Hey, I was just wondering how much better the sound quality is on a sound card than onboard sound. I am somewhat of an audiophile and can appreciate good sound quality when I hear it. I'm not one of these people who fall for the Bose nonsense, I know real sound quality when I hear it. After knowing this do you think I will appreciate having a good sound card? I've never really heard sound from one before.
The only way to tell is to do a comparison of the two - preferably a blind comparison.
I have a lot of pro-audio friends, musos, etc, and some of them can't stand the noise from a motherboard's integrated sound, and for some of them it doesn't bother them at all.
Me, I'm indifferent. I prefer the sound of a decent sound card, but not enough to spend money on a sound card. besides, my music listening happens on my stereo
in terms of basic sound quality, there's very little in it these days between on board sound and an add-in card, I read a review of the first nForce mobo that said it actually sounded better than most creative cards at the time
it can depend on exactly which motherboard and which soundcard you're talking about, but unless you want recording studio quality and want to spend £500+, then onboard sound will most likely be more than acceptable for most applications
add in boards pretty much just give you more options on connectivity
To be honest, i firstly used ac97 integrated sound. I could here music, i could play games etc and everything was fine... At least i thought so. And then I decided to try Audigy (that was back in ~2000). From the first time i heard audigy sounding i understood, that before my audigy i heard only a crap, not music. This especially applies to games. From that day I never consider an integrated sound as an option. I would love to have a good MB without integrated sound which would be cheaper
Thats only mine opinion, not pushing you to the shop to buy it I was using Philips HP SBC 890 headphones as I remember. Really loved them...
I second algisimu. A good sound card and good speakers will change the way you think about music. I like Creative sound cards. Match them with a good speaker ($40 or over) and you will rediscover music.
You will also be taking a load off from your CPU with a sound card.
I am somewhat of an audiophile and can appreciate good sound quality when I hear it. I'm not one of these people who fall for the Bose nonsense, I know real sound quality when I hear it.
That's an oxymoron. How can you claim to be an audiophile and not be able to hear whats good about Bose?
I only bought a sound card for battlefield 2, between software low (higher just ate up my cpu) and hardware extra high, there was a big difference. Dont know about non gaming stuff, havent noticed whether winamp sounded different.
I make no claim to being an audio expert. But I can tell you there are differences and tell you what my experiences are.. It is a matter of what you want and what you are doing with your system.
Onboard sound, has improved. Personally, have not heard the latest derivatives of onboard sound. I have been using a sound card for longer than I can remember (and believe me, that's a long time).
One thing to consider, the onbaord sound will utilize cpu time. Any time your cpu is heavily utilized, such as during games, the sound has a lower priority to the cpu and you can get sound stutter or chop (like during games). My understanding is the newer chips using the latest standards are not as prone to this.
The sound card will not suffer from this problem. Now, one thing I like to do, is listen to music on my computer. I also like to listen to music while I play my games. And I might add, my system is somewhat effective at doing this. However, I occasionally get sound stutter in games and, because no player will utilize multi tasking, all of the player will try to take priority over other cpu operations and so I occasionally get game stutter. Windows media player is the worst since it has a relation with windows and think it rules.
The really positive note, music on my computer sounds awesome rivaling many quality component systems. My audigy X-Fi drives 5.1 logitec 500 watt speaker system. Granted, the speakers are not the best in the world, but to me (not being an audiophile), they sound awesome. everyone who has heard my system are totally amazed that the sound comes from a computer and not a high quality sound system.
do you think I will appreciate having a good sound card?
Yes. I'm an M-Audio fan myself. When I first got my audiophile 2496 I couldn't believe how good it was for the price. Personally I'd prefer a card aimed at musicians rather than gamers but X-Fi also gets a lot of recommendaitons here.
I play a few FPS's - Mainly America's Army Operations - and I like some of the extra features of my X-FI vs my onboard sound. Most noticeably the ability of the mixor in the X-FI. Once you tune it correctly you can take out most of the background noise and hear footsteps much more clear (headphones are a must of course).
I don't record music and very rarely listen to music on my pc so I can't help you there, but most soundcards have better ADC's than onboard.
It really comes down to preference. If you aren't an audiophile or a huge gamer you really won't notice a difference since most of the mobo's come with 5.1 or 7.1 high def surround sound.
That's an oxymoron. How can you claim to be an audiophile and not be able to hear whats good about Bose?
B adly
O verpriced
S ound
E quipment
That just about sums up BOSE.
AU$800 for an alarm clock? Get outta here.
You could get a decent Tannoy/Yamaha/etc monitoring setup for the price they want for one of their laughable 5.1 systems which use (wait for it)... satellite speakers! Getting decent (much less audiopile quality) sound from a satellite speaker is like trying to have an intelligent conversation with Paris Hilton; damn near impossible.
I am somewhat of an audiophile and can appreciate good sound quality when I hear it. I'm not one of these people who fall for the Bose nonsense, I know real sound quality when I hear it.
That's an oxymoron. How can you claim to be an audiophile and not be able to hear whats good about Bose?
You really aren't an audiophile are you? Get some good oem speakers and get a custom crossover and voila you have speakers that sound much better than bose and are also alot cheaper. Plus, bose has little to no midbass, it goes right from treble and upper midrange right to the sub-bass.
Anyways, thanks for the help guys, and by the way I'm running a gigabyte 965p-ds4, I'm really not sure what the quality of sound on that is, I do get noise though when video is being displayed or cpu power is being used.
I play a few FPS's - Mainly America's Army Operations
8O Thats my favorite game. And I love EAX option in this game. You can hear every noise enemy makes, locate his position dependind on that noise, then frag him without even seeing him, and then try to explain, that you are not a hacker Damn, I love all those noobs, who play using a crapy sound card and crapy Hama headsets
5.1 Surround is great. Can go for 7.1, but not sure if it gets you anymore (not everything has true 7.1 output, so most is interpolated) . It is something ya have to hear in game.
The recommendation someone made for the live card, that is a good old standard. But for a few dollars more, get the audigy or X-Fi.
If you're interested in audio quality, there's basically only two things (beyond a minimal standard of decent components) that matter, and that is the quality of your amplifier and the quality of your speakers. Unless the sound output from your PC is distorted, it makes f'all difference.
The only difference is the support for digital outs, surround sound etc, but lots of onboard sound is now 5.1 anyway, and you don't need digital outs.
And if you're doing audio recording, as I do, you're much better off getting something off-board like a MOTU Traveller. There's far too many risks of IRQ conflicts, driver problems etc.
The trouble with appealing to audio experience is that it's utterly subjective and rather liable to 'persuasion'. There's a reason people manage to sell £20 a metre cable: people _think_ they can hear a difference, when any testing will conclusively demonstrate that it makes f'all difference. The scope for BS is MASSIVE, so just don't listen to these people.
Speakers are very difficult to design so that you get a good frequency response (to me, this would be a FLAT frequency response, such that the original source is not changed in any way). Ditto for amps: it's hard to boost a signal without changing its characteristics.
This is why spending money on speakers and amps will make a differncne, whereas spending money on the source and cabling, for instance, doesn't. You can plug a _walkman_ into a decent stereo system and it will sound pretty darn good.
You could get a decent Tannoy/Yamaha/etc monitoring setup
if you are referring to monitor speakers, you're dead wrong. common consumer stereo speakers have the frequency response "colored" (the frequency response isn't flat; its uneven, with the more "attractive" frequencies more apparent), whereas studio monitors have a flat response; its very unattractive unless you're trying to perfect the levels of some audio piece.
bottom line; creative isn't a bad brand. it'd be a good idea to get an X-fi, the sound quality difference is amazing. people are mentioning m-audio in here; this company creates products for musicians exclusively, and their cards aren't really meant for gaming application. they are of great quality, but creative is definately the gaming industries favorite, or they wouldn't add in lil creative-specific sound options
Do you think sound engineers spend days on end mastering so that some muppet can come along with shitty speakers that boost the 200-500hz range to compensate for nothing underneath 200hz and claim that it's better?
The best speakers are flat frequency response from 20hz-20,000khz, full-stop. If you want a different frequency map, just process the sound at source or at the amp. You shouldn't be doing it at the speakers.
Get a cheap creative soundblaster 24-bit live card (i think its $25) and your ears will thank you.
