[rob187]

I'm trying to figure out all the differences between soundcards but there's so many different things I don't understand (Signal to nose ratio, frequency response, dynamic range, etc..) Does anyone know of a website or guide that can explain all this to me? Thanks

 

[oicdn]

Honestly, it's all crap. I'm donning my flame suit now, but somethings can look great on paper, but sound like **** in reality.

If you want an example, look at all the crap Jensen puts out. Thier spec sheets look comparable to most things, freq response, thd, snr....but when you hear it, it's junk.

That's why you must audition things, or, if you're like me, and have no hi-fi shops around to audition stuff, research as much as possible with REVIEWS and the reviews here at head-fi. Then make your assessment of your choices you've narrowed down to.

Tech specs only help narrow down a selection, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor.

 

[kstephens]

Hey there,

Frequency response simply means where the piece of equipment will pick up audio. Generally our hearing is considered to be between 20hz-20khz so finding a card that picks up between this is considered good. also you will probably find something saying frequency response:18hz-22kz xy+-0.1db.These numbers and letters seem confusing.. they arent.Frequency response picks up between these frequencys but thats not to say that they pick them up EXACTLY how they came into the soundcard. This is what all the numbers and letters are for xy+-0.1db simply means that between the frequency response of..say 18hz-22khz it will change the sound throughout that whole scale to 0.1db.
For recording mediums such as sound cards it really is advised to get under 0db of change within the frequency response (better ones being 0.001 ) etc

signal to noise ratio: Every piece of equipment has a 'noise floor' something that produces some sort of electrical noise no matter how small to operate that machinery. When looking at specs for anything to save a long whinded response from me just get something that simply has the highest value in dB.

Hope this has been of some use

cheers