I've got logitech z-680's
Im waiting on a delivery for my first sound card - the Asus Xonar D2x
I've heard good things about using a discrete sound card instead of onboard. I've been reading up on sample rate and bit depth and I'm having some trouble with the connectors and the role each component plays.
From what I can gather my PC generates a sound from an mp3 for example and the sound card will decode it.
Even with my onboard sound I can select the digital output to output 24/192KHz but research has shown my speaker system only supports up to 16/48.
I read that if the speaker system isn't processing the sound it shouldn't be a problem. I also noticed that my onboard sound doesn't give me the option of selecting the output format when using the 3.5mm jacks. Does this mean that the 3.5mm jacks are outputting the same sound resolution as the source file?
I have the option of running a optical or 3.5mm. I'm wondering if the 3.5mm would be a better choice because I know if I run it by optical my speaker system will need to do the DA conversion but if I run it through the 3.5mm jacks the sound card will have to convert it to analogue before sending it to the speaker system which would result in higher resolution.
The speaker system has a built in amplifier. If the above is correct and the sound card does the DA conversion is the amplifier still likely to down sample the analogue signal when amplifying it?
Im waiting on a delivery for my first sound card - the Asus Xonar D2x
I've heard good things about using a discrete sound card instead of onboard. I've been reading up on sample rate and bit depth and I'm having some trouble with the connectors and the role each component plays.
From what I can gather my PC generates a sound from an mp3 for example and the sound card will decode it.
Even with my onboard sound I can select the digital output to output 24/192KHz but research has shown my speaker system only supports up to 16/48.
I read that if the speaker system isn't processing the sound it shouldn't be a problem. I also noticed that my onboard sound doesn't give me the option of selecting the output format when using the 3.5mm jacks. Does this mean that the 3.5mm jacks are outputting the same sound resolution as the source file?
I have the option of running a optical or 3.5mm. I'm wondering if the 3.5mm would be a better choice because I know if I run it by optical my speaker system will need to do the DA conversion but if I run it through the 3.5mm jacks the sound card will have to convert it to analogue before sending it to the speaker system which would result in higher resolution.
The speaker system has a built in amplifier. If the above is correct and the sound card does the DA conversion is the amplifier still likely to down sample the analogue signal when amplifying it?
You won't notice much (if any) difference - the speakers (while not bad) aren't of high enough quality (no offense intended).
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