap too for all that.
Ok, so the benchmarks talk about how many fps you get in Q3, but what about sound cards that musicians might use? How's about ASIO support and latency issues? We're not all running around finding crates!
I've got a dual-Athlon system, running W2K & Debian. I get some strange pops and jumps in the sound whenever I have mp3's playing and some other program plays a sound...but only in W2K. So I have to assume the Windows driver has a problem the Linux driver doesn't, and it may very well be an SMP issue but I haven't tried it with a proc disabled.
Still cool, though, and I want one.
Lack of creativity is no excuse for not having a
If anybody is considering buying an Audigy because of the remote, think again. I don't think the article made any mention of the remote (which I believe is only available in the Platinum or better) , but it is just about worthless if used in conjunction with anything else that uses a remote.
I had set up a small tower in my living room, complete with wireless keyboard/mouse and an ATI All-in-wonder, and I upgraded from the SB Live to the Audigy for several reasons- better inputs/outputs mounted on the front were important, but the remote control was extremely important. After all, if I could use this remote to control winamp and other programs (possibly including the ATI TV app), I wouldn't need the keyboard or mouse 90% of the time.
Unfortunately, every other remote I have interfered with the audigy - I couldn't use the DVD player, TV, stereo, or even the PS2 remote without royally pissing off the Audigy Remote app (even when pointing the remotes in the opposite direction, it still picked up signals far more often than the devices that were supposed to get the signal). Ironically, the Audigy remote caused the least amount of response from the Audigy, and no problems with the rest of the entertainment center. And the Audigy Remote app is such a horribly bloated app that I had to disable it entirely (which is almost as difficult to do as disabling RealPlayer or removing all the AOL icons).
I like the sound that comes out of the card, I like the 1/4" input jacks (which lets you plug a guitar directly in the front, for example), and I like the fact that there are so many controls and inputs that are mounted on the front (with the platinum version). But the remote was such a disappointment; don't buy this card for that feature - you may get better results, but don't raise your hopes.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
There is no such thing as a Creative Labs compatible soundcard anymore. Windows sound devices use directsound and wav output as the primary APIs, and have no requirement for "Soundblaster compatibility" that the old DOS soundcards needed. The only exception is through EAX in games, which is a pretty open standard now anyway.
It is USB. I could've sworn it was firewire. I wonder how they get the zero latency with USB. Oh well. Yeah, it still looks cool, and I still want one, just a little less now.
c-hack.com |
Creative Labs (NASD: CREAF) down 2% on the 'news'
stop lying boys!
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
pretty straightforward - dynamic range = 6*NB.
rationale - each bit is a factor of 2 in voltage, factor of 4 in power. each factor of 2 in power is 3dB. in other words dB=20*log(V) (log base 10).
plug in either 2^16 or 2^24 and this gives the oft-quoted 96 dB for 16 bit ("cd quality") audio, 144dB for 24 bit. (not exact numbers, but close enough)
So, it turns out that your result is actually pretty close, even if your math is wrong. True state-of-the-art converters can get 19-20 bits out of a signal. Check out either the LynxTwo or the new EgoSys 192x for cards that are pushing this. The LynxTwo measures at 115+ dB, or about 19 bits.
Um, the testers seemed reasonably competent technically, but I have to point out that judging a card's audophile capabilities by playing classical MP3 is not the best way to do it. Playing the original uncompressed music, whether from the hard drive or (preferrably), directly from the original CD is always the best method. MP3s will always sound different than the original source music because like JPEG, it's a lossy compression. Take a classical CD with some demanding music, make MP3's from it, take and burn those MP3's to another audio CD and compare the two in a standard audiophile CD player in your home stereo and you'll easily hear the difference between the original and the copy, especially with a good violin piece. Yeah, it's nitpicking, but anyone claiming to do a "listening test" and using MP3 playback as the last word in audio quality is no audiophile, in my opinion. Just my two cents.
I don't disagree that the amp and source are important. In fact, my favourite listening setup is a pair of Westlake monitors (built into the walls) driven by Perreaux 6000Bs, followed by the B&W Nautilus (see, I can quote the expensive names, too), playing back from the MCI half inch (which sounds a bit warmer than the Tascam), or even better, straight off the Studer A900.
The fact remains that even the best speakers in the world produce up to 10% THD at efficiencies of less than 8%. That makes them the worst part of the reproduction chain. "Transients" (do you mean transient intermodulation distortion or slew rate limiting? The two aren't the same) introduced by the amplifier can easily be swamped by the distortions introduced by bad speakers.
As for DC clipping, under no circumstances should any amplifier be driven into clipping, and I did not recommend doing so. If you have clipping, you clearly need a bigger amp.
Finally, I agree with your closing statement, but you will get better sound from $1000 worth of speakers & $200 worth of amp than you will out of $1000 worth of amp & $200 worth of speakers, which is the top end price range that most people are prepared to look at.
for further reading:
www.dself.co.uk/subjectiv
From the sleeve of the Japanese pressing of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells:
"This record should not be played on old tin boxes, no matter what they're fitted with. If you are in possesion of such equipment, please turn it in at the nearest police station"
I'll be the first to agree that USB is a nasty hack, but there aren't a lot of 1394-connected audio devices, and certainly not any I can afford. The Edirol unit is nice though, because it can operate alone without the computer connected.
[laughing] I also still have my original ISA SB16, from my original 486; it's now 8 years old. It worked fine in the 486 and the P90 and had pretty good sound for its day, but it really doesn't like the P3-550 very much -- sounds like crap (gritty, and I can't get the R/L volume balanced no matter what I try). I wonder if it simply can't keep up with the higher system speed or something.
:)
I added it to the P3 because its SBLive could not be induced to work in DOS (its DOS emulator crap hosed Win98, and didn't work anyway, so I had to disable it in hardware profile). And I need a sound card that 100% works in DOS.
[changes subject line] Hey, does anyone know which pretty-good reasonably current sound cards still work in *pure DOS*? None of the reviews I've seen over the past 3-4 years have touched on this. But it's a *must* for those of us who play older games.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I tried half of those cards (SBLive, Hercules Game Theatre, Phillips Acoustic Edgew) within the past year and none of the ones I tried had stable or fully functional XP drivers. I finally gave up on surround (overrated on a PC anyway unless you watch movies) and settled for a cheapo SB128 and the drivers that shipped with XP. Don't believe the hype.
We will ride into battle
And Draw strength from our swords
The sound of the cold steel
Pressed against warm flesh
We look up to the mighty wargods
To challenge their rule
The Kings of Metal
We well be victorious
As we defeat our enemies
We will be crowned
The Kings of Metal
As our steeds run faster
The moment draws near
The day of reckoning
Will soon be here
The Kings of Metal
We will be victorious
As we defeat our enemies
We will be crowned
The Kings of Metal
All heil the new Kings of Metal!
yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
When I burned my first couple of cd's I was careful not to use the machine (laptop, PIII 750) for fear of swamping the USB's bandwidth... I've got a USB keyboard, USB mouse, USB compact flash reader and a USB cable for my PDA.
However, I'm happy to report, everything seems to work just fine and dandy when using other USB devices. Granted, I haven't tried using everything at the exact same time... but, I'm pleasantly surprised by the performance.
Maybe tonight I'll try my hardest at making a coaster... </evilgrin>
Anyway, I've also been thinking about getting a USB sound device... either the Stereo-Link or Extigy. I like the Extigy because it's got a lot of "stuff" (sparing the details). But, I also like the Stereo-Link because it's not Creative's product. I haven't quite decided, yet... here are some reviews:
Idiot.
I have been a TR reader for years and I have alot of respect for the guys who put these reviews up but this review was a joke. My main beef is with the methodology of testing audio "quality" via mp3's(dbt's aside). On crap PC speakers(yes ALL of them are crap). As if the sound wasn't colored enough, whichever card applies the most matched EQ wins. I have listened to a few of these cards on my audiophile-quality system they all sound like hell because they are designed for use with desktop speakers. If you are interested in the technical merits of soundcards check out this site:t m
http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/index.h
...and if you want to bench your internal pc speaker, install vi .
{{.sig}}
Reviews: 1, 2, 3.
I feel like a guru over here because I built an HTPC in August of 2000, which makes me feel like I'm two years ahead of the curve ;-)
I'm using a Realmagic Hollywood Plus DVD decoder card from (www.sigmadesigns.com) in my PC. It has outputs for S-video and coax digital out, which I send to my Sony Wega and the ADS-2000 decoder which comes with my Midiland S4 8200 5.1 surround speakers (www.midiland.com). This is a dedicated DVD setup.
For PC audio, I have a SB Live Platinum, of which I use the headphone jack 90% of the time, and the coax S/PDIF out for when I want to play a game with Dolby Digital sound. If I want to play a EAX or non DD game, I use the analog ouputs on the back of the SB Live connected to the ADS-2000 decoder (it allows for simultaneous digital and analog connections which can be switched with the included remote control).
I'm thinking of upgrading to the SB Audigy Platinum and the new Realmagic Xcard, which has component video ouputs and hardware Divx decoding.
"24/96 recording"
Is that like it will record all day every day but only for 3 months a year, then it has a holiday for 9 months ?
Hahahah I kill me.
graspee
Are we really listening to the opinions on soundcards by a guy who just "Bursted" his eardrum? He-he.
Further digging also reveals that it only works with MacOS. That probably rules out 99.9% of the people here (and before you flame me for saying that, my Quadra 610 doesn't speak USB anyway).
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
On the PC, you have winDVD and PowerDVD that can pass off AC3 through SPDIF. Or actually encode them via softare if you have 5.1 or 6 channels. On the mac, the software is not yet capable.. Even on Linux, XINE does not support it. XP is the only viable option for running a HTPC.
I think the mod need to wake up. Recently this troll has been using the same subject header for about a week which should have triggered something. Also the mods have been falling for lot of the posters lies.
To any mods reading this post I suggest the doing following before modding next time. Look at the poster's histroy, journal if there is one, and ask yourself if it sounds too good to be true before you mod. I am still laughing at this, since it is quit obious that this poster was BSing, but the mods fell for it since it mentioned the keyword Linux. I don't use Linux much, but even I could tell this guy was BSing. When I doubht the poster, I usally read their history and in the case of this user, it confirms my suspision that they are a troll!
With a 24-bit DAC however, we get a ratio of 2^24=16,777,216:1 between the noise and the full scale signal. In dB this comes down to 20*log 65536 = SNR = 144.49 dB.
Isn't it suspicious in the first place to claim an SNR much lower than expected ?
That means 24-bits data resolution and 96KHz sampling rate. Your ordinary music cd disk only gives you 16-bits data resolution and 44.1KHz sampling rate. This is the standard quality of digital studio recording quality these days. If you have decent ears, you can hear that 16/44.1 sounds like crap compared to 24/96. Remember back when graphics cards gave you a whole whompin' 256 colors and maybe 600x800 screen size? Well that's the audio equivalent of 16/44.1 quality. Nowdays, the 24/96 audio is like yer 19" monitor with 1200x1600 screen size and 16.7 millions of colors.
Sorry, that URL should have been:
http://www.dself.demon.co.uk/subjectv.htm
Pro Tools isn't the only way to go, though I think it's the only way that's free.
For almost free ($64) you can get n-Track Studio multitrack recording software. They offer a free demo version that's useable, although it has nag-ware reminders to buy the full thing.
I just bought the Q10's little brother, an Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96 (4 ins with mic preamps, 6 outputs) and am anxiously awaiting the UPS deliver truck any minute now (THe UPS tracking website said it was loaded onto the truck at 8AM this morning but hasn't yet showed up). I imagine I will get little sleep tonight ;-)
Creative marketing exec: We're not lying, I'm sure every consumer who wants 24/96 output would realize that 100dB means it has a 16bit DAC, even though the box claims 24 bit "OUTPUT". I must have been silly, silly me, to think that this meant OUT of the CARD and INTO my MIXER. sigh! So my question is, what directx soundcard WILL do 24/96. I do studio recording, and despite all of the lurned deWd postulation about bit rate and perception CAN tell the difference between 16/44 and 24/96... and, gasp, have a practical use for a 24/96 card... I would actually quite enjoy being able to record on the recording card while using a softsynth or music software (can't use 2 ASIO devices at once), or split the monitor when I'm using all ports, or apply directx effects from a 2ndary card to the recording card... I have all analog gear up to the sound card, the definition and clarity of things like a bass drum or a dark cymbal resonating at the same time as a double bass and guitar is completely different at 24/96 than 16/44. Just like there's an even greater difference when I record to my Neve reel to reel console. To those who said "everyone knew about the 24 bit creative thing when it came out" apparently didn't read the Audigy thread on slashdot that has people arguing for quite a while about the benefits of its 24/96 output.
-- The truth is the only thing that nobody will believe.
Does anyone know of a similar review for audio cards under Linux? I want to get a card that is good under Windows and halfway decent under Linux. Usually, you find one that is good under one O/S and crap under the other one (OK, OK, they usually suck under Linux).
For a dual-boot system, what is the best card?
For a Linux-only system, what is the best card?
I guess there is no spoon afterall...
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Very much so!
Though ~$600 for their lightest card seems a bit much. I'd be happy with plain-Jane two-channel recording with an ADC that doesn't suck.
iSKUNK!
Just got an Audigy recently.
Sadly enough it can only do two channels in digital mode. (pcm)
I have yet to find a sound card that will do better.
After buying a Hoontech card that uses the ymf754 chipset, and getting burned by the fact that their drivers only support a very small subset of features of the card under Windows XP, I would highly recommend that consumers avoid Yamaha soundcards till they learn to respect their customers.
That's a great link you posted. Even better, it does appear at least 1 is supported under Linux. The ALSA Project's Soundcard Matrix lists support for the Midiman Delta 66, and there's also OSS/Linux beta support for the LynxONE (though binary non-free).
Of course, they'll both set you back 400-500 bucks... Fortunately, the still well-performing Turtle Beach cards have long enjoyed good Linux support.
Well durn. I bought a mediocre card, according to this article, the Creative Live!
Oh well, at least when I installed RedHat 7.2 it was automatically configured and working with no config file fiddling from me (unlike in Windows where I had to download a driver and reboot multiple times). This in comparison to my old Turtle Beach Monterrey card where I had to tweak it just to get it to work.
Anyway, the Live! sounds good and gives decent positional feedback.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Analog Devices onboard (on just about every Intel motherboard) rocks... loud, clear, does everything you need...
The new boards have S/PDIF out via the mic-jack or a seperate rca-style jack...
According to Creative's promotional material, the Audigy supports 24bit 96khz output, but only digitally; presumably this is because it doesn't have a high-rate DAC onboard.
However, promotional materials claim that the Digital Entertainment version of the Audigy, a higher-end version released for the Asian market, does have a 24bit 96khz capable DAC onboard. Additionally, the "Audigy drive" breakout boxes included with the Platinum and Platinum EX both have 24/96 DACs; 24/96 audio should play properly through them.
But, a grain of salt:
Creative's promotional materials and product specs are fairly... creative. =)
My Creative Labs CD-R Blaster 8432 (an OEM ATAPI Plextor Plexwriter 8432) is the last CL product I'm ever going to buy (well, at retail prices anyway, second-hand ebaying aside). The drive itself performs very well in terms of burn data error rates. However, it has performance problems which have occasionally led to underrunning. The buffer is half the size of the Plexwriter's (2mb instead of 4mb) -- but I knew that when I bought it. And, more importantly, like its equivalent ATAPI Plexwriter cousin, the drive doesn't support DMA properly, even though it claims in four seperate places on the box that it does. It even lists UDMA support as a system requirement. Creative tech support personnel are generally clueless, or seem to feel that giving out any product information will only encourage warranty returns or something. But from what I've been able to determine on the net, there Creative has OEMed at least 3 different drive models from Plextor, Panasonic, and Samsung, under the "CD-RW Blaster 8432" name. And the Samsung doesn't support UDMA either.
So you don't bother to hook up your stereo to your TV to watch movies and you haven't noticed a difference in PC sound since 1995? Is this because the technology of sound hasn't progressed in the last 7 years or because you Don't Really Care about good sound?
Firstly, not what I'd call a good review of sound cards - where's the output signal analysis and such?
Of course the uselessness and idiocy of this article was revealed as soon as I saw the Quake FPS graphs!
They also claim that the SB Audigy doesn't do 24-bit/96KHz - which is sort of true and sort of not true - more not true than anything. The audio processing chip mixes internally at 128-bit(I could be wrong here - it might be higher. I know the SBLive does it at that) then downsamples to 24-bit/96KHz to put out to the DAC. Whilst it might not be able to play anything better than 16-bit/48KHz it doesn't mean that it doesn't output 24/96.
Anyone with a clue about sound mixing can tell you that if you mix at the same rate/resolution as your input samples the output quality decreases in proportion to the number of channels due to clipping. Ever listened to a 32-channel mod with 16-bit samples being mixed at 16-bit versus an 8-channel mod? It sounds terrible, so you mix at 32-bit and downsample to 16-bit when you output.
Not that 99% people could tell the difference between 16-bit/44.1KHz and 24-bit/96KHz anyway with their shitty speakers and amp.
"But d00d! I paid like $250 for this surround setup! Hear the bass? That means it's good." - hate to tell you mate, but it's still a shithouse setup. When you buy a pair of thousand dollar speakers and a quality amp to match you may then argue with me.
"Fruey, frotty, and lumpy" must describe Rice Crispies after "snap, crackle, and pop" are gone ;)
Although headphones don't let you hear the difference between ahead and behind the way good front and rear speakers do, the clarity of right and left are miles better. Its a fair trade off. I have been accused several times of using "wall hack" in CS because I could hear where the enemy was in my headphones. Plus, it doesn't wake up the kids sleeping in the other rooms. I have a 6 speaker system in my living room, but I always use headphones on the computer, for both movies and games.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I just picked me up the lower-end Waveterminal 192L for $139. It only has 96/24 input but true 192/24bit output. This thing is going to rock for home-theater with DVD-A (rumour has it both WinDVD and PowerDVD will be decoding DVD-A and DTS 96/24 in the near future).
2 l. html
l
http://egosys.net/1-pro/eng/product/wt192l/wt19
The more expensive Waverterminal 192X with both 192/24 in/out can be had at Tracertek for under $200.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/tracertek/index.htm
I have a ESS Maestro 2E (Actually a canyon3d chip) and the linux drivers allow you to open the /dev/dsp device 4 times with hardware mixing supports (hint, add the module option dsp_order=2). It's quite nice.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
The Midiman Delta Dio 2448:
Buy it here, perhaps
Nothing fancy about this card... other than the true 24-bit/48 kHz sampling rate and digital I/O support if you need it. It's about $100 depending on where you get it, but it makes up for the extra price with lots of connectivity and crisp, pure sound (crazy THD, it's in the manual somewhere)
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Good sound? Forget this worthless article for 14-year old 31337 gam3rz. Here's what you do:
/dev/dsp to a SP/DIF interface. Price around $25 for one that's C-Media 8738 based. Using hacks you can also dump raw AC3 frames over the digital out for watching DVD's.
1.) Get a cheap digital out card that does not resample or process the signal in any way. Just plain and simple 16-bit, 44.1Khz. is all you need. No bells and whistles--Just a way to get from
2.) Using a coaxial (not optical) cable, connect your digital-out card to a quality outboard DAC. You can get a module on Ebay that does both Dolby Digital and plain old stereo for less than $200.
3.) Connect the DAC to the best amp / speakers you can afford / build. Price variable.
The true audiophiles will also replace the quartz crystal on the soundcard with a low-jitter clock circuit (homemade or LCaudio) and upgrade the op-amps in the outboard DAC to something like a Nat.Semi. LM6172.
So there you have it folks. Studio quality audio for about what you'd pay retail for one of those silly Audigy cards that'll be "obsolete" in another 6 months.
However, promotional materials claim that the Digital Entertainment version of the Audigy, a higher-end version released for the Asian market, does have a 24bit 96khz capable DAC onboard. Additionally, the "Audigy drive" breakout boxes included with the Platinum and Platinum EX both have 24/96 DACs; 24/96 audio should play properly through them.
Nah, I have the DE version of the Audigy and was actually hoping that since I have this odd asian version (bought over ebay for $40 right when it came out) is why the analog outs didn't do 24/96. I believe the digital outs do 24/96 on any of the audigys that have them.
-- The truth is the only thing that nobody will believe.
I know that AC97 is bad but what about hardware sound solutions that are included on motherboards (like the C-Media chips)?
Are there decent and inexpensive solutions?