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Sound card still necessary?

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well there is always 2 sides to the story, nwavguy was not banned for publicly criticizing products of sponsor on headfi

it was for spamming with his blog on headfi and telling off the admin/mods on headfi when they asked him to remove the link from his sig.
the only thing he posted that was censored was links to is blog. like the one in his sig. as it was seen as self advertisement.
all his criticizing posts are still up and everything. but when he made posts on his blog and used them as replys on headfi...
well I'm sure that would no go well here ether.

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as for you, I have no clue why you would be permabanned nor do you seem like someone who would get band.
but I don't know your story. nor is there a user with you name on headfi (must of went by a different name)
but if it was without warning how do you know it was about the hole power plant thing ?
 
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Great thread so far.

I personally lack the ears to differential headphones, I was given a few to try, and the sales keep telling me one is better than the other, and I was like... "hmmm. you know, they are the same to me."

so I think in my case, when I pick, if the sound quality is pass the basic threshold, I won't be able to tell the difference, but what I would like to know, is if any sound card out there offers 'more' than mobo sound drivers gives. and does our MP3/ACC files actually have enough 'details' in them for the sound card to 'perform on'.

these days, all songs are digital, and most of them only have so many layers. I feel having an expensive sound card, is like having a Lambourghini but running on dirty diesel fuel... the performance just doesn't get 'brought out' in most situation....

am I correct in assuming such?
 
Well, I might have once or twice mentioned NwAvGuy in there too so maybe they mistaked me for a troll or a passive-aggressive DSP engineer student (oh wait..). I never saw any disturbing behavior from his part, so I don't know if he's been annoying, although seen what I was banned for I have a slight slant towards Jude and Currawong being on the wrong here (again), but I don't really care in the end. Even if they weren't incredibly petty and draconian as mods, the forums are still lathered in bias and DBT is pushed into it's own corner of shame.

these days, all songs are digital, and most of them only have so many layers. I feel having an expensive sound card, is like having a Lambourghini but running on dirty diesel fuel... the performance just doesn't get 'brought out' in most situation....

am I correct in assuming such?
You are actually incorrect. Bear with me it gets slightly scientific here:

Digital sound files are usually 44.1 thousand samples per second (44.1KHz), and 16-bits per sample. A mathematical proven formula called Nyquist rate implies that a bandlimited signal (in this case: human hearing, 20Hz-21KHz) is perfectly reproduced from a set of samples, which has double the rate of the highest frequency of the recorded signal. Put in an easier way: sample rate divided by two = highest frequency recorded (for CD's, around 22KHz, although that's beyond human hearing and goes slightly into ultrasonics). It can be reproduced flawlessly without losing any audible data within human hearing tolerance (if we disregard seriously flawed DACs).

What the 16-bits per sample mean
, maybe the layers you were referring to. In normal CD audio there's 65536 levels of volume, and the quantization noise (meaning: error in sound pressure of one recorded sample) is -96 decibels below full scale (full scale meaning: maximum sound output that file stores, called -0dBFS). Usual music being mixed and mastered and averaging around -3 to -16dB below full scale, your music is still about 80dB louder than the digital noise of the files. You would have to listen veery loud to be able to hear the error in the files at all, and then the masking effect of a LOT louder instruments would damage your ears over a longer timespan than tens of minutes.

When it comes to compression, it depends on the codec and bitrate. You can read a lot of really nice research of different samplerates here: http://soundexpert.org/encoders (you might notice, that AAC is recommended way more than mp3, I've ran an ABX test on mp3 vs AAC at 128kbps, and noticed slight issues in mp3 in a few cases (transients, cymbals, high notes), that didn't exist in AAC. Nowadays I favor 128kbps AAC in mobile use over 192kbps mp3, saves me some space while sounding great.)

Furthermore, HydrogenAudio only allows claims about sound quality backed up with valid listening test, so you can google them and different codecs (AAC, OGG, mp3..) and come up with a lot of data.
 
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noted and I will read more about it.

I do have yet to experience the 'necessity' of a sound card though..
however since there's a market for it, I guess there must be some difference, I just don't know about it.
 
There are products and then there are products. Seeing that the integrated solutions are usually of okay quality nowadays, the next easy big improvement would be doing the DA-conversion outside the computer case, in either a digital receiver or an external DAC unit. Neither of those guarantee improvements though, it depends on the usage scenario and product always.
 
Virtual surround sound.

Don't even need an expensive sound card, the ASUS DG does this fine.

In terms of DAC/amp quality, sound cards aren't a bad deal, but you can get external Fiio stuff that's basically the same quality and external (i.e. a lot less noisy of an environment as sandslash mentioned).
 
Virtual surround sound.
Don't even need an expensive sound card, the ASUS DG does this fine.
Asus Xonar DG is a great card sound quality wise if you're on unbalanced active speakers or efficient headphones, I agree. Some people might like virtual surround (essentially AFAIK it means downmixing 7.1 or 5.1 sound into 2.0 headphones according to some algorithm to create an extended impression of spatial dimension in the sound field), some people don't like it though. I think it sounds hollow and unpleasant in some games, and for music it's an absolute no-no. Most games have a separate headphone mode that I suspect applies some type of crossfeed anyway, so I don't see the point in dedicated headphone software for games that much anymore.

FiiO products were good even when the E7 was their top-of-the-line product, now they have even better products out there. For other good external solutions, Behringer UFC 202 and DEQ2496 offer some serious bang/buck too.. Well performing amplifiers and DACs don't cost a lot, speakers/headphones are still the weakest and most expensive link, easily.
 
Thanks for this thread, it's been very informative. I've also been wondering about the necessity of sound cards... I have Sennheiser HD 280 headphones and I'm wondering if it would be worth my while (and my $30) to get the Asus Xonar DG sound card. I've done some reading and stumbled across some opinions that the HD 280's don't reach their full potential unless they have a amplifier. So, I was looking at the Fiio E11 but then saw that the Xonar DG has a built in headphone amp for half the price. My HD 280's sound pretty good with my onboard audio, but I'm wondering if I'm missing out on something by not having an amplifier... Would the Xonar DG be a good solution for me? I'm not what you would call an "audiofile," but I am a musician and appreciate good quality sound.
 
If I get a Mobo like asus maximus gene, is getting a sound card still necessary?

a while ago, sound cards were big bucks, but i realize there's like no talk about them anymore, what's the deal with that? any insights?

Specifically speaking yes. There is a caveat however. A dedicated sound card wit ha hardware level dedicated processor is needed. most sound cards however are little more than integrated ICs based on PCIE/PCI bus.

A non hardware accelerated sound processor that is the exact same chip as would be found on a motherboard has 2 distinct advantages over integrated.

Separation of resources. Integrated devices on Intel based systems usually are running off the DMI which can be very easily over taxed. On non X79 based intel setups as long as you are sticking to a single GPU external devices should not be a big issue.

(2 advantages are separation of resources and latency)

HOWEVER
All that is external to natural latency of the now integrated PCI/E buses. Not only is there a natural latency to the bridges that are used for devices to convert them there is the natural latency of the BUS itself.


So simply put. Will a sound card IC designed 10 years ago using a PLX bridge to convert it to PCIE bus be as effective as an integrated IC that uses CPU power to enhance it?

Short answer yes. In indenpendt test where nothing else is being done. In realistic tests, like HD music/audio playback while handling high bandwidth video conversion and CPU based physics.. dunno, no review considers those types of situations.

Worse yet is people like me, that ask more from my devices, like dual audio output or even triple. (Two WMP and a game playing through one set of speakers and MPC playing through another). It has been a while since I did that though :) Now I am having issues using my 580 to power two screens and HDMI audio.


Unless you are running a dedicated audiophile audio source like high end receiver or more importantly, dedicated headphones. A seperate audio source device is not necessary. a modern integrated device will allow bypass audio for your expensive DAC to handle the conversion.

It is important to note that ALL audio is analog. The human ear can not process digital audio. So technically all of the above only matters if you are using onboard DACs. If sending to a discrete source like a receiver, than audio processor only matters on level of features. EAX level or AC3 formats (DDL or DTS)
 
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Thanks for this thread, it's been very informative. I've also been wondering about the necessity of sound cards... I have Sennheiser HD 280 headphones and I'm wondering if it would be worth my while (and my $30) to get the Asus Xonar DG sound card. I've done some reading and stumbled across some opinions that the HD 280's don't reach their full potential unless they have a amplifier. So, I was looking at the Fiio E11 but then saw that the Xonar DG has a built in headphone amp for half the price. My HD 280's sound pretty good with my onboard audio, but I'm wondering if I'm missing out on something by not having an amplifier... Would the Xonar DG be a good solution for me? I'm not what you would call an "audiofile," but I am a musician and appreciate good quality sound.

headphones or computer speakers are the only reason to upgrade on board audio. But $30 sound card?

You might be able to upgrade a bit more if you spend a little more. Many cards will give you the option to upgrade the DACs themselves specifically for headphones..(I assume clean power amplification is the key there)
 
headphones or computer speakers are the only reason to upgrade on board audio. But $30 sound card?

You might be able to upgrade a bit more if you spend a little more. Many cards will give you the option to upgrade the DACs themselves specifically for headphones..(I assume clean power amplification is the key there)

So in your opinion the Xonar DG would not be much of an improvement over onboard audio even though the Xonar DG would be giving me a headphone amplifier?
 
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