[jonta_dj]

I only know of the most common soundcards like e-mu, Lynx and stuff.

I think there must be better sound cards than the Lynx L22 that I just ordered; for playing regular audio CD. Better in the same way people (salesmen etc.) say that some really really expensive stand alone CD players are.

How are these CD players actually better? In what ways? I don't want to think right now, just give me your opinions and Ideas and facts if you have. I mean, the CDs are also not better than they are. You can't improve on the sound for ever...

I just got to think of, maybe one should get better sources instead, I mean better recordings, better mastered etc. Maybe musicians and producers need to start making better CDs instead so we don't have to think of just upgrading OUR equipment all the time and still just get the bad results from the bad CDs.

 

[Sycraft]

Well never listen to a salesman, espically one that sells high end audio equipment. However, if you want good soundcards, they are out there.

Mark of the Unicorn makes some very good soundcards. Drivers are kinda flakey on Windows, but pretty solid on the Mac. Their HD192, for example, sounds just awesome. 12 in, 12 out 24-bit 192khz on all channels, all balanced.

Now for super high quality, the trick is to not use a soundcard as your conversion source. Get one just for the digital input, and get some heavy hitting A/D converters. Apogee Electronics makes some great ones, as does Lucid, and it looks like it's going to be hard to beat a Benchmark ADC-1 when it comes out.

Generally you get the best quality for going more dedicated components. You can get a soundcard that's an all-in-one ADC, mice pre, etc, however you'll generally get higher quality with a dedicated mic pre, to a dedicated ADC, to a digital input, slaved to a high quality dedicated clock.

That all gets expensive, of course. However look at MOTU if you want something that won't break the bank but is pretty high quality. If you want a step back form that, price and performance wise, I'd look at the M-Audio Delta 1010 or the Echo Audio Layla 3G.

 

[cris.rodrigo]

There are other soundcards. The digipad is a nice card. However, as Sycraft said, they way to go is to just get a really good digital out to a DAC. If you are serious about sound quality, it's the definitely the way to go.

 

[erickoh]

The PC casing isnt exactly the best environment for converting digital signals to analogue signals, the quality of the power supply into the soundcard might be compromised as well.

An idea is perhaps to use a cheap but bit perfect digital out soundcard, to an external upsampling DAC or jitter-buster/DAC combo. Since the digital signal is re-clocked, it shouldnt make a difference whether the source was your PC soundcard, or from an ultra-highend CDP/transport.

 

[sgrossklass]

I would assume that "sound card" manufacturers are well aware of power issues and thus implement good power filtering. AFAIK the Lynx cards are a good bit more sophisticated than, say, a 1212M in that regard. I'll believe a "sound card" can be as good as anything until someone comes up with valid measurements proving the opposite (i.e. that something like a Lynx L22 or a yet better model still noticeably benefits from cleaner power). The guys constructing these things aren't dumb after all, just more or less budget limited like everyone else.

 

[jonta_dj]

Thanks for all replies!

I must also add, what people say now and then, that musicians/producers are probably using computers for recording their music and editing etc. So I assume we can't geet a better sound than them anyways.

I mean, we don't even know how it sounded to those who made the music, so it's probably impossible to say that some system sounds better than something else, right?

Maybe I'm just digging to deep, it's almost philosophical

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by erickoh The PC casing isnt exactly the best environment for converting digital signals to analogue signals, the quality of the power supply into the soundcard might be compromised as well.

This is commonly stated over and over on this forum, but no proof has been offered.

If you look at the jitter, noise and THD figures, it appears at least some internal cards are almost totally unaffected by RFI/EMI and power issues inside the PC, and most are affected very little (you can't get a -110dB noise floor if dirty power is affecting the card). It seems to me more likely that external DACs simply tend to offer a better quality DAC + supporting components than the one on the soundcard.