> Creative makes some higher end cards which I noticed you didn't list.
> However, reviews say that they are horrible so I'm not surprised.
> Price doesn't always mean it's good!
Sound quality for music playback hasn't been important until recently in the consumer soundcard market. Creative developed a soundcard architecture (with DSP engine) and a huge amount of driver s/w to support 3D effects in gaming. Neither adds anything to high quality 2 channel playback. if fact, the less driver code that is involved, the better results will be. (X-FI is for gaming, E-MU is for pro audio.)
> But about good drivers--lol. I mean how do you know?! I guess it would be nice if there was some studio
> nearby that I go listen to lots of different sound equipment to really let me tell the difference.
Do your research before you buy. See below.
> But then, there really isn't much of a top end price...you can spend thousands!
> At what point is it good enough for me? I definitely like good sounding music but do I know it when I hear it?
So start with something cheap and see whether it works for you. Move up as it seems relevant to you.
Much of the discussion on internet forums is dominated by audiophiles who want to hear differences. You need to decide whether hearing differences is a good hobby or do you want to make some decisions and move on to other things. Like just listening to music without being neurotic.
I spent 20+ years writing real-time s/w including real-time kernels, network node s/w, Windows kernel modification and device drivers for audio, video and other devices. I wrote my first real-time s/w to record and playback audio around 1980. I don't have access to source code for the drivers for the soundcards I might buy but I can apply what I learned from my work. Some ideas:
- Decide what you want. If you want the best quality sound, go with a pro soundcard that has one or more sets of stereo output. If you want top quality gaming effects, you won't get the same driver quality or hardware quality for audio. If you want 5.1 channel output, buy a soundcard that supports it. If you don't need it, go for top quality stereo output instead.
- Read forums to see what experience other people have with drivers. E-Mu owners have lots of complaints. Juli@ And Lynx owners report fewer problems. If lots of people report problems with a company's drivers, it is strong sign that the software developers who wrote those drivers weren't very good.
- Look at reviews and the manufacturer's web site. Pro Audio reviews often have more quantative info than high end audio reviews.
- Is the company still active in designing in selling and supporting soundcards? If a company isn't bringing out new products or actively marketing existing products, they won't invest much in Vista compatible driver. Don't take the availability of Linux or mac drivers for granted either.
- Understand whether the kind of product you are interested in is new and perhaps buggy (some USB soundcards) or mature (most PCI soundcards.) I don't think that there will be many high-quality PCI soundcards developed from this point on.
Almost all USB soundcards use a technically inferior approach that does not let the soundcard control data flow. This makes it harder to implement a very low jitter clock. Microsoft generic USB audio class driver doesn't implement the right transfer mode so no chip manufacturer has implemented the right kind of USB receiver chip for audio. This doesn't mean that USB soundcards can't be good but they could be better AND cheaper if they could use the right USB transfer protocol. Maybe in a few years.
- Avoid Vista for now. Microsoft changed the driver architecture rather late in the development cycle. Soundcard manufacturers haven't caught up. It's not their fault.
- Once you buy something, see whether it has good instructions on installation. Does the installation go smoothly? Once it is installed, does it coexist with the onboard audio on the motherboard? Do you hear glitches in the sound? Any new crashes? Is it straightfoward to use the soundcard in practice? If you read carefully, you can often get this info from reading audio forum messages.
If it feels like crap when you start to use it, it may be crap all the way through.
> What would be some frequency differences between a cheapie card and those hundreds of dollars cards?
> Better high ends?
> Tighter bass? Less muffling?
No real difference in frequency response. There can be real differences in sound from conventional distortion and jitter. I don't think that the conventional high-end vocabulary does much to distinguish fact from fantasy.
These days, most packaged PCs and motherboards include some onboard sound. This can range from quite crappy to fairly decent. (AC97 = worse, HDAudio = better.) You might start by listening to output from your motherboard audio and getting familiar with its sound. Once you understand how that works for you, consider getting a PCI or USB soundcard ($150 to $ 900) or an outboard DAC ($ 600 to $ 1300.)
If your onboard audio is AC97 based, I'd get a soundcard pretty quickly and before I got a DAC.
> And how audio is usually described in it's KHz rating, does that simply mean what
> the highest frequency is that can be recorded in the audio data?
Highest sample rate for recording for audio input (ADC.) Highest sample rate that can be played back for audio output (DAC.) Since most material is CD derived, any sample above 44.1 KHz may not produce a direct improvement.
> Are humans even able to hear up to 44 KHz? I didn't think so.
44.1 KHz is the sample rate. The highest frequency that can be sensed and recorded is (sample rate / 2). 22.05 KHz is a bit above the nominal range of human hearing.
Audio CDs all have material with a 44.1 KHz sample rate.
> Why would 48 KHz be better/more important and why would cards convert it to that?
Cards that convert everything to 48 KHz aren't better; they are worse. That restriction used to allow a cheaper implementation.
Cards they can adjust their clock to fit a variety of sample rates are better. The best implementations provide separate clock circuits or crystals for the important sample rates. Or a high quality circuit to synthesize a number of clock frequencies.
---
I've followed a number of your posts for some time. I have the impression that you have been acquiring a lot of gear. I'd suggest that you go a bit slower in buying soundcards and DACs. And really slow about spending multiple thousands on tweaky gear done by garage scale modders.
Bill
Author
Topic: Cheap sound cards (Read 12471 times)