Sound Technology

[Moyako]

Well, to be honest, my pc sound card+speakers are not good for sound nitpicking. My soundcard is mediocre at best (SB Audigy SE), but found it was a GREAT improvement from onboard sound. And these crappy speakers:


I though it would be "decent" for a good gameplay, until I played Napoleon: Total War's cannons in my cousin's pc (onboard + SB 5.1 speakers). I just couldn't believe it.

Now I MUST buy new speakers before I put my hands on ROHOS :s

I don't care too much about the music (I always turn it off), but i want to enjoy the gameplay sounds as better as I can

 

[LordKhaine]

5.1 does add a lot.... when the game supports it. Though it's a shame how badly supported 5.1 is, a situation not helped by Vista/Windows 7 replacing the directsound api, which breaks it in a lot of older games (or at least I haven't found a way of getting it to work on a lot of them!).

And even in the games that do support surround sound, I find they typically don't do it justice. As an example... the sound of rainfall in oblivion. You'd imagine such a background noise would come from all the speakers... as the rain is landing all around you. But no, such background sound only comes form the front speakers. And the rear speakers are only used for obvious positional things, such as other people, torches, etc..

 

[Leopardi]

Super - but where are the links to the purported blind tests of the F T HD you posted about? Your statement re: prior test is called "begging the question"...

Anyway, if it worls for you, that's fine.

If we stay at concrete evidence, I have more to point out that today's audiophile-grade cards suchs as Asus Xonar Essence STX and Titanium HD do give a big upgrade in audio quality against any on-board solutions.'

Of course, with some 100€ Logitech speakers the difference might not be that big at all - but why would you buy a 150€ soundcard for 100€ speakers?

 

[HeyCarnut]

If we stay at concrete evidence, I have more to point out that today's audiophile-grade cards suchs as Asus Xonar Essence STX and Titanium HD do give a big upgrade in audio quality against any on-board solutions.'

OK, well, I asked for the links you said existed, yet this is just more opinion by you, already refuted. Anyway, as I said, if it works for you, great.

 

[Leopardi]

OK, well, I asked for the links you said existed, yet this is just more opinion by you, already refuted. Anyway, as I said, if it works for you, great.

It's not refuted. Unless you can give me proof that "Titanium HD does not give any actual fidelity increase in sound over any today's onboard audio".

 

[HeyCarnut]

It's not refuted. Unless you can give me proof that "Titanium HD does not give any actual fidelity increase in sound over any today's onboard audio".

Still waiting for those links.
Based on other unfounded/nonsense/plain wrong posts you've made, I'll stop responding to the trolling, at least until those links appear...

Ta!

 

[wahoo4]

we should start mass emailing Microsoft for Windows 8 sound. W8 will be coming soon enough. Vista and W7 killed the sound for me. Man I miss the sounds of COD2 with EAX and ALchemy. Nothing else has compared to it that I've heard.

5.1 does add a lot.... when the game supports it. Though it's a shame how badly supported 5.1 is, a situation not helped by Vista/Windows 7 replacing the directsound api, which breaks it in a lot of older games (or at least I haven't found a way of getting it to work on a lot of them!).

And even in the games that do support surround sound, I find they typically don't do it justice. As an example... the sound of rainfall in oblivion. You'd imagine such a background noise would come from all the speakers... as the rain is landing all around you. But no, such background sound only comes form the front speakers. And the rear speakers are only used for obvious positional things, such as other people, torches, etc..

 

[Agenda_Suicide]

I'm using an audigy soundblaster card. I'm pretty good with computer hardware but I don't know much about sound cards really. I was thinking it would be better to use an older sound card to take any sound related processing off the cpu. Since it's an older card I wonder if I'm losing any sound quality? Any sound buffs around?

 

[HeyCarnut]

I'm using an audigy soundblaster card. I'm pretty good with computer hardware but I don't know much about sound cards really. I was thinking it would be better to use an older sound card to take any sound related processing off the cpu. Since it's an older card I wonder if I'm losing any sound quality? Any sound buffs around?

With Windows >= Vista, there is no 'offloading' benefit in DX sound games, unless using something like the creative Alchemy kluge. OpenAL games can still directly use sound card H/W acceleration.

That said, you can still take advantage of features that may use card H/W (e.g. CMSS), but these are processing modes that have nothing to do with the intrinsic game sound system. Overall, add-in sound cards for gaming PCs are a dying breed, you can usually spend your gaming PC money better elsewhere.

Are you happy with the sound quality now? If so, don't sweat it! You could always try your other options such as on-board and compare. In any case, let your ears decide, not some marketing BS or clueless claims.

 

[Das Bose]

Still waiting for those links.
Based on other unfounded/nonsense/plain wrong posts you've made, I'll stop responding to the trolling, at least until those links appear...

Ta!

LOL!

Still waiting for your link, can't find it?? Seriously, you are doing nothing but assuming you know best, talking down to people and you have provided zero evidence!

Nothing has been refuted because you have failed to provide any evidence of your claims, the same thing you are whining at the other guy for

So until your links appear, how about you stop too?

 

[HeyCarnut]

LOL!

Still waiting for your link, can't find it?? Seriously, you are doing nothing but assuming you know best, talking down to people and you have provided zero evidence!

Nothing has been refuted because you have failed to provide any evidence of your claims, the same thing you are whining at the other guy for

So until your links appear, how about you stop too?

As I said, it may have been in a pro magazine. Nonetheless, I know what I read, and for that matter what I've heard from quality on-board solutions.

However, [URL="http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htm"][URL]http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htm[/URL][/URL] shows in fact the distortion / noise characteristics of quality on-board matches / beats a soundblaster x-fi fatal1ty titanium professional (a moniker that surely attracts the naive gamer), and in fact beats it in 24 bit mode. They used the RMAA suite - I've tested using stand-alone test gear most sites and PC mags won't invest in. They summarize the results on the ref'd page.

[URL="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66008"][URL]http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66008[/URL][/URL] has commentary in a group quite serious about audio, noting no audible difference using cards far beyond 'gamer' cards.

You do realize that several of the 'audiophile' media server vendors use gigabyte/asus MB with alc889a on-board audio in multi-thousand dollar units with no complaints from 'audiophiles' (Fusion Research, Harman Kardon, et al). Or maybe you don't.

The point of my original post is that if one has a quality MB with good on-board audio, think twice about 'needing' an add-in card. You'll get more benefits spending elsewhere. For the record, I use an E-Mu 1616m in my main audio workstation, I need the connectivity and it has decent mic preamps and an actual RIAA phono stage.

BTW - having Bose as part of your name doesn't bode well for hearing acuity

 

[Das Bose]

As I said, it may have been in a pro magazine. Nonetheless, I know what I read, and for that matter what I've heard from quality on-board solutions.

However, http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htmhttp://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htm shows in fact the distortion / noise characteristics of quality on-board matches / beats a soundblaster x-fi fatal1ty titanium professional (a moniker that surely attracts the naive gamer), and in fact beats it in 24 bit mode. They used the RMAA suite - I've tested using stand-alone test gear most sites and PC mags won't invest in. They summarize the results on the ref'd page.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66008http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66008 has commentary in a group quite serious about audio, noting no audible difference using cards far beyond 'gamer' cards.

You do realize that several of the 'audiophile' media server vendors use gigabyte/asus MB with alc889a on-board audio in multi-thousand dollar units with no complaints from 'audiophiles' (Fusion Research, Harman Kardon, et al). Or maybe you don't.

The point of my original post is that if one has a quality MB with good on-board audio, think twice about 'needing' an add-in card. You'll get more benefits spending elsewhere. For the record, I use an E-Mu 1616m in my main audio workstation, I need the connectivity and it has decent mic preamps and an actual RIAA phono stage.

BTW - having Bose as part of your name doesn't bode well for hearing acuity

My name? LOL, so ... Das Bose -'The Evil', suggests I have dodgy hearing?

The point of your original post was to say that onboard audio is every bit as good as add in cards and you are wrong

Maybe do a little research before repeatedly putting your foot in your mouth by assuming you know it all?

I'm still waiting for the links to your so called blind test.

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

... However, [URL="http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htm"][URL]http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htm[/URL][/URL] shows in fact the distortion / noise characteristics of quality on-board matches / beats a soundblaster x-fi fatal1ty titanium professional (a moniker that surely attracts the naive gamer), and in fact beats it in 24 bit mode. They used the RMAA suite - I've tested using stand-alone test gear most sites and PC mags won't invest in. They summarize the results on the ref'd page.

[URL="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66008"][URL]http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66008[/URL][/URL] has commentary in a group quite serious about audio, noting no audible difference using cards far beyond 'gamer' cards....

Just curious, do you know of anything that is more recent than those 2008 reviews? To be honest, I probably wouldn't notice much difference if any between the audio of an onboard vs a sound card. My interest would lie more in the performance factor of using a card over onboard, plus possible software perks (better eq's etc) that would come with a sound card compared to the usual bare bones onboard.

 

[KingLol]

For the record, I use an E-Mu 1616m in my main audio workstation, I need the connectivity and it has decent mic preamps and an actual RIAA phono stage.

Of course, the only appreciable real difference in terms of sound quality between your emu (or any soundcard aimed at audio production) and the average soundcard would be in the AD/DA converters. While that's a massive advantage when trying to actually record something, I doubt most (any?) people could really tell the difference between an on-board and

 

[Moyako]

In my opinion, cash would better be spent on quality speakers for a much greater influence on the sound.

This

 

[HeyCarnut]

Just curious, do you know of anything that is more recent than those 2008 reviews? To be honest, I probably wouldn't notice much difference if any between the audio of an onboard vs a sound card. My interest would lie more in the performance factor of using a card over onboard, plus possible software perks (better eq's etc) that would come with a sound card compared to the usual bare bones onboard.

None I can point to - I don't follow the market much for consumer cards anymore.

As for performance - see the page after the page I linked - the performance difference was ~fractions of a percent on Vista, the on-board winning in one (I assume you mean FPS in the game when you say performance.) And this was on a lowly E8500 core 2. With modern CPU, there's no good reason to bother with 'offloading' from the CPU for audio - look at most modern games - they switched to pure software audio.

As for the 'perks' - yes, that is a benefit of some add-in cards: more of them. Are they 'rendered' any better? Debatable. Some of the software suites for on-board (eg those that come with most acl889 implementations) have lots of bells and whistles also. And let's not forget, Windows UAA audio stack has some pretty sophisticated things built in. An example is room correction: You can plug in a mic, it will measure your system, and digitally correct for speaker distances / offsets / response / etc. Pretty neat - not too long ago this was a big $$$ hardware or software solution, now just built in.

Bottom line - get what you want, and what satisfies your needs. Even the most expensive consumer card is pretty inexpensive. But if you're happy with the quality and features of your current card, or on-board, don't think you're missing out by not getting some new 'gamer' card.

As KingLOL says below (above) - your money is better spent elsewhere.

 

[HeyCarnut]

My name? LOL, so ... Das Bose -'The Evil', suggests I have dodgy hearing?

No, the joke was referring to BOSE, the audio company that made some real junk, along with some interesting innovations.

The point of your original post was to say that on-board audio is every bit as good as add in cards and you are wrong

As I said, I am not sure where I read the article, nonetheless, the links provided are a blind, if primitive test, and measurements that show otherwise, with a quality on-board vs a premium 'gamer' card.

You're entitled to your opinion, do your own research. I never said all on-board is better, whatever that means, than all add-in. I said good on-board is good enough that you gain no audible quality with an add-in.

Beyond that, this starts to look like the argument with kooks that think properly designed speaker cables sound different...

 

[Moyako]

And this was on a lowly E8500 core 2

I feel... lowly

 

[Floyd]

I feel... lowly

Fi you're lowly, then I must be toe jam....E6750

 

[Das Bose]

Any sound system is only ever as good as it's source. You are suggesting that very cheap onboard sound is every bit as good as an add in soundcard, that you then changed to 'gamer card'.

This is absolute nonsense and anybody with a decent Hi-Fi system will be able to hear the night and day differences in noise, clarity, separation and dynamics.

Telling people that it is pointless to buy an add in card is really doing them a disservice.

I can find 20 odd people ( friends and aquaintances ) who can't tell the difference between onboard and quality add in and another 30 or so who can

You are basing your advice on your hearings limitations, saying..lol i can't hear any difference so neither will any of you. Well your so far from the truth it's almost painfull so please stop!

All listening tests are entirely coloured by the persons hearing, so the best thing is for people to listen for themselves