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Computer Audio - To USB or Not to USB?

Posted by Cliff on from the bussing-your-notes-to-the-speakers dept.

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?"

3 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. M-Audio Audiophile USB by metamatic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I got an M-Audio USB unit, and I was amazed by the sound quality improvement over the built-in audio on my Mac... and Macs are known for having pretty good audio to start with.

    No problems digitizing at 24 bit accuracy across USB 1.1.

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  2. Re:3 comments- bandwidth, digital & other by Babbster · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "1) i can't tell if the bandwidth of these things is really an issue. 6 channels at cd quality comes to 4.233 megabits. 192/24/6= 27 megabits. so it would seem that regular usb would be too slow, i guess, but that's in the spec of several of the usb audio boxes, so i just don't know what's going on."

    I can't speak to multi-channel video games on the PC (are they doing DD5.1 in PC games these days?), but bandwidth isn't a problem at all for the other big multi-channel format, DVD. A compressed Dobly Digital six-channel (DD5.1) stream comes in at only 448 kbit/s. Since the Extigy can pass through and decode Dolby Digital, the USB doesn't have to carry the decoded/decompressed signal and the data rate above wouldn't stress a USB 1.1 connection at all - all depending on the driver and DVD player software, of course.

  3. My (limited) experience. by pete-classic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I bought a JVC reciever about six months ago ('cause the ex spilled a coke in the old one) and it happened to have a USB "input" (USB-B connector) on the front.

    I didn't think much of it when I bought it, figured it'd be a windows only thing anyway. One day my system was off, for a hardware upgrade IIRC, and I plugged in the reciever on a whim.

    RH9's kudzu picked it up and set it up as /dev/dsp1. Now I have mplayer set up to use that device for audio output, and everything else uses /dev/dsp (lame built in sound on my MB connected to lame speakers built into my display).

    It all works out really well, and the sound through the reciever is great.

    The one downside to consider ist that you can only play audio CDs through a USB sound device by using CDDA, which is less than ideal. Uses a lot of CPU and IDE bandwidth and still skips from time to time. (For me, anyway.)

    Good luck!

    -Peter