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."

Comments

Where's the limit?

[Deosyne]

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.

Re:Where's the limit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lower distortion (all types). Lower noise. Better anti-aliasing filters. More linear DACs/ADCs. Balanced I/O. Improved RF rejection.
Card volume implemented with motor control pot instead of FETs or digital scaling. Eliminate the
digital EQ that causes phase distortion even when nulled.

Is that enough?

Re:Where's the limit?

[SCHecklerX]

Here's what I would like:

Above/Below speakers in addition to front, back, left, right.

Then stuff like quake, rtcw, half-life, etc would be a bit more submersive. It would be nice to know if an enemy is above or below you by sound.

Re:Where's the limit?

[gid]

I, for one, has yet to be happy with the capabilities of on board audio under linux. I'm not sure if it's a driver problem or what, I've tried both oss/free and the alsa drivers, and I've yet to get any onboard sound chip to play two sounds at once aka hardware mixing. (for instance, play an mp3, and hear icq sounds at the same time).

I've been buying cheap yamaha (ymf724/ymf744) cards and using the alsa drivers, you can play mutliple sound sources at the same time with them.

I'm not talking about using crappy software mixing daemons like esd/arts/nas those all make things sound like dirt IMHO. Death to software mixers, long live hardware mixing. I think windows also can do software mixing via direct sound, but your direct sound apps have to support it, and yes, it makes stuff sound like dirt too last I check, which admittedly, was quite awhile ago that I use a crappy sound card under windows.

Re:Where's the limit?

[Tim Browse]

What I'd like is solid tested drivers, and a clear separation between the actual core driver, and all the other crap they shovel into the box (all that LiveWare nonsense).

Also, I'd like them to properly test the drivers too. I've got an SBLive on an SMP machine, and I get clicks and crackles all the time. (If I disable the 2nd CPU, it's fine). A friend has the same problem.

Tim

Re:Where's the limit?

[chamenos]

I personally think sound cards are over-rated. What's more important to a good audio setup is a set of good speakers.

The "sound card" I'm using now is the onboard AC97 sound on my mainboard, and I've hooked it up to a proper pair of hi-fi stereo speakers (NOT computer "multimedia" speakers) and it sounds better than any other audio setup that consist of expensive Creative Audigy sound cards and cool looking Altec Lansing speakers that don't sound half as good as they look.

I've had people listen to it and ask me if I'm using a Creative Audigy (or some other expensive sound card) and you should see the look on their faces when I tell them I'm using the onboard AC97 sound of my mainboard.

So my advice is, unless you're an avid gamer who needs the A3D or EAX sound or absolutely must have the 5.1 digital sound, you should just settle on a cheap sound card or the onboard sound if your mainboard has one, and invest the money saved on a good set of speakers.

Re:Where's the limit?

[ttfkam]

Death to software mixers, long live hardware mixing. I think windows also can do software mixing via direct sound, but your direct sound apps have to support it...

Why death to software mixers? Unless you are really CPU-bound, they should sound the same. It's not like there's anything special about code that's burned into a ROM as opposed to code that's resident in RAM. The only reason that 3D apps need hardware OpenGL routines is because the main CPU has better things to do -- it speeds the game up. As far as I'm aware, software mixing is nowhere near as CPu-intensive. It it were, there wouldn't have been MOD, S3M, MTM, etc. (multi-channel audio from back in the day) files that were easily handled by my old 386SX-16 with 1MB RAM.

If it sounds like crap, it's because the software's crap not any inherent property of software-driven mixing.

And yes, Windows can do software mixing, but apps don't have to support it; they just tell Windows to play the sound. The important part is that sound card drivers must be DirectSound compatible.

As for sounding like dirt, I'll leave that to your own ears. Personally, I find that it's the quality (or lack thereof) of my speakers that makes a far greater audio difference than the crappy software mixing. But then again, I'm not an audiophile.

Re:Where's the limit?

[Some Dumbass...]

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?

24-bit video cards can also display anything you can see, but that doesn't mean that there aren't new features to be added.

In the long run, it wouldn't surprise me to see sound cards becoming the primary processor for lots of audio-related functions. There's already spatial-audio calculations (EAX/A3D), much like 3d-accelleration in video. Some sound cards also accellerate mp3 decoding. I wouldn't be surprised if this became more common, and perhaps extended to other audio formats. After that... how about a sound card which has on-chip speech recognition, or at least support for some related processes (speech-recognition acceleration)?

Re:Where's the limit?

[Junks Jerzey]

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?

The limit was reached in the mid 1990s, at least as far as I'm concerned. I really can't tell the difference between a generic motherboard sound chipset played through okay speakers and an overpriced sound card. I think that quite a few people fall into the same category. Certainly, upgrading one's sound card is about fiftieth on the list of pressing computer problems.

Re:Where's the limit?

[ShavenYak]

Above/Below speakers in addition to front, back, left, right.

Then stuff like quake, rtcw, half-life, etc would be a bit more submersive. It would be nice to know if an enemy is above or below you by sound.

This can theoretically be done without extra speakers. Think about it: you only have two ears, left and right. When you hear sounds from above and below, your brain knows where they are because of the way different frequencies are filtered by the weird shape of your earlobe.

The trick is in figuring out how to filter the frequencies, and probably also in the fact that everyone's ears are a bit different so what works for some won't work for everyone. Also, it's questionable how well your brain is going to believe sound cues from above/below when your entire conscious mind is focused on a screen in front of your face. I've noticed that surround sound doesn't really work for me in a game - I want to physically turn around and look behind me rather than turning in the game to shoot the guy behind me.

Re:Where's the limit?

[13Echo]

You might as well stop listening to PC audio all together.

By the way... Your Yamaha boards use software mixing in the drivers.

Re:Where's the limit?

[Pig Hogger]

The limit was reached in the mid 1990s, at least as far as I'm concerned. I really can't tell the difference between a generic motherboard sound chipset played through okay speakers and an overpriced sound card. I think that quite a few people fall into the same category. Certainly, upgrading one's sound card is about fiftieth on the list of pressing computer problems.

Maybe that's because you've reached that age where you can't hear the difference between a crappy sound card and a fancy one...

Re:Where's the limit?

[UranusReallyHertz]

I read somewhere that a pair of high quality headphones are the best device for 3D audio. Something to do with simplifying the calculations, and the fact that each ear cannot hear what the other is, wich also helps.

Re:Where's the limit?

[Junks Jerzey]

Tone deaf? or just deaf. Even the most expensive PCI card I have tried has noise problems, especially at high volume.

Well, I turn the speakers up but I don't turn them up full blast. I think the difference is that some people just can't stand watching movies on a TV that isn't hooked up to an elaborate home theatre system, where as I Don't Really Care. I suppose if I focused on just the sound, then I might care, but when I'm playing games on my PC I'm doing more than that. I've never had any complaints about the sound from any PC since about 1995.

Re:Where's the limit?

[Zathrus]

This is theoretically what QSound does. I remember hearing a demo several years ago at COMDEX, but haven't heard anything using it since.

The Philips card in the review did use QSound, and the reviewer liked it. Shrug.

Re:Where's the limit?

[Graspee_Leemoor]

"Above/Below speakers in addition to front, back, left, right. "

With my non-leet drilling skillz I would not want to sit under a large speaker I had attached to the ceiling...

graspee

Re:Where's the limit?

[Tim Browse]

Thanks - I'll give it a try, the SB is not as far away as possible, but it's not right next to the CPUs either.

Thing is, I didn't get it so much on Win2k - I use XP now. It comes and goes, but it's fairly consistent.

Tim

PS. I've tried all sorts of software hacks to get rid of it - processor affinity on the drivers, etc. - but the only one that really works is /ONECPU in boot.ini :-(

Re:Where's the limit?

[Explo]

I, for one, has yet to be happy with the capabilities of on board audio under linux. I'm not sure if it's a driver problem or what, I've tried both oss/free and the alsa drivers, and I've yet to get any onboard sound chip to play two sounds at once aka hardware mixing. (for instance, play an mp3, and hear icq sounds at the same time).

Don't know about any onboard sound chips and their drivers, but that works nicely for me with SB Live! and the free OSS driver. No ESD or anything like that running.

Re:Where's the limit?

[arkanes]

I shudder to think what games you're playing where latency induced in the sound driver can make a difference.

Re:Where's the limit?

[dinivin]

By the way... Your Yamaha boards use software mixing in the drivers.

Why do people post on things they obviously don't know about? FYI, the Yamaha 744 does hardware mixing and Alsa supports this. Three minutes of googling will show you this.

Dinivin

Sound Blaster 16

[JohnHegarty]

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 ?

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[getter_85]

some people pride themselves (me not included) in a more advanced sound system so they can say they've got something better than person x's

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[Skuto]

Some of the low-price cards are actually surprisingly good. The SoundBlaster PCI 128 (actually an Ensoniq card) is notorious among some audio freaks because the outputs are of better quality than the much more expensive SoundBlaster Live cards.

The nice thing about this review is that they actually admit their own 'audio quality' test is flawed. That's good, but if you know it, it's stupid to still do it anyway.

Good evaluation of audio and sighted testing don't mix - ever.

--
GCP

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[dirtyhippie]

> some people pride themselves (me not included)
> in a more advanced sound system so they can say
> they've got something better than person x's

...and some people use their advanced sound system to do low-level synthesis, remixing, adding effects, etc. The effect of going from low-end to high-end sound hardware can be dramatic - if you're dealing with really low level synthesis, you just can't use an el-cheapo card. Case in point - I was twiddling with my music synthesis program on a friend's computer, and noticed all these weird high harmonics. After frantically searching my code for the source of the bug, I suddenly realized that the problem wasn't the program, but the soundcard. I went to a different machine, and low and behold, weird high harmonics gone. Point being, if you're creating music, especially music with subtle effects, you need to be able to hear those effects properly.

Of course, most of the people who buy fancy-schmancy sound cards are just using them for gaming. And there's nothing wrong with that, because it makes them happy and brings the prices down for me :-)

Cheers,
DH

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[liquidsin]

I use the onboard on my Asus A7V333. I saved the few dollars I could have spent on a sound card and put it into some halfway decent speakers with a powered sub woofer. Works just fine for mp3s and cds, and I can figure out if a grenade was to the left or right of me in SoF2, so that's all I really need. Plus, no sound card means I have an extra pci slot.

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[jellomizer]

I still have a Sound Blaster 16. That card is about 7 years old (Give or take a year) It was origianally on my 486 50mhz and then I just moved it to each adional PC that had the 16 bit ISA Port. It still works greate it plays the MP3 and Wav files fine. Sure MIDI sounds a bit comicical compared to the new cards but But with software rendering it still plays nicly. I am not a big gamer but I do have a good ear. And the sound I am getting out of that Sound Blaster 16 is as good as it would come out of those little speakers.
Odly enought unlike vidio cards sound cards dont have the same obsolete rate as other gaming intended cards. They still work with modern games.

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[TheTomcat]

Some people also don't like that nasty hiss from the SB16.

Creative cards have noisy DACs, in my opinion. I find the digital out on the SBLive is very clean, though..

[shrug]

S

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[sharkey]

I have the SB16 WavEffects. (8-bit in hardware, 16-bit emulated by Windows drivers.) Works fine for what I use it for: CD-Audio, playing MP3s, some games. Works fine under Red Hat 6.2 as well.

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[ShavenYak]

I have a machine with a SB16 also. It's in a video game cabinet. I chose it because the speaker outputs are powered, so it can run the speakers in the cabinet without an external amp. A quite handy feature if you need it, and one almost no "modern" sound cards have.

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[13Echo]

My 1370 Ensoniq AudioPCI was a great card. it is a shame that Creative crippled its potential when they bought Ensoniq... But then again, they wanted everyone to buy an audibly inferior Live card. That's the way that it goes, I guess.

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[pogle]

I still use my AWE Soundblaster 64 Gold. Not as old as a 16, but a very sweet card if you have ISA ports. The only reason I upgraded (to Live! 5.1 Platinum) was because my newest mobo didnt have any ISA legacy support. So the AWE got put into my linux box instead, oh the horror!

For those of you who don't know, it had a stereo L/R out directly from the card, so I didnt need a cable to split stereo it into my receiver/amplifier. Very nice indeed. They still have them OEM at a lot of computer places, too.

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[raresilk]

Yeah, I agree. There is a dramatic difference in cards when you do high-level sound processing. I use Reaktor and Cubase VST/32 for my audio projects and there is, like, no point trying to do that that through anything Sound Blaster ever thought about making. Real time sound crunching with acceptably low latency is not possible. So I have dual sound interfaces - an Echo Layla 24/96 with a breakout box for audio, and a Live for gaming (because Echo has never gotten its DirectX mode up to snuff and probably never will since it's not a gamer card.)

I've occasionally tried running games through the Echo, and frankly I think they sound better on the Live. Also, I don't know why I'd want to waste 32 bit audio processing power on sound clips that are recorded in 16 bit by the game publisher. Given that game companies are not likely to waste CD and hard drive space offering their sound effects in 24 bit audio, I don't really understand why the Audigy marketing goes to so much trouble making false claims about that capability. I guess they are trying to appeal to audiophiles, but there is so much USB and Firewire hardware on the market for trackers/synth tweakers/DJs these days, I don't know why anyone would try to fill that need with their internal sound card anymore. (If USB options had been available when I bought the Echo, I'd have gone that way instead.) Bottom line - the basic Live is all you need for gaming.

Re:Sound Blaster 16

[Codifex Maximus]

I dunno. I used to hiss pop use a SB16. But I got hiss pop hiss tired of the sta hiss pop tic.

You're pop hiss pop on a slow pop hiss buss you know ?

Parallel Port/PCMCIA sound?

[strredwolf]

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.

What's the big deal?

[billnapier]

My computer goes "BEEP" when I hit Ctrl-g. What else do I need?

Re:What's the big deal?

[unicron]

You need those fast repetive beeps for a victory dance after your banana takes our your opponent or the building he's standing on.

the real measure of hardware.

[herrd0kt0r]

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.

Re:the real measure of hardware.

[herrd0kt0r]

one more thing, for those who think i didn't read the review and think that i'm off my rocker: read the review yourself.

for those who think the listening tests add any useful information to the review: read the article.

for chrissakes, it's written like a horoscope! every card sounds crisp/clean/warm/deep but also might be harsh/tinny/poopy/balls. even _I_ could write a review like that:

"a friend of mine can play the star spangled banner with his armpit. while it may be unconventional, this reviewer believes that the rendition was warm, with good deep tones. while it wasn't able to reproduce frequencies above 120hz, i do not believe this is of significant detriment, as most farts fall in the sub-120hz range. just for your information, bass tones that low are nearly 'omnidirectional.' that is why it is so difficult to determine who cut the cheese, and why it is best to go with the rule 'whoever smelt it, dealt it.'"

What a Sound Card needs...

[MosesJones]

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.

Re:What a Sound Card needs...

[e40]

I completely agree. I bought some Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speakers and they are amazing. I highly recommend them.

Re:What a Sound Card needs...

[nosferatu-man]

... or high quality cans. I endorse the find products from Grado Labs. Mmmmm.

'jfb

Re:What a Sound Card needs...

[Reziac]

Right, good speakers.. where in the hell does a person find GOOD computer speakers nowadays, especially at a reasonable price? The then-$40 generic pair that came with my 486 in 1994 are MUCH better speakers than even the $200 big-whoopee sets I'm seeing hawked today. Bizarre, but true. (I have a VERY good ear, and I hear the difference.)

Re:What a Sound Card needs...

[karnal]

I must second this one. I bought a set, after doing about a week of solid reviewing on the internet.

Then I set them up at home. DAMN! is all I can say to the amount and quality of sound that you can put through these.

I have them paired up with a turtle beach santa cruz, which is the "quietest" sound card I've ever owned. I used to be a creative labs user, but this card blows away anything "I've" heard by them.

But that's my opinion. You're entitled to yours. But go listen to the Klipsch at Comp USA... you'll be impressed....

Re:What a Sound Card needs...

[rchatterjee]

If you've got some more cash to spend I'd recommend the Klipsch ProMedia 5.1. Watching a DVD with these speakers easily rivals the sound quality of dedicated home theater equipment. And playing an FPS with these speakers lets you truely feel the explosions and allows you to accurately hear from which direction bullets are being shot at you. A must for a computer audiophile to go with your real high end sound card. Did i mention it's THX certified as well...

Re:What a Sound Card needs...

[Reziac]

Thanks for the recommendation, but I'd want to hear 'em in person first. The main problem with ALL the current computer speakers I've heard (and at the local computer shows, we hear 'em in plenty) is that they're lacking in the low end -- the bass component may make a lot of noise, but it lacks richness. And the treble is skewed as well, so they always sound a little sharp.

Since most now have no independent bass control (and many also lack a treble control), but rather depend on the Windows sound applet to control treble/bass, they're also useless outside of that environment. I want independent volume, treble, and bass controls in *hardware*!!

Re:What a Sound Card needs...

[Reziac]

I'd hate to have to guess.. I've bought hardware based on great reviews in the past, and regretted it. I've got a rated-perfect ear (per some tests they gave us in school, back when) and I notice stuff like the diff in depth between studio tape and vinyl, or between vinyl and CD. When sound seems "lossy", or off key, that bugs me.

The Staples here has the best setup I've seen for listening in advance, but they didn't have anything that struck me as worth the money. :(

I did find a pair of speakers just like my good old ones in the local ripoff clone joint's junk bin, albeit somewhat battered... one still has pretty good sound (despite a missing faceplate and a big dent in the speaker membrane!), the other needs a transformer before I can tell for sure if it works or not. *sigh* Oh well, at least it's a spare for my existing set.

Was reading somewhere in another thread about magnet size vs sound -- interesting how "light" the new speakers are compared to my old ones -- they're only about 4x4x6" and they weigh a good 4 lbs. apiece, mostly a honkin' big magnet and shielding. Newer ones in the same size range weigh about 12 oz.

Re:What a Sound Card needs...

[Reziac]

The real curse of a perfect ear is to be in the 3rd grade and see the much-feared music teacher galloping your way, *brandishing* a violin!! :)

I've lived with shit TV and radio reception long enough that I can easily tolerate what I know can't be made better.. but when I'm already used to sound clarity at a certain level, and can't get that because of some latter-day technical *deficiency*, it annoys me. That's why I prefer vinyl to CD -- the noise artifacts from a stylus and dust and scratches aren't as annoying as the ambient sound that's *absent* from CDs. This isn't such a big deal with rock and its relatives, but it's distracting as hell with jazz and classical music.

BTW this *absent* ambient sound (CD being about 80% lossy compared to vinyl or studio tape) is why Brian Wilson is remastering some of his albums from CD to DVD -- CDs simply can't hold all the original data, but DVD can.

Why I'm sick of Creative Labs

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Why I'm sick of Creative Labs

[Balinares]

For the records, I *LOVED* my AWE 64 Gold, and I still love it.
Thing is, it was an ISA card, and I finally upgraded my motherboard recently. Needless to say... No ISA slot (which is otherwise a good thing, of course).

As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't ever have needed to upgrade it, wasn't it for an external factor.

S-bracket

[linzeal]

I just bought a msi kt3u and I was wondering if anyone knew where to get the s-bracket?

Edirol UA-5

[Jeffrey Baker]

I think external USB audio devices are a great choice for everyday uses, gaming, and even home recording studio use. Consider a box like the Edirol UA-5. It has *real* microphone preamps, coaxial and optical digital inputs and outputs, single-ended coaxial analog inputs and ouputs, and an amplified headphone monitor output. It does not sit in your computer, so it doesn't pickup noise the way a PCI card will. It is in all ways a fairly serious piece of electronics, and you can get one for only $249.

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.

Re:Edirol UA-5

[Zarquon]

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.

Eh? The UA-5 _does_ do 24/96, but only half duplex. (The manual sample rate setting is not the most user-friendly, but it works..) I did see a few dropped samples, but it performed very nicely recording on site. Just make sure to get some decent mics.. the difference between a PA-grade mic and even a low-end music mic was very noticable.

Incomplete Roundup

[EvlG]

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.

Re:am I the only one?

[Grishnakh]

I finally had to replace my old SoundBlaster AWE32 recently because I got a new processor and motherboard which had no ISA slots. If it weren't for that, I'd still be using that AWE32.

But what about...

[ALecs]

What I'd like to see is how today's cards stand up against the cards of yester-year (Oh, OK, yester-decade).

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

No Sound? Try USB Audio

[peterdaly]

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

It's a gamer's review, not an audiophile one

[Zathrus]

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.

Re:It's a gamer's review, not an audiophile one

[Zathrus]

Are you talking about the M-Audio Delta 66 for Home Theater?

Actually, the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 or Delta 410 -- 24-bit, 96 KHz DACs with true, properly shielded and de-jittered S/PDIF outputs (both coax and TOSlink). The 410 has 8 outputs, which should handle nearly any standard thrown at it.

Re:It's a gamer's review, not an audiophile one

[Zathrus]

Depends on your definition of "mainstream".

The M-Audio products do rival high end home theater systems -- maybe not Meridian, Lexicon, and their ilk, but a $1500 PC can easily replace a $1000 DVD player, a $1000 pre-amp, and a $2000 deinterlacer (actually it comes really close to replacing a $30k Farajouda or Snell and Wilcox).

You lose a good bit of ease-of-use still, and although some HTPC systems are available out-of-the-box, the best are still hand built, which takes a desire to putter with the computer.

Re:It's a gamer's review, not an audiophile one

[adolf]

While the SB Live series does have some issues, mostly with resampling and irrevocable DSP-meddling of even 48KHz signals, things aren't as bad as you make them out to be.

The coaxial digital output on the Live 5.1 card I have ($20, IIRC) seems justfine to me.

I'm using an Audio Alchemy DDE v1.1 as a good, -external- stereo DAC. This box predates the Live series by many years, and originates from the period of the 1990s when audiophiles were going apeshit trying to seperate the analog and digital sections of their systems. I got it off ebay for a song, now that those audiophiles are deciding that they want surround sound with their DVDs . . .

Sounds coming out of this combination tend to be on-par with the high-end Carver CD player that I've been using for reference for many years, with its stacked 18-bit Burr-Brown DACs and hand-drawn analog section -- resampling be damned.

Of course, it's only stereo. Fine with me - I don't have any music recorded in quad, let alone 5.1, and if I'm serious about watching a DVD I'd rather relax on the couch in front of the TV...

Re:It's a gamer's review, not an audiophile one

[Zathrus]

Go over to AVS, read the HTPC forum, and read about the SB Live digital output. Yes, it works fine for a lot of people. Yes, it conforms to no standard known to man. And it causes weird problems with some pre-amps/receivers. There are some indications that it may even damage them with long term use.

Re:Professional Audio?

[SirSlud]

Books, books, manuals, workshops (your local music store often holds workshops and seminars as a means of generating sales, but its a great way to get your foot in the door and see what these things are for and what they do.)

I learned most of my knowledge from experimenting and toying around, but I've always been more on the MIDI/Synth side than recording what instruments I play live and doing multitrack audio sessions, so it may have been somewhat easier for me than most traditional musicians.

www.sonicstate.com is a good place chalk full of reviews (the hardest part of home studio recording is getting past the hype and knowing what you need to buy to accomplish your goals), and www.harmony-central.com has a very active classifieds section. www.sweetwatersound.com staff, IMHO, have always been very good at taking time to help the customer in order to generate sales .. I've got a very good impression of their sales support.

Re:A basic rule of audio...

[SirSlud]

Yeah. If you are going to do anything music-related, invest in *studio monitors* .. the Yorkville YM-1s are what I have. A very unbiased sound, set me back about 250$ american, and easily the most important part of my setup after the signal is mixed down and goes out my audio card (Echo MIA).

Getting People to Listen

[Vegan Pagan]

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.

Re:Getting People to Listen

[Mr_Matt]

Oopsie...read that again...

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.

(emphasis mine)

And the grandparent post is right: it's much, much easier to produce fantastic quality sound from headphones than from a speaker set, and for much less money.

Now if you can find me a set of $20 speakers that sound better then those klipsch pro-media 5.1 -- i will print out this post and eat it.

Does that apply if the speakers are connected to a headset? :) I agree that the pro-medias are great speakers, but when you really want good quality at a low price, it's much better to get headphones, and as somebody's already mentioned, your neighbors will love you for it as well. :)

the review is crap...

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:the review is crap...

[13Echo]

That page is excellent. Arnie did real work in comparing soundcards.

As for this crap from regarding "The State of PC Audio"... This other reviewer can shove it. Anyone who writes vague crap like "This sounded warm, but we can't help but think that something was missing" shouldn't be reviewing. Did they use good headphones? No. Did they use a a proper amp and set of speakers? They used a crap set of Logitech speakers, which produce way too many highs, and over-bassy lows. This can be fine for an average user, but you have to adjust an EQ somewhere in the loop.

Aureal Vortex 2

[Shade41]

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.

Re:Aureal Vortex 2

[cowboy junkie]

Driver support is a *huge* issue, and it's why I've stuck with Soundblasters since my tragic Monster Sound purchase a few years back.

At least with a Soundblaster I can be reasonably sure that there will be drivers in both Windows and Linux for some time to come.

Not that surprising...

[Astin]

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.

Re:Not that surprising...

[13Echo]

One problem with the review is that the reviewer doesn't realize that the distortion that he hears with the Santa Cruz is native to the original audio recordings. You just can't hear it with the "higher rated" cards, because of their inferiority. The Audigy's dynamic range just blows.

I guarantee that the Santa Cruz and Phillips cards produce the best quality in that review. The reviewer is just blind to all of the real variables.

So if anyone here actually likes innacurate representation of an audio source, then please... By all means, trust this silly review.

Re:Not that surprising...

[Astin]

Then consider yourself lucky. I've seen some pretty strange errors posted. But Soundblasters have always had a hard time playing nice with other hardware.

Re:A basic rule of audio...

[Lumpy]

not.

If you have $9800.00 each legacy audio studio monitors they will sound like crap if you have a crappy amp and crappy source. speakers are the 3rd most important. AMP with very low THD and clean transients is the number one most important component of an audio system. anyone who says otherwise is faking it. Second your audio source has to be clean and handle the dynamic range. and finally the speakers.

a pair of 100 watt speakers on a 5000 watt amp will sound better and last longer than a pair of 500watt speakers on a 10 watt amp.

in fact I can blow any set of speakers on this planet with a 10 watt amp. (DC clipping is NOT your friend)

So if you want really good audio out of your computer, have your soundcard drive a nice amp and then some decent speakers.

Re:Integrated Sound...

[fmaxwell]

Integrated Sound...
...sounds pretty good to me [16-bit].

And 500mhz Pentium II chips seem fast to lots of people. But Slashdot is more aimed at the computer enthusiast. Many sound cards are used for converting analog to digital, so that's a function that is important to many. The CPU usage is an issue for many gamers and much built-in sound hardware is pretty brutal on CPU usage. Still other people hook their computer to their stereo systems and "good enough" isn't.

Tomshardware already revealed revelation

[csb]

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.

zzzSnorezzz

[Russ Steffen]

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.

Re:Funny, yet has a point.

[Moofie]

I thank my lucky stars that I don't have "golden ears". 128k MP3 sounds fine to me. If I need music to sound better than that, I'll perform it.

God save me from a discerning ear...it'd be way too expensive.

Re:am I the only one?

[MrResistor]

I've got the origional SB Live! and a pair of crappy multimedia speakers with subwoofer and I'm perfectly happy with it. I like the 3d positioning for games, but otherwise I don't do anything with it that I couldn't do just as well with an SB16. It was the card I put into the first box I built myself, and I paid way too much for it. Now you could get it and the speakers for about $30. I plan to keep using it until they stop making mobos with PCI slots, though onboard audio with 3d positioning could convince me to abandon it.

I'm a musician, also, and my hearing is good enough that I find mp3s irritating. When I want good sound, well, that's why I own a Bose Wavestation and over 200 CDs.

The Aardvark is the best ever!

[teamhasnoi]

The Aardvark Q10 is great for recording, and it works with all my games. It also works with Windows XP and 2000, and OSX.

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.

Re:Professional Audio?

[jcsehak]

Get Pro Tools free from Digidesign. Musicians like Beck, Bjork and Aerosmith use it. Of course, they use the version that's tens of thousands of dollars. Basically, the difference is the more money you spend, the more hardware (and thereby processing power) you get.

The best way to learn is to just start doing it. If you have a sound card and Pro Tools free, you should be able to just start laying down tracks with the mic that came with your computer. Experiment with EQ settings. It's all about training your ear to recognise what sounds good and what doesn't. After you've recorded an album's worth of material, you'll find you're able to make much better sounding songs, though you won't be sure how you got there.

If you don't have a sound card, get one that has at least a stereo input and output. Before you get it, make sure it's supported by whatever software program you're using. If you don't have a firewire port, think about getting one. Firewire is useful in so many ways.

If you want to get some higher fidelity, you'll need to get a decent mic. Pick up a Shure SM57 if you're recording mostly instruments or 58 if it's mostly vocals ($80-100). These mics are workhorses of the industry and will remain useful even after you become a famous rock star. You might be able to find a XLR -> 1/8" adapter to plug the mic into the back of the computer, but I recommend either buying a cheap mixer and going mic -> mixer -> soundcard, or getting Digidesign's mBox ($450), a firewire-based audio input system. The good thing about the mBox is you get a more robust version of the software along with it.

Pro Tools isn't the only way to go, though I think it's the only way that's free. Kruder & Dorfmeister use Cubase, and Thievery Corporation use Cakewalk. I've heard lots of great things about Cubase, but the Cakewalk seems to be more amateurish. Thievery has a crapload of hardware, and I think Cakewalk is just a small part of their studio.

If you're broke, you can always pirate plug-in's from p2p networks, but audio programmers are generally non-rich really cool people, so if you ever wind up making decent money off of your music, you should buy the software you use frequently.

If you're into programming, check out MAX/MSP. Autechre uses it.

Also, check out Propellerheads Software:
Reason- Berklee is using this to teach recording concepts.
Rebirth- 303, 808, 909. Kicks ass.

For a reference, my stuff was recorded using Pro Tools with the Audiomedia III sound card (it's pretty old), a Neumann TLM103 mic and a Roland xp-60 synth, both going into a mackie 1202 mixer. I'm completely self-taught.

firewire USB

[jcsehak]

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...

Why I have an audigy

[Sabalon]

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.

Re:good news for Linux?

[13Echo]

Unfortunately, a lot of closed drivers are a problems for specific chipsets in Linux. I hope for a time soon that Cirrus releases some drivers or data on proper 4 channel support of the CS4630 DSP that is used in the Santa Cruz. Until then, split 2 channel is the best that you can get.

The actual quality of the audio seems to be a little lower in Linux on this card (at least to my ears). It is probably a driver issue. It isn't very well optimized, by Cirrus seems content with leaving it that way.

Re:Gone already?

[13Echo]

And keeps getting /.ed every 5 minutes after that.

Maybe they are using their server to run some sound "benchmarks".

:)

my warning to those considering an audigy

[WebMasterJoe]

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.

Re:Absolutely

[13Echo]

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.

Well hit my head and call me shorty

[jcsehak]

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.

uh oh!

[edrugtrader]

Creative Labs (NASD: CREAF) down 2% on the 'news'

stop lying boys!

Re:What high-end PC audio needs

[renehollan]

This has been an interest of mine for some time. I eventually want to phase out much of my A/V system in favour of a single, networked, content source, capable of local media playback (CD/DVD), driving a minimum of non-intelligent exteral equipment (i.e. video monitors, DACs and amps are fine, but there should be no need for a "receiver" or "preamp").

I'd appreciate a greater discussion of your setup. Despam my email address to contact me.

math

[dwk123]

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.

Re:Funny, yet has a point.

[TheAwfulTruth]

Then let it suck no more!

M-Audio Delta 44/66 or M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 coupled with a set of Project Studio 8 or 10 pro monitors. (Or any other decent monitor)

Actually there are a lot of alternatves, but as usual. Stuff that doesn't suck usually costs a little bit more and isn't sold at CompUSA.

Testing methodology

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:firewire USB

[Jeffrey Baker]

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.

Re:Sound Blaster 16 - what else works in DOS now??

[Reziac]

[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. :)

USB devices

[cornflux]

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.

I thought the exact same thing just before I bought my USB CD/RW writer.

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:

• Extigy: 1, 2, 3;
• Stereo-Link: 1, 2, 3.

Bench your speaker

[chrysalis]

...and if you want to bench your internal pc speaker, install vi .

Re:No Sound? Try USB Audio

[cornflux]

Stereo-Link is also an alternative USB audio solution.

Reviews: 1, 2, 3.

Re: HTPC

[Toasty16]

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.

Re:macs don't do DTS, Dolby Digital nor 5.1

[Jeremy Erwin]

They use higher quality soundcards, or usb/firewire boxes. Mark of the Unicorn has a number of products that work on Macintosh machines. (as well as ms. windows). Most consumer digital audio gear-- cd players, minidisc, or dvd players, make use of the spdif coaxial or fibre port. This is also commonly found on pc soundcards, but does not come with macs. Edirol has several USB to s/pdif converters that work with mac, but I have no idea if Apple's DVD player will stream the required dts or ac3 data correctly.

Re:firewire USB

[ncc74656]

It looks USB-based to me.

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).

Re:Integrated Sound...

[fmaxwell]

I think that it made it to 550mhz in the Slot 1 version and at least 600mhz in the mobile version. I know that my PII made it to more than 500mhz -- despite what the label on the box said. ;-)

Re:PC Audio and Yamaha Products

[dinivin]

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.

High end Linux cards

[Chris Pimlott]

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.

Creative Live!

[Codifex Maximus]

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.

Caveat Emptor (or "Audigy has 24/96 output. But:")

[rakslice]

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.

not too picky

[GunFodder]

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?

Waveterminal 192/24bit soundcards under $200

[Wag]

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).

http://egosys.net/1-pro/eng/product/wt192l/wt192 l. html

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.html

OK, want *good* sound from your PC?

[Ogerman]

Good sound? Forget this worthless article for 14-year old 31337 gam3rz. Here's what you do:

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 /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.

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.

Re:24/96

[moogla]

In fact, your analogy is pretty bad, because 19" monitor at 1600x1200 with 16.7 million colors is not resolute enough and lacks the color depth of human vision. You can STILL see individual pixels, and 8 bits is not enough order of magnitude for each channel (the eye can perceive a 1:1000 contrast _difference_, so 10 bits [11 for green] for each component would be the minimum)

Re:No, AppleDVD does not support SPDIF passthru

[Jeremy Erwin]

It's possible on Linux (Ogle, OMS), it's possible on Windows 98-- it's even theoretically possible on macs. AC3 streaming is a fairly simple patch-- but not all players implement it. All I wanted was info on whether Apple's DVD player worked-- not an advertisement for billg's pride and joy