Top 5 PC Sound Cards

[Dj.BigBear]

ok thats the answer i was waiting for..
how could that be..
CD is a digital source of audio nee..
so sound is stored as data..
so the its reads as a data..
its sends the audio as data..
so how can that be different..

yes... that's also what i thought long time ago.... if it is digital data... it should not be deteriorated right?
wrong!...... you have to remember digital data has "JITTER"

 

[Dj.BigBear]

not to mention digital data rely too much on the material used for passing through the data such as capacitors on soundcard and cable quality.

 

[Anusha]

not only that....

Xtreme Audio - No X-Fi Chipset, no hardware acceleration, no EAX 5.0, lowest audio quality of all X-Fi cards.

XtremeGamer - All features of X-Fi cards including hardware acceleration and EAX, smaller profile, lacks AD_Link port to connect external breakout box.

XtremeMusic (Discontinued) - All features including AD_Link port, normal profile.

XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro - All features plus 64MB X-RAM.

Platnium - No 64MB X-RAM, includes front panel.

Fatal1ty FPS - Includes 64MB X-RAM and front panel.

Elite Pro - Includes 64MB X-RAM and breakout box, higher quality DAC (Cirrus Logic CS4398).

Ok fine! Only the top models have X-RAM. And only Creative. If this is so important, why aren't the other manufacturers use RAM on their cards?

 

[samiram]

yes... that's also what i thought long time ago.... if it is digital data... it should not be deteriorated right?
wrong!...... you have to remember digital data has "JITTER"

ahh..
to my knowledge jitter wont low the quality of the audio cd....
it causes to skip the audio cd or to hear some spikes....
is that the quality drop you mean..?
that can correct from jitter correction softwares..
BTW im asking these questions to clear my doughts..
because im going to spend lot of money for my sound system soon..

 

[chanster]

Ok fine! Only the top models have X-RAM. And only Creative. If this is so important, why aren't the other manufacturers use RAM on their cards?

Cause Xram is mainly used for games (although it wont affect a lot).......n there is no card that can beat a creative in terms of games.......due cause the card can process up to 8 environment's at 1 time.....n many more........

 

[chanster]

ahh..
to my knowledge jitter wont low the quality of the audio cd....
it causes to skip the audio cd or to hear some spikes....
is that the quality drop you mean..?
that can correct from jitter correction softwares..
BTW im asking these questions to clear my doughts..
because im going to spend lot of money for my sound system soon..

Spending on a sound system or a sound card lasts for a long long time n u wont regret it........

 

[Dj.BigBear]

Ok fine! Only the top models have X-RAM. And only Creative. If this is so important, why aren't the other manufacturers use RAM on their cards?

who sez they aren't?
well they didn't say they do out to public, but clearly ppl who buy those don't need to know (most of them already know that)

ok
how many soundcards have you auditioned?
i've tested:
- SB live!
- Audigy 2
- X-Fi (from Xtreme Audio to Prelude)
- ESI Juli@
- Onkyo SE90/SE200/U55GX/U55SX
- Echo Audiofire
- Prodigy
- TurtleBeach Montego
and many many more.

and most of them produce much better sound either analog/digitally.
atleast according to my opinion.

 

[samiram]

not to mention digital data rely too much on the material used for passing through the data such as capacitors on soundcard and cable quality.

that wont be a problem because..
hi end mother board uses high quality equipments..
because there are more parts that needed a clean current supply..
than sounds..

 

[Dj.BigBear]

ahh..
to my knowledge jitter wont low the quality of the audio cd....
it causes to skip the audio cd or to hear some spikes....
is that the quality drop you mean..?
that can correct from jitter correction softwares..
BTW im asking these questions to clear my doughts..
because im going to spend lot of money for my sound system soon..

no it will not lower the quality of the data on CD, but remember the data is being extracted and carried FROM CD TO A RECEIVER..... and to do those thing.... we still need tool such as capacitors, PCB, and cables.... yes... we're still haven't got the technology to do that without those things.

no... by jitter i don;t mean spikes or skipping..... hahahahahhaa..... if you do CD/DVD burning, you should know more about jitter.... it is what we called imperfection of data extraction and transfer.

no jitter correction software is known to be good enough... even for CD/DVD burning method.... let alone audio

 

[Dj.BigBear]

that wont be a problem because..
hi end mother board uses high quality equipments..
because there are more parts that needed a clean current supply..
than sounds..

nope....
not high-end.... even solid caps is not preferable in audio world....

ever heard of Rubycon Blackgates / Elna cerafine / purism / Oscon / Panasonic FM?
those are the best audio caps in the world....

yes, i happen to know a bit of those stuff too, since i modify soundcards and audio equipments.

 

[samiram]

Spending on a sound system or a sound card lasts for a long long time n u wont regret it........

thing is i dont need a modified sound from the pc.
i only need a pure natural sound from it..
because i uses a natural sound yamaha receiver..
they gave me a demo before i bought it....
the sound was awsome and they uses a yamaha cd player for that...
and they didn't do anything to the sound from the player..
now i cant test it because my speakers are a crap..
so im going to buy some new speakers wich they used for the demo...
but a another sound card for my pc is really annoying...(because im not that $$$)

 

[chanster]

what areas are u interested? movies,music etc?

 

[Anusha]

who sez they aren't?
well they didn't say they do out to public, but clearly ppl who buy those don't need to know (most of them already know that)

ok
how many soundcards have you auditioned?
i've tested:
- SB live!
- Audigy 2
- X-Fi (from Xtreme Audio to Prelude)
- ESI Juli@
- Onkyo SE90/SE200/U55GX/U55SX
- Echo Audiofire
- Prodigy
- TurtleBeach Montego
and many many more.

and most of them produce much better sound either analog/digitally.
atleast according to my opinion.

Of course they perform better, but not as exaggerated as chanster showed in his "tests"
Otherwise why do they make these cards in the first place?

 

[Dj.BigBear]

thing is i dont need a modified sound from the pc.
i only need a pure natural sound from it..
because i uses a natural sound yamaha receiver..
they gave me a demo before i bought it....
the sound was awsome and they uses a yamaha cd player for that...
and they didn't do anything to the sound from the player..
now i cant test it because my speakers are a crap..
so im going to buy some new speakers wich they used for the demo...
but a another sound card for my pc is really annoying...(because im not that $$$)

if you have read my earlier post better.... you should've noticed that those CD players actually has Audio Processing Chipset embedded inside them.

do buy another speaker... better one... the one same as the store....
by then, if you still haven't got similar audio quality as the store... you will remember my post.

 

[samiram]

no it will not lower the quality of the data on CD, but remember the data is being extracted and carried FROM CD TO A RECEIVER..... and to do those thing.... we still need tool such as capacitors, PCB, and cables.... yes... we're still haven't got the technology to do that without those things.

no... by jitter i don;t mean spikes or skipping..... hahahahahhaa..... if you do CD/DVD burning, you should know more about jitter.... it is what we called imperfection of data extraction and transfer.

no jitter correction software is known to be good enough... even for CD/DVD burning method.... let alone audio

hmmm..
you better check this forum dude..
i cant verify their professionality..
but there surely no somthing about sound..
read it and post your ideas..
specially cliveb's posts...


ref - http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t57251.html

 

[samiram]

if you have read my earlier post better.... you should've noticed that those CD players actually has Audio Processing Chipset embedded inside them.

do buy another speaker... better one... the one same as the store....
by then, if you still haven't got similar audio quality as the store... you will remember my post.

the it'l be too late..
my idea for now is to..
buy a whole new set of speakers..
but if the on-board is crappy..
then i have a option to buy only the front towers..
and the sub..
so have to find it now..

 

[Dj.BigBear]

hmmm..
you better check this forum dude..
i cant verify their professionality..
but there surely no somthing about sound..
read it and post your ideas..
specially cliveb's posts...


ref - http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t57251.html

please read that thread again carefully...
those correction is done by offboard soundcard....

and he was talking about data recovery... not jitter.... hahahahahahahahahaha....
i told you before.. it's not the same thing.....
jitter is error from within read/write/transfer process.

 

[samiram]

please read that thread again carefully...
those correction is done by offboard soundcard....

and he was talking about data recovery... not jitter.... hahahahahahahahahaha....
i told you before.. it's not the same thing.....
jitter is error from within read/write/transfer process.

hmm..
can you explain this..
i admit that my english is poor but..?

cliveb
Sep 2 2007, 05:22
QUOTE(vetinry @ Sep 2 2007, 11:16) *
1. Bearing in mind that I'm not using the decoding facility of the on board audio, is there going to be any improvement of upgrading to a dedicated sound card?

Only if the onboard SPDIF output resamples. If it does (many do), then you might want to consider adding one that doesn't (eg. from M-Audio). This only applies to when you're feeding the digital output to your arcam receiver. Playing to the Squeezebox doesn't involve the soundcard at all.

 

[Dj.BigBear]

cliveb
Sep 2 2007, 05:22
QUOTE(vetinry @ Sep 2 2007, 11:16) *
1. Bearing in mind that I'm not using the decoding facility of the on board audio, is there going to be any improvement of upgrading to a dedicated sound card?

Only if the onboard SPDIF output resamples. If it does (many do), then you might want to consider adding one that doesn't (eg. from M-Audio). This only applies to when you're feeding the digital output to your arcam receiver. Playing to the Squeezebox doesn't involve the soundcard at all.

he mentioned about the one that doesn't resample like M-Audio, it's true that if it doesn't do any resampling, you won't need dedicated soundcard as much as if you do need resampling.

but please do remember that i have explained to you about the basic principal of digital data extraction and transfer which consist many electronical components and others.

it extracts data from the media and passing it through the soundcard..... and do you really think by passing it through, it doesn't have to get through all those PCB and capacitors and digital cable?
that data needs to be powered to before sent to a receiver.....

 

[samiram]

he mentioned about the one that doesn't resample like M-Audio, it's true that if it doesn't do any resampling, you won't need dedicated soundcard as much as if you do need resampling.

but please do remember that i have explained to you about the basic principal of digital data extraction and transfer which consist many electronical components and others.

it extracts data from the media and passing it through the soundcard..... and do you really think by passing it through, it doesn't have to get through all those PCB and capacitors and digital cable?
that data needs to be powered to before sent to a receiver.....

yup...
that is inevitable to your posts i think..
anyway thanks for your time Dj.BigBear...
i got only few bucks in my hand and i need to spend it wisely....
so i'll spent my remaining time in the night to find a HDCD torrent..
and test my system for re sampling..
can you help me with that too...?