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Computer Audio - To USB or Not to USB?
Tom asks: "The time has come for me to upgrade the audio on my computer. This was last discussed, here.My specific area of interest, is the sound card, in its various embodiments. Two cards that I am considering are Creative Labs' Audigy2, and M-Audio's Revolution 7.1. These companies also have USB counterparts to their products - the Extigy and the Sonica Theatre - and I can't decide if USB's portability and other various advantages justify its shortcomings. Experiences, anyone?"
The creative is nice, but it's been my experience that creative has a hard time supporting thier products (with the exception of their cambridge soundworks stores).
Chrisd
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
how many channels does he want for his 7.1 system?
I am assuming 7+ the bass being sucked off all of them. It is at least 4 channels with the others interpalated so that is about half of your USB bandwidth at a minimum 7 * 2.8 and you can't fit it all and yes, I want CD quality sould if I am watching a DVD on my $150.00 sound card.
Also USB may be doing other things. Can you watch a DVD while you print stuff out? How about the line in, for say voice chat in a game.
I don't think that USB 1.1 has the bandwidth to support a full sound system without some crazy stuff happening (for example a driver could be setup that sends three channels (triangulate) and the card could split it up, but sounds very costly to the CPU).
If I am totally wrong here speakup.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
...is (~an order of magnitude) bigger with USB. This can be a real issue if you're doing (many) multitracks, where latencies add up.
Higher CPU usage and bandwidth limitation (recording standard 24/96 will "max out" USB-1 at full duplex) are other issues you (usually) don't face with PCI cards or Firewire stuff.
Price difference is not an issue usually - better ADC/DAC are expensive in every packing (PCI/USB/Firewire).
Yes, it is advantagous to have the ADC/DAC remote from the EM-noisy PC enclosure - but the max. (specified) cable length of ~1m (correct me here please if my memory is not right - yes, I know that usually longer cables beyond the max. specification still work with a number of devices) is a bit short for nice usage above the desk.
uhm, there is no such thing as 'sound quality' in digital audio transports! its all in the DAC.
I don't ever use the analog out of an 8738 board. why bother when a dac is $50 or less (less if ebay, like some midiman or old old audio alchemy dac boxes).
the only reason I mentioned 8738 is for pure audio in and out use. yes, it may not have the audio mixing that you refer to - but why get a digital spdif card and care about the analog section? the analog section is there for completeness and not for high end use. high end use is spdif to a dac.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I disagree.
My Harmon Kardon Soundsticks (USB) connected to my PowerMac sound *incredible*.
Of course, part of the reason is the design of the speakers and subwoofers; however because the only signal passing across the wire is pure digital, there's no signal loss.
With the Kardon's, the amplifier and decode circuitry is contained within the speakers.
On the flipside, I have noticed a small problem with my Plantronics DSP-500 USB headset/ microphone combo.
When recording audio, listening to audio, and printing a long document on my USB laser printer, every once in a while the recording audio will get distorted.
Not sure if this is related to the USB 1.1 bus being overloaded on the particular hub that all those devices are plugged into.
Another anomaly I've noticed is that since both the input audio and output audio has to be buffered and re-encoded, there is a slight (125 ms.) delay if I have the headset speakers in "monitor" mode (i.e. listening to my own voice) which can be a bit disturbing at times.
But, as long as I'm not doing all that, the audio quality is fantastic.
In addition, I don't notice the same symptoms if I'm playing audio through my Soundsticks and recording audio at the same time through my microphone, even though both devices are on the same USB hub so part of the problem may just be the Plantronics headset.
I used to have such a deterrant to USB audio, thinking that it could never match or surpass the quality of good line-level output and a good amplifier until I bought the soundsticks and those have definitely turned my thinking around.
So, bottom line I suppose is you get what you pay for with USB audio, just like with most other things.