I have got Terratec Aureon Sky 5.1 with Envy chip.
Today my friend brought his CD player Rega Saturn to my place and we sat listening to some music on an external DAC and comparing the digital outputs of my sound card and his expensive CD player.
In comparison to the CD player the optical SPDIF output of my sound card is inferior. There's less dynamics, less sparkle and air. Seems like a jitter related problem.
My sound card can be synchronised from an external SPDIF signal with a good clock. In an attempt to improve the quality of my card I connected optical output of Rega to the optical input of my sound card and then switched between external and internal clock on my computer.
Almost no difference.
Thus it appears that there's no point in synchronising to an external clock via SPDIF in.
Does anyone know whether digital outputs of other internal (PCI) sound cards sound close to an expensive CD player?
What about Audiotrak Prodigy H2 Gold?
Can its digital output compete with an expensive CD player?
Today my friend brought his CD player Rega Saturn to my place and we sat listening to some music on an external DAC and comparing the digital outputs of my sound card and his expensive CD player.
In comparison to the CD player the optical SPDIF output of my sound card is inferior. There's less dynamics, less sparkle and air. Seems like a jitter related problem.
My sound card can be synchronised from an external SPDIF signal with a good clock. In an attempt to improve the quality of my card I connected optical output of Rega to the optical input of my sound card and then switched between external and internal clock on my computer.
Almost no difference.
Thus it appears that there's no point in synchronising to an external clock via SPDIF in.
Does anyone know whether digital outputs of other internal (PCI) sound cards sound close to an expensive CD player?
What about Audiotrak Prodigy H2 Gold?
Can its digital output compete with an expensive CD player?
momitko said:
This doesn't sound right. It can probably take an external word clock, not an spdif signal. You may try improving the clock of the card itself or feed it a word clock from your dac.
It's not quite clear what exactly were you comparing anyway. How was the PC playing music? In real time from a cdrom or from the hdd? Using what player soft? Asio, kernel streaming? There are a lot of variables in pc playback, all of them can ruin the sound. Did you try a coax?
You could perhaps try something like a HagDAC usb -> spdif interface.
You also need to ensure that your computer is set up for bit perfect playback. Without this step you will not get good results from a sound card.
There are useful guides for bit perfect set up at benchmarkmedia.com
Windows:
http://extra.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_-_Audio_Playback
MacOSX:
http://extra.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/Mac_-_Audio_Playback
You also need to ensure that your computer is set up for bit perfect playback. Without this step you will not get good results from a sound card.
There are useful guides for bit perfect set up at benchmarkmedia.com
Windows:
http://extra.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_-_Audio_Playback
MacOSX:
http://extra.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/Mac_-_Audio_Playback
Such an interface brings industrial quantities of jitter. It may work ok with a very jitter-tolerant dac using either a secondary pll or reclocking but it's generally not a threat to a high end cdp.
spzzzzkt said:
Indeed. I was shocked with his implementation of USB and his explanation was the pll in his dac. Probably works for him but i've tried an identical and a modified usb/spdif interface with a variety of dacs and the result was not pleasing at all.
Still, i know next to nothing about sound cards - you may very well be right.
Wow... I really shouldn't post before the first coffee of the day has kicked in :\ or use the spell checker!!!
You well might be right. I avoided USB when I bought an external audio interface and ended up with an Echo Audiofire 2 firewire interface. It doesn't seem too bad running a D1V3 DAC with a Tent VCXO/PLL via coax spdif but I feel that what I get from Teac VRDS-T1 is still slightly more transparent and detailed.
The Terratec is very much an entry level consumer card, so I wouldn't be expecting to much in the way of spdif/toslink performance from it. I have the feeling you would need to spend several times the cost of the Terratec to get something with a decent coax spdif interface.
You well might be right. I avoided USB when I bought an external audio interface and ended up with an Echo Audiofire 2 firewire interface. It doesn't seem too bad running a D1V3 DAC with a Tent VCXO/PLL via coax spdif but I feel that what I get from Teac VRDS-T1 is still slightly more transparent and detailed.
The Terratec is very much an entry level consumer card, so I wouldn't be expecting to much in the way of spdif/toslink performance from it. I have the feeling you would need to spend several times the cost of the Terratec to get something with a decent coax spdif interface.
Re: Re: Which sound card has an SPDIF output comparable to an expensive CD Player?
The cards in question are M-Audio Audiophile 2496 and e-mu 1212m.
Two of my cards can do the same thing. They can be configured to use either their internal clock, or the received clock from S/PDIF. Both the ADC and DACs use this same clock.analog_sa said:
The cards in question are M-Audio Audiophile 2496 and e-mu 1212m.
No, my card can be synchronised from an external clock contained in SPDIF signal to the effect that when I connect SPDIF output of another digital device to the input of my card and push the "external clock" button its internal schematics is driven by an external clock. There's a digital receiver chip CS8415 inside the card. It just takes the clock signal that is recovered by CS8415 IC.
I used Foobar player, ASIO plug in, ASIO4ALL and I was listening to music via Foobar from HDD.
Foobar was given real time priority. So as you can see it was done the right way.
The ripped music that we compared was extracted via EAC in secure extraction method and then by Plextools as well on a Plextor drive.
Yes, I tried a coaxial output which I implemented on the card myself (my card has only an optical output and input).
I did not find any difference between the electrical coaxial and optical (TOSLINK) output on my card.
I should even say that optical output sounds a little bit better because it completely isolates my PC from external DAC.
I have a DIY NOS external DAC with asynchronous reclocking on CS8412 + AD1851 + OPA627 and I must tell you it sounds better than Rega Saturn's analog output.
I don't know what I shoukd do to improve the digital output on my PC.
I am planning to synchronise my card from the DAC' clock but I am not sure that it's a viable option because I will do it via CS8402 - TOTX173 - optical cable to my card - CS8415 on my card.
Also I could try to use the Tentlabs clock by substituting the card's quartz with the Tentlab's XO3.2.
Or alternatively I could buy another card.
The latest two methods require spending some money before getting the result. Therefore, I have decided to ask for help on this forum from more experienced guys on this matter than myself.
Can you recommend any sound card that might have a high quality digital output?
I don't want to pay for lots of features that I don't want by buying Lynx or RME card.
THis new card by Progidy: Audiotrak Progidy H2 Gold. I wonder if its digital output is better than my Terratec's.
I don't think that any PC sound card will be as good as a well implimented hardware solution. I think the best solution is to try and get an old used anti-jitter unit and put it between your PC and the external DAC. This little box will improve the sound quality a lot but I don't know of any inexpensive ones that are still made.
Also, with good audio hardware the coax SPDIF usually sounds better but with a PC there is so much noise generated in the ground plane of the PC that I have found the optical to usually be a small degree better sounding.
Also Chaintec makes an inexpensive audio card of around 35 dollars (AV-710) that is as good or better than any except the really expensive pro audio cards for SPDIF output. Used with Fubar you can bypass all the windows drivers, which resample the PCM signal to 48Khz and is part of the problem. I forget the model number but the card is near legendary and there is a lot of stuff on it online in the headphone forums.
The Chaintec used to be the best way to get cheap good sound as it had some very high quality Wolfson 24 bit DAC's that sounded nearly as good as the high end external DAC's. My understanding is that the new Chaintec card doesn't have the expensive 2 channel Wolfson DAC's anymore but I may be mistaken.
For the next step up I would say the best solution would be a Benchmark USB/DAC/PRE/Headphone amp solution. It's suposed to be the best sounding DAC at the 1200 USD price point and is now available with USB input.
Also, with good audio hardware the coax SPDIF usually sounds better but with a PC there is so much noise generated in the ground plane of the PC that I have found the optical to usually be a small degree better sounding.
Also Chaintec makes an inexpensive audio card of around 35 dollars (AV-710) that is as good or better than any except the really expensive pro audio cards for SPDIF output. Used with Fubar you can bypass all the windows drivers, which resample the PCM signal to 48Khz and is part of the problem. I forget the model number but the card is near legendary and there is a lot of stuff on it online in the headphone forums.
The Chaintec used to be the best way to get cheap good sound as it had some very high quality Wolfson 24 bit DAC's that sounded nearly as good as the high end external DAC's. My understanding is that the new Chaintec card doesn't have the expensive 2 channel Wolfson DAC's anymore but I may be mistaken.
For the next step up I would say the best solution would be a Benchmark USB/DAC/PRE/Headphone amp solution. It's suposed to be the best sounding DAC at the 1200 USD price point and is now available with USB input.
I think that you have misunderstood my posting.
Of course it is understandable that the switching PSU in the PC is not good for sound however I was of an opinion that the interference caused by this kind of PSU must influence only the analog part in the sound card without degrading the digital part.
Could this not be so?
My DAC is pretty good because it's a standalone NOS DAC which sounds better than Rega Saturn's (almost $3000) internal DAC. So I don't think that I need another DAC.
The problem is with the first, digital stage which happens to be inside the PC.
Here is the product offer by Tentlabs:
http://www.tentlabs.com/Products/cdupgrade/xo2xo3/index.html
XO3.2 is intended to be used when external DACs are connected. XO3.2 is equal to XO2, but contains an additional reclocking circuit for the digital output (SPDIF). This circuit reduces the jitter at that output. The incoming jitter at the DAC will be lower, resulting in better sound.
Could this be of any help?
I have a suspicion that the cheap card from Chaintec that you refer to is not a solution to this problem. My Terratec sound card is not that bad. It outputs 44.1 kHz without any resampling and it was priced at about $100 at the time of purchase. So I don't think that SPDIF output of this card is better than my Terratec card.
momitko said:
Yes, I think it would. Also, if you can keep the PC with only a 1 meter SPDIF cable this helps also. I imagine PC SPDIF jitter is orders of magnitude higher than in a CD transport even though it is reclocked in memory because of the crazy way the signal gets to the sound card. This is one reason USB is supposed to be better as it has a shorter path from memory to the USB port.
momitko said:
Yes, I think you are right now that I recall, the Terratec card was a little better solution but at a higher cost. After experimenting with PC SPDIF out a little myself I became somewhat disillusioned with it as I found that It did not perform as a lot of people claimed it would. I think the problem is perception as for most people it does sound good and they haven't really heard a better sound to compare it with. I found that I had to spend a lot of money to get good sound by this method so I gave up and just stuck with my SACD/CD player. Except for the HT which uses a CHaintec AV710 for DD and DTS output.
But the little Theta time based line conditioner that I have has made some improvement between the PC and the old Theta external DAC so if you can find a reasonably priced solution I would try it.
Hi
My recommendation (experienced from my job) with RME, Digigram, M-Audio and others
Try the chinese SndScape Cinema!
I have very good results with it, with the SPDIF out (BNC!)
When you have a Zhaolu D3 DAC, you can use the new TG-Link, a kind of I2S between the Soundcard and the DAC with a CAT-6 cable.
Very decent results!
Franz
My recommendation (experienced from my job) with RME, Digigram, M-Audio and others
Try the chinese SndScape Cinema!
I have very good results with it, with the SPDIF out (BNC!)
When you have a Zhaolu D3 DAC, you can use the new TG-Link, a kind of I2S between the Soundcard and the DAC with a CAT-6 cable.
Very decent results!
Franz
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.