Why Are Computer Soundcards So Crap?!?!?!?!

[SVI2004A]

i find this the most stupid thing to exist......

computer frikkin soundcards........................................ ........................................... why in hell do we put up w/ CRAP..... im absolutely SICK & FED UP with **** respnse... more annoying is i can burn an MP3 to CD and i like the result, yet play it through the soundcard i may as well have 1uF BP cap to block any decent bass coming through - I am disgusted and apalled at this crap computers, ive been informed have the best DAC stages in them yet a crap bummed discman outperforms... WHY?????????????? please HELP!!!!!!!!! i will go insane putting up w/ 100hz cutoff (or so it seems) please help me to find true HiFi response in the PC ************************************************** ************************ By The Way *******************

the Amp i have on it has a freq resp. of DC-300khz +0 -0.1db

PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE HELP!

[tucdual]

Sound cards aren't all crap !
Sound blasters and motherboards integrated AC97 chips are crap , that's right.

But try a good card like a Terratec or an Echo and you'll hear the difference ! (you'll see the difference when you'll have to pay too)

[dwk123]

ummm, maybe try buying a good soundcard rather than the $15 crap at the mass-marketers?

Emu 1212M - $200, available at almost any pro music store, including local Guitar Center stores.

http://www.emu.com

[Shaun Perez]

Also take a look at the sound blaster audigy 2 zs, close to the same price but also an excellent value and I am very satisfied with the sound quality obtainable and all of the extras included.
http://us.creative.com/
Currently I do not have any super hi-fi speakers on it but that is in the works as I write, I am building a 7.1 thx surround sound system using eton 5-880 woofer's and seas tweeters for the rear and sides. The front and center will be eton 4-300 and seas millennium tweeters. I am putting together a 7 channel gainclone chip amplifier to power it, as the audigy 2 zs has only a high output line level. And the subwoofer is 2 push/pull isobaric 8" scanspeaks 8555-01, and possibly 2 more 8555's to go with it, and an adire audio HS-200 audiophile sub amp.


Or if you want to keep it simple go with creatives new gigaworks s750 7.1 speaker system for about $450. Havent heard the $450 creatives yet but I have heard some cheaper (under $150) surround computer speakers and surprisingly the creatives sounded much better(JBL was one of em), I am sure the $450 ones sound very good.

[jaycee]

The other alternative is to connect the SPDIF output to an audiophile quality external DAC. This also gets you the advantage that the analogue output stage is not powered by a noisy switchmode supply, nor is it exposed to the relatively high levels of EMI inside a PC.

[Hybrid fourdoor]

Originally posted by jaycee
The other alternative is to connect the SPDIF output to an audiophile quality external DAC. This also gets you the advantage that the analogue output stage is not powered by a noisy switchmode supply, nor is it exposed to the relatively high levels of EMI inside a PC.

ALso has anyone tried enabling the "spread spectrum" option in BIOS? Does it have considerable effect on the sound...as far as getting rid of backgorund noise?

[Bricolo]

Originally posted by Hybrid fourdoor








ALso has anyone tried enabling the "spread spectrum" option in BIOS? Does it have considerable effect on the sound...as far as getting rid of backgorund noise?

What exactly does this option do?

[annex666]

Why are soundcards so crap?


Imagine you are a soundcard manufacturer...


Take a board 4"x6"

Cram on anywhere between 2 and 8 DAC channels (stereo -> 7.1)

Add a few ADCs - 4 channels say for stereo mic and stereo line inputs

Add all the associated analogue stages to get a reasonable output current buffering

Then add a digital sound processing chip - for example surround decoding, etc

Shove the board you just made into a box that has clocks running at stupidly high frequencies - an ideal environment for EM radiation

Then power the whole thing by a switch mode power supply




How good can the design possibly be?

Even if you were to use the best opamps and DACs/ADCs you would still have a high noise floor due to the EM radiation inside your pc.

This is why external cards are popular - it's easier to create a clean digital feed which can then be passed to an external soundcard. This way you only have to worry about jitter (provided of course you create a high enough quality external soundcard).


Does this clear things up at all?

[Shaun Perez]

the spread spectrum bios option enabled cuts down on this radiated emi and interference. I have tried this option disabled and enabled with my old analog cordless phone and it really does quiet down interference. I didn't notice any effect on the computer sound though, but I dont have the best sound system yet either. I am not exactly sure how it works either.



Although the computer is using a switching power supply and it is a crappy digital noise box, it is possible to get low noise and quality from inside sound cards it just takes a little more work than the $15 cards can give

[Petter]

Originally posted by Shaun Perez
the spread spectrum bios option enabled cuts down on this radiated emi and interference.

This is quite a nice idea to try out, but it is not true that setting up a spread spectrum clock on the CPU + some associatet parts of the CPU reduces EMI and interference.

What it does is to cut down on correlated (i.e measurable) interference and also spreads it out over a wider bandwidth. It follows that the audio portion of the computer may benefit, not be affected, or be negatively affected by this.

I suspect one would be more likely to obtain benefit. I will certainly try it, but I am of course using the S/PDIF option ...

Another thing you may want to try is to severely underclock your system. I am fixing to try that as well.

Petter