[Mehdi]

Lets ignore the fact that consoles are mass produced allowing the price to be much cheaper. However, this may at best be a 30% reduction in costs.

With a 360, one simply needs to plug it directly into a receiver and you get some amazing sound quality. The same happens to be true with a PS3. The sound is frankly, brilliant. Yes, it is the receiver that is doing the decoding into DTS/Dolby in these cases.

On a PC, we have to purchase these relatively expensive cards that cost almost as much as the console itself. Now, yes we can go and get a used X-Fi Xtreme Gamer for $25... however, the "Pro" versions go like the Titanium Professional are at least $100.

So, what gives?

I almost imagine that a PC sound card is doing what both a console plus receiver would have to do. However, this would beg the question why we don't just use a $25 sound card, and then just use optical out to the same 'receiver' as a console wound use.

Bare in mind, I'm a audio noob! Thx

 

[oqvist]

Console audio be it Wii, Xbox 360, PS3 is the equivalent of onboard audio for PC.

Most on board solutions offer spdif out also. With better soundcards you generally get a better transport and much better sound using their DACs over the one on the Xbox 360/PS 3s. Consoles like these are actually sold in a loss so you cant expect to much investment in a future that is little used. Most use receivers or such with Xbox 360/PS 3.
As for soundcards no you don´t have to pay much to get DACs superior to what is in

 

[Mehdi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oqvist /img/forum/go_quote.gif Console audio be it Wii, Xbox 360, PS3 is the equivalent of onboard audio for PC. Most on board solutions offer spdif out also. With better soundcards you generally get a better transport and much better sound using their DACs over the one on the Xbox 360/PS 3s. Consoles like these are actually sold in a loss so you cant expect to much investment in a future that is little used. Most use receivers or such with Xbox 360/PS 3. As for soundcards no you don´t have to pay much to get DACs superior to what is in

Haha, I was actually just about to edit in: "Perhaps the short answer is... as usual, the PC is a league ahead"

I just read the 360 "Supports 48KHz 16-bit audio". My on-board Realtek is better then that.

 

[Slogra]

DD and DTS are not a good solution. Those formats are freakin lossy! The only advantage is multichannels support, but if your source is just stereo you won't even need that. New onboard soundcards are able to send 44.1khz/16bit bitperfect via SPDIF nowadays.

If you want multichannel, then PCM via HDMI is the future. The ps3 supports it, and an ati videocard for pc supports it, but i'm not sure about the xbox360. You'll also need a receiver which supports it