Here's a reply I wrote for the Auditory list, although not directly answering your question, I think it is of relevance here.
If you have a budget up to $100 USD, then I recommend the upcoming M-Audio Revolution at c. $99 USD street price. Very nice measurements.
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My experience (some gathered from my colleagues, most based
on my personal experimentation) is as follows:
PC HARDWARE ASSUMPTION
======================
I assume you are running this on PC hardware (either W32 or *nix
platform). I don't which sound cards have full and robust Linux
support, so you may not be able to use all of these on Linux. However,
all of the below limitations are hardware based and cannot be circumvented by moving from Win32 platform to *nix based
CREATIVE SOUND CARDS
====================
All Creative cards up to and including Audigy 2 are based on the PC
AC97 component specification. This mandates an internal mixer at 48 kHz and 16 bits. In theory this means resampling of most audio data (44.1 kHz, unless you use DAT at 48 kHz exclusively). This resampling is especially poorly done on creative hardware, resulting in sharp drop of high frequncies and in some cases, bad intermodulation distortion.
Pre-Audigy models are especially bad in their frequency response and
will have problems on most non-Intel motherboards, due to PCI latency
problems. In practise this will results in sound that stutters or
'crackles' while other PCI devices are used (high disk activity, network
activity or even video card activity).
You maybe able to circumvent stuttering/crackling playback by adjusting
the individual PCI latencies of each PCI device (Linux has a tool called
'setpci' and W32 has a software called PowerStrip, which is shareware).
You may encounter this same problem (albeit to a lower degree) with
other sound cards as well, especially on non-Intel chipset motherboards.
And no, this is not pro-Intel propaganda as I run Via/nVidia/AMD chipset
motherboards myself. It's just based on experience and is common
knowledge among sound card users.
If you use sampling rate of 48 kHz exclusively then Audigy and Audigy 2
are ok. If you use 96 kHz exlusively, then Audigy 2 is ok.
AC97 RESAMPLING SOUND CARDS
===========================
Of the very cheap ones that still resample to the AC97 specification
at 48Khz (with associated THD, S/N, IMD problems, but less so than
others):
- Videologic Sonic Fury, c. £40 GBP (aka TB Sante Cruz in the USA)
If you want to try and get along with a cheap sound card, you should
consider doing the resampling inside your computer software and not
inside the hardware of the soundcard. In fact, you can get pretty
decent results even with resampling, if it's done in software and
properly.
If youre sound sources are AIFF/PCM/WAV, then you can use a common free software like Winamp to play back the files using the Resampling output plugin. This will in fact greatly improve the performance of many
resampling soundcards by doing the resampling much more accurately in
software.
You can find this plugin for Winamp version 2 and version 2 only at:
http://www.blorp.com/~peter/zips/out_wave.zip
Virus free and fully working as I've tested it on 27th of Nov 2002.
Please be aware that some cards resample even the 48 kHz input and induce a lot of jitter in the process, resulting in less than stellar results at analog outputs.
NON-RESAMPLING SOUND CARDS
==========================
If you want to avoid resampling (and associated IMD, aliasing,
amplitude response and other problems) altogether, you need a sound card that can pass through bit perfect data at the sampling rate of your
choice.
The cheapest ones that I know of currently are:
- CMI 8738 based cards (e.g. Ennyah DigiSound 8738). Does not resample 44.1 or 48 kHz to it's analog outputs. However, the analog section is limited to 65 dbA snr max and as such may not be enough for your use. I haven't tested one myself, so I cannot vouch for it's perceived performance (esp. in psychoacoustic use). Recommendations from others say that it should be enough for 'casual use' whatever that is. Cheap at c. £10.
- Zoltrix Nightingale. Doesn't resample, but I hear the analog stage is
really bad, so I cannot recommend this as I haven't tested it.
Inexpensive at £30. Only 44.1kHz playback!
The cheapest RELIABLE ones (drivers, analog stage, actual perceived
performance) that I know of are:
- Midiman DIO 2448. The cheapest sound card I have been able to find
that doesn't come with horrible resampling artifacts and is otherwise
decent. Works on Macs too. Cost c. £100.
- M-Audio Audiophile 2496, street price c. £150
- M-Audio Revolution (coming out in Dec). Really nice measurements in
the prototype card, even good enough for serious work. Street price c.
$99.
I know, not very cheap. However, that's the minimum you have to pay
for good sound quality for an add on PCI sound card.
ONES TO AVOID
=============
5) THe ones to avoid:
- If flat frequency response and/or continues playback without noises +
low IMD matter, then I'd rule out all Creative cards, unless your
source is at 48kHz/96kHz, in which case Audigy/Audigy2 might do the
trick.
- Most integrated AC97 sound cards like C-Media types (IMD can rise up
really high) and nForce. Bad resampling artifacts, average dynamic range
and lots of tendency to hiss. I would rule this out completely
- Most obscure stuff (Avance, Ennyah, Hi-Val) you can't get measurements
for or for which no reliable user reviews exist.
- FM801 based sound cards (Terratec 512, 128, several others). In theory
can pass data through without resampling, but no drivers actually use
this. Performance is greatly compromised in current known drivers.
HEADPHONE MATCHING
==================
Be also aware that if you are going to plug your headphones straight
into the amplified output of the soundcard, you may run into impedance
matching issues. In general this can mean up to +10 dB accentuated bass
and highs, increased perceivable background noise and loss of dynamics
(i.e. not enough power to drive headphones that have too high impedance or are not efficient enough). This is very much dependent on the headphone of course. Beyerdynamic models tend to like higher output impedance (120 Ohm), but need more power to be driven without
problems.
Sennheisers, Sonys and Grados should be *in general* (applies to most models I know) driven from near zero impedance outputs. Higher output will change the perceived tonal characteristics of the phone (i.e. amplitude response).
If you want a headphone that is almost immune to output impedance
changes, then AKG 240M is a decent choice. However, it is neither
very inexpensive nor easy to amplify (i.e sound cards cannot
drive it on their own).
In theory you should drive for near zero ohm OUTPUT impedance at the
sound card output. The problem is that none of the sound card makers
give out their headphone output impedance ratings. Even a 30 Ohm
difference can result in clearly audible increase in distortion,
depending on the headphone of course.
IN THE END
==========
If you don't have budget for c. $99USD cards, then I suggest getting the
Videlogic Sonic Fury and trying to use the resampling in software
(Winamp plugin if your source are files in AIFF/PCM/WAV).
That's the cheapest, decent quality, decently reliable and moderate
amount of tweaking combination I know of.
You can find somewhat old, but often useful measurements for many
soundcards at:
http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/index.htm
More results can be found at:
http://audio.rightmark.org/results.html
Be aware that the above measurements may not tell you everything you may need
to know about analog circuit noise immunity and performance under
varying conditions.
Street prices of many common sound cards in UK
http://uk.pricerunner.com/computing/...ndcards/browse
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