Slashdot Mirror
$50 Sound Cards Impress Versus Integrated Audio
crookedvulture writes "Most PCs have audio integrated right on the motherboard. There's much to be gained from upgrading to a discrete sound card, though. This look at a couple of sub-$50 sound cards from Asus explores what can be found at the budget end of the spectrum. In blind listening tests, both cards produced better sound than an integrated solution. They also offered superior signal quality, but neither had an impact on gaming performance. The days of hardware-accelerated game audio seem to be behind us, with developers handling positional audio processing in software."
it would be on a cheap video card before a sound card. I never bought any sound cards after they started puting them on the mobo. Sure the sound could be better but I have a stereo for playing tunes and if i'm playing games at night I'm using headphones anyway. A better soundcard is a non-issue for most users.
sometimes the circuit (board) does this work.
case in point, ESI juli@ (hate the at-sign. how stupid!)
this card is lab grade (test gear quality) in its a/d and d/a. some people use it for RMAA audio gear testing. not kidding! this is a low noise floor that you won't normally find on internals cards, yet it IS AN INTERNAL card! blows my mind ;)
also supports balanced and unbal i/o as well as 'easy' i2s and very easy coax spdif i/o.
it needs a full height slot and generally is pci-only even though some new pci-e version is supposed to be out soon.
keep it in mind: if you find yourself needing to test audio amps, preamps, dacs, etc - the ESI julia card is about as good as it gets for under $1k or even higher. amazing for audio guys. stupid for gamers but we are not talking about gaming at all.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Just a guess, but I'd say it's because there's stories just like yours for every manufacturer out there*.
Case in point: hard drives. Ask 20 people what hard drives they've had trouble with, and you'll find they pretty much average out as all of the companies having issues. I use Seagate, but you'll find a lot of people here who swear they're the worst drives on the market.
Another example: T-Mobile. I had nothing but trouble with them. They would, for no reason, forgo the automatic draft from my Visa and then shut me off for non-payment. Their customer service was horrible. When I called them at the end of my contract and told them I wanted my service cut as soon as the contract was over, the sales drone threatened me that if I didn't pay the final bill, they'd sue me. I hadn't said anything about it up to then, so this was just out of the blue. (Of course, I knew he was full of shit, and intentionally didn't pay my final bill because of it.)
With all that, T-Mobile has an excellent reputation for customer service and very few people I know have issues with them. Go figure.
The article was about the difference between soundcards and integrated sound, and just happened to use Asus cards for the testing. Your last paragraph was on topic, but the rest of your post wasn't.
* There are a few manufacturers that have earned widespread derision, like PC Chips for its fake cache chips or SCO for judicial douchebaggery. Asus isn't anywhere near that level.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
[Citation needed]. Seriously.