I'm planning on making a purchase of an amp + headphones in the next month and am wondering what makes people hate the use of internal soundcards as your source so bad. From the setup I am going to get, the consensus is that i should upgrade to an external DAC from the X-fi at my work. Why is it so terrible?
If I had to take a guess it would be noise from other parts of the machine(??).
How can you minimise the noise (be it rubber in between/large distance between them).
The problem isn't so much the sound card itself as it is the myriad of power signals screaming through the internals of a computer. The result is tons of static and gravely noise when the hard drive seeks. Speaking of the sound cards themselves, usually they have inexpensive DAC chips and poor headphone amplification. Many times the drivers barely work and some features just don't work. I recall a message from someone from Benchmark suggesting to use USB because they haven't found a single sound card that performed exactly how they were supposed to in regard to their optical (toslink) output. That's talking about just the optical output, which is likely one of the more basic things to implement in a sound card. Start talking about the analog signals out and it begins to snowball.
USB can have some lingering problems, but they are severely reduced compared to internal sound cards. The only way to completely be rid of the noise is electronically and mechanically separating your audio chain by using an optical toslink connection, but as I mentioned previously, implementation isn't great so there are still problems there as well. Either USB or optical is acceptable currently and is light years better than internal sound cards.
I had the X-FI as well and suffered from massive crackling in the low end higher ends of the sound spectrum. Other than that, the sound really wasn't bad.
Originally Posted by apatN /img/forum/go_quote.gif I had the X-FI as well and suffered from massive crackling in the low end higher ends of the sound spectrum. Other than that, the sound really wasn't bad.
I experienced a similar thing in the past with a lower-end x-fi but have since been gifted the higher end model and rearranged my pc accordingly (as it was a PCI card, not a PCI-E). Currently I have not experienced this crackling phenomenon unless working with samples that have them.
edit: though it is possible ive become acquainted to the sound of an onboard, having frequently used a computer since '95.
oh well, we'll see once i can afford a DAC
I think the 'noise' part of the computer is greatly exaggerated. Quality power supplies have extremely low ripple. I assume harddrives are shielded, and the actuators inside them, while motors, should not be producing any interference of their own consequence. Computer parts must also be tolerant to the RF being put out by the Ghz frequencies .. I would like to assume all the traces are laid out properly to mitigate this effect?
I don't hear any computer noise. The only thing that I've ever noticed was when the buffer size wasn't high enough in foobar2000. In that case I'd get an occasional hiccup if I did something that occupied the cpu or hard drive completely, like opening a game. If the buffer is WAYdown you'll get little pops every time you do anything, like click a link on a web page. More buffer=good. 1000 or higher should do it. Then again I only use good power supplies so maybe the crappy ones cause problems. Seasonic M12 700w here.
There may be some old soundcards that suffer from the horrible problems that Maxvla lists. I certainly don't have those problems with the AudioTrak Prodigy HD2 or the ESI Juli@ cards I am using. Both have high quality DACs, completely reliable drivers including real ASIO drivers and have zero problems with noise. The AudioTrak cost $ 75 and the Juli@ cost about $ 140.
I also use onboard sound on another PC and have no noise problems there either. (Realtek HD Audio.)
There are plenty of other people using PCI soundcards with great success.
I have not had problems at all with noise from the computer. I got crackles from my X-fi Xtrememusic after some years use where something obviously went bad with it causing distortion. I wouldn´t trust a soundcard to hold up for 20 years which I will be bloody disappointed if not a 300$ DAC does...
Otherwise with every upgrade I have gotten a nice boost in sound quality. Live to Audigy big jump. Audigy to nforce 2 soundstorm to Audigy 2. Smaller but directly noticable... X-fi Xtrememusic again directly noticable. To X-meridian and then Elite PRO huge jumps with the PRO trumphing X-meridian.
Elite PRO and X-meridian is really quite respectable HIFI gear I would say. It certainly beats the Denon stereo with amplifier that was the stuff in the 80s if you like it cold in term of the Elite PRO. X-meridian a lot warmer and you could switch opamps on it.
But well noise levels is very well controlled. I am considering getting an external DAC since I don´t expect my Elite PRO to hold forever. But with all the pink noise and all I played through it burning in my headphones and all the use in movies, game music it still sound as new.
As for PSUs yes that may very well be the reason I don´t have anyproblems... Running with PCPowerand Cooling and Silverstone Tek PSUs give extremely stable voltages.
But of course I don´t expect that you ever can make a soundcard that is supposed to do more then just music playback to be as good as 1000$ DACS... But I am quite sure my Elite PRO beats several of the 300$ DACs out there. I can´t prove it though and I do hope I am wrong with the Keces 131.1 which I am interested in. Mainly because it´s supposed to be neutral and cold just how I like it
Originally Posted by FasterThanEver /img/forum/go_quote.gif There may be some old soundcards that suffer from the horrible problems that Maxvla lists. I certainly don't have those problems with the AudioTrak Prodigy HD2 or the ESI Juli@ cards I am using. Both have high quality DACs, completely reliable drivers including real ASIO drivers and have zero problems with noise. The AudioTrak cost $ 75 and the Juli@ cost about $ 140.
I also use onboard sound on another PC and have no noise problems there either. (Realtek HD Audio.)
There are plenty of other people using PCI soundcards with great success.
Bill
You are also using high end sound cards. I'm talking about the cheap stuff most people think of when they hear sound card as a source. I've never owned a high end sound card because my chaintech AV710 $19 card has worked like a charm for the last 5 years. I've always used it optical out though. The headphone out of my laptop is horrible though. I get exactly what I described above from it. Static and hard drive seek grinding. I simply can't listen to music on it without a DAC.
Originally Posted by Maxvla /img/forum/go_quote.gif You are also using high end sound cards. I'm talking about the cheap stuff most people think of when they hear sound card as a source. I've never owned a high end sound card because my chaintech AV710 $19 card has worked like a charm for the last 5 years. I've always used it optical out though. The headphone out of my laptop is horrible though. I get exactly what I described above from it. Static and hard drive seek grinding. I simply can't listen to music on it without a DAC.
What sort of price are we looking at to beat a "high end" sound card that experiences ~0 noise with an external DAC? or what specific DACs?
Originally Posted by m0ofassa /img/forum/go_quote.gif What sort of price are we looking at to beat a "high end" sound card that experiences ~0 noise with an external DAC? or what specific DACs?
I'm not experienced enough to answer that. The only DAC I have experience with, besides a H/K receiver, is my DACmagic. It retails for $399 I believe, but remember it has to be a self contained unit so you have to factor in power supply and casing costs. Even as bare boards though it would be more expensive than your typical higher end sound card ($100+), but as I mentioned before I haven't compared more than I own so I can't tell you bang for buck.
I can tell you that running the DACmagic through my H/K receiver's RCA analog sounds infinitely better than running optical straight to the H/K receiver. Course this receiver brand new listed for somewhere around $250 so I wouldn't expect much. Once I'm able to afford some proper active monitors so I can ditch the H/K receiver I expect to have a really nice speaker presentation in addition to good headphone gear.
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