Wondering if my sound card can produce sounds in the 1Hz to ~285Hz ranges

[ybit]

lspci tells me:

Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller

The spec sheet is here:

http://www.intel.dk/Assets/PDF/datasheet/316972.pdf

However, I'm having a tough time figuring it out, and I'm hoping someone here can guide me in the right direction.

Someone in the ALSA channel on Freenode's network also mentioned that I should find out if my DAC (Chip: Intel G45 DEVCTG) will be able to support that range as well. But I think that might be a question for the Digital Line Level Forum.

And then I'm not even sure if my headset will be able to support that frequency. So, help is needed, and it certainly is appreciated.

[abraxalito]

Some soundcards might have a significant frequency response roll-off going down to 1Hz - that's not the DAC chip usually, rather its output filtering subsequent to the DAC. So if you really need 1Hz you can probably get it by capacitor tweaking. Headsets don't reproduce 1Hz either for the simple reason that nobody is able to hear that low.

[Gravissima 64]

Originally Posted by ybit

lspci tells me:



The spec sheet is here:

http://www.intel.dk/Assets/PDF/datasheet/316972.pdf

However, I'm having a tough time figuring it out, and I'm hoping someone here can guide me in the right direction.

Someone in the ALSA channel on Freenode's network also mentioned that I should find out if my DAC (Chip: Intel G45 DEVCTG) will be able to support that range as well. But I think that might be a question for the Digital Line Level Forum.

And then I'm not even sure if my headset will be able to support that frequency. So, help is needed, and it certainly is appreciated.

I am intrigued! What would you need a frequency response like that for? Hauptwerk by any chance?

The lowest fundamental frequency generated by any musical instrument is 8 Hz. (Bottom C on a proper 64' organ stop.) To my knowledge there are only three such stops in the world, (Sydney Town Hall and two in the USA). All other 64' stops are what is known as resultant bass, where a 32' stop is played alongside a 'quint', and the resultant harmonics 'sound' or 'feel like' a 64' stop!

However, reproducing such low frequencies needs huge amounts of power, and very large loudspeakers. There are plenty of electronic organs with 32' stops, (bottom C = 16 Hz), but I don't know of any with a 64' stop - unless you have one planned?

Gravissima

[gmarsh]

The Intel chipset itself won't be your limitation, it will be the physical DAC (codec) chip that's on your motherboard, which is separate from the chipset.

There's a Realtek, Analog Devices, CMI or other branded chip on there which does DAC duties. Find a datasheet for that, to find out if it has any high-passing built in, and after that it'll be the value of the DC blocking caps which drive the output jack on your motherboard.