soundcard discussion

[FlameGrilled]

I was gonna post something like this topic, but as it's been started ... :-

If that card is not available to people, and they fancy adding coaxial input and output, plus the optical in & out, to a system with say embedded analog-only i/o equipped embedded sound system, then there is always the Trust 514DX too.

Ok, it's not gonna set the world on fire re it's sound handling (in terms of how it reproduces on the analog output), but as a simple cheap potentially painless way to add Coax and Optical (maybe even SP/DIF, i cant remember for sure) to use as alternative i/o for MD's and other devices , it's gotta be worth a look

Can buy the 514DX for about 15 UKP here in the UK, but if you want the oversampling etc, and don't want coax connections, then the extra money on the Chaintech may be the route to go.

Not sure what the 514DX uses for chipset, my guess would be a Realtek AC'97 or poss a Cirrus Logic device, maybe even an Analog Devices Soundmax (i'd say not likely, the Soundmax.. that's more common in embedded setups).

Well, it's an extra option anyway.

I'm gonna grab a 514 anyway, to add extra optical and coax i/o's to my setup (useful for in-line use of chained soft DSP's and resampling, input from coax equipped DAT or CD through PC out to MD or other optical equipped recorder via the optical out).

So, i'll edit this reply.. with some results post to obtaining and testing

A closing item, that can also be obtained cheaply, is the Terratec Phono Preamp Studio kit (aka line/optical in -> USB). For those of you who like to put restored analog source material onto your MD or other digital players, this conbined with the Trust, could potentially work out to be a nice cost-effective combo to link (with the use of realtime processing) to go direct from analog to restored/tweaked MD via PC in real-time.

Dunno, probably no use to anyone, but to those who want to r/t record to their MD units to get true SP recordings, it's worth looking into

[Breepee2]

It's not difficult to obtain a card with digital out (optical or coaxial).

It's difficult to obtain one that leaves the sound unaltered (untouched 44.1kHz out).

[Sparky191]

How would the AV-710 compare to my Sonic Fury card?

[FlameGrilled]

Breepee2 :-

Dunno where you are located, nor care really, but the 'not difficult' bit you mention is not a global fact

There are people out there who wouldn't know they could 'add' both coaxial and digitial i/o cheaply to their existing setup to suit real SP mode transfer to MD, hell there are people out there (a lot of at that) who don't realise their existing 'analogue out' embedded sound systems (remember, lots of them in use) may also have non-optical digital outputs to start with.

And even if you had access to lots of the options out there, easily (remember, there is still a lot of people who wont import or buy online, or even mail-order), a lot of people don't realise the scope there is for super cheap ways of adding 'missing' digital i/o to an existing sound system.

Not everyone has the desire, or intention of ripping out/disabling an ordinarily good (enough for their purposes) soundcard/embedded system, to replace with a super-duper pricey quasi-AP device that for the most part, your average user wont even be able to justify buying

So whilst mine and the OP's suggestions may seem a tad irrelevent to those who indulge in mega-bucks spending, or even chasing the last nth degree of s/c perfection, the suggestions are worth having on the available list, for the majority who don't obsesse over the nth degrees or the spending of big bucks.

Sure, i use a mix bag here of mega-bucks pro cards, cheapo budget stuff and just about anything in between, but i do still respect and recognise the masses in their budget concious/technically uninterested desire to transfer-n-go with their music and audio content.

Maybe 'technically uninterested' people who aint into megabucks perferfection seeking are not exactly seen as worthy, by the proportion of the MD community who feel that 'technically uninterested' = ignorant slobs...??

Dunno, don't care, will dump useful options to suit the 'technically uninterested' proportion's benefit.. and ferk the rest of you who think i'm out of line to do so

At the end of the day, the 'technically uninterested' and 'non audio obsessives' outnumber the technical and perfection obsessives by a massive factor - so they are more than equal in worthiness to be informed of what's out there...

[Sparky191]

Well I'm confused....???

I thought that any digital output would be unaltered. Is that not the case?

I also thought that the significant feature of the Chaintech AV-710 is that it has (for the price) great analog out via the Wolfson WM8728 DAC?

I'd have assumed that a MD forum is pretty much a niche market so the mass market angle wouldn't really apply. The majority of people here would have some undertanding of the issues of audio quality, especially due to the interest in recording here.

[FlameGrilled]

Bad assumption, Spark..

That's the same kind of assumption that made 'mp3' a niche market perceived thing, til the whole availability went into overdrive over equipment good, bad and indifferent.

DAT, that's literally niche market - not due to any lack of interest really amongst domestic users (you'd be suprised how many have asked me about using DAT, discovered the cost etc was too rich for their tastes and gave up on it) - but purely is priced out of the pocket of the average domestic user.

DCC, the failed DAT counterpart, that's nice market too, mostly because it never rolled out with enough equipment, no real availability bar one or two decks (in the UK anyway) and a distinct non-availability of pre-recorded media.. and blanks were nothing like common. All DCC meant, in reality, to the masses who might have desired it, was a digital deck that they were gonna have to beg/borrow/steal HQ media for, and have an ultra expensive analog deck mostly.

MD could have gone that way, easily, so whilst it's pre-recorded media selection and availability kinda fell over not quite at the first hurdle (it actually existed, and did get sold in some major chains here in the UK), it really dried up rapidly - the fact that early decks were (in UK terms) up there in cloud cuckoo land for the average domestic user didn't exactly help it's rollout and attractiveness - it was really, and anyone with any concept of real perception can tell you this, NetMD and the later MDLP standalone decks and the embedded inclusions in mini-hifis that actually brought not-excessive priced kit into the market (again, talking of what they cost to the UK market buyers).

MD was a niche market for it's initial few years, like DVD-A and SACD will be during it's early years, but just because you don't bump into MD users too often in life, don't mean they are an obscure bunch of niche format users. Not everything in life, that's under-respresented in public, is 'niche'.

As for what people may or may not know - try reading through the posts in detail sometime over the various sections. You'd find there is a fair representation of people who have no real idea of the technical aspects of audio (less so here, than other audio-related forms, but enough to qualify representation of their needs by default), more with some or a middling level of knowledge of the tech aspects, and more with more or greater levels of such knowledge.

I was not disputing the value of that first suggested card by any means, but if you had read my comments in the initial post i made (reinforced in my previous reply) there are people who simply (for one reason or another) are not gonna go down that route.

Ask the average person what a Wolfson DAC adds to the plot, and you'll find in the real world, they have no ferking idea or no interest.

It's the kinda thing that if you have heard the results of such a DAC at work, you understand it's usefulness and benefits and likewise, if you know of what such an inclusion has to offer on technical grounds, you can at least way up the value to you as an individual buyer.

The simple reality here, is the bulk of audio kit purchased outside of obssession to technical detail and specificiation - at least by the buyers who literally are the bread and butter of the mainstream music industry sales targets.

If we are obsessed by audio perfection and technical detail, lossy audio would have died a death virtually from the outset of attempts to sell it to the portable world, the iPod (on many accounts) would have been one expensive mistake on the part of Apple, and none of us here would even be giving this forum the time of day (as MD, outside of the addition of PCM recording/playback in later units, was a lossy format use device).

But i'm beginning to wonder if i'm totally wasting my time explaining these simple concepts - it seems in this forum (and other MD forums), MD users have decided that all MD users are like themselves, and maybe the simple users do not exist??

Ok, one final comment re niche users - why the hell am i, under legal agreement with the artists involved who released via CCL and other licenses, producing pre-recorded MD's of stuff that's out there with royalties paid to the artists..??

I wouldn't be doing that, given the time involved and aggro it could involve, if there wasn't people who want pre-recorded media in their preferred MD format..??

Ok, so it's hardly at the scale where i'm heading for millionare status from millions/tens of millions of sales that recover me ferk all after costs, but on the other hand, i'm helping to fill in the gap that exists in music distribution - not everyone has nice wide-pipe broadband connections, there are a lot of dial-up users out there who find it easier to source from pre-recorded forms.

So if MD is a 'niche' market and has a 'nice' userbase, then i must the craziest idiot around to be supporting it in that way - if so, then i'm one of many crazy supporters... there's a few forums worth of the crazies

[Breepee2]

I thought that any digital output would be unaltered. Is that not the case?

←

Almost every soundcard-maker resamples everything to 48kHz (for example all AC97 codec's) and as such output 48kHz (not unaltered). A lot of soundcard-maker who offer 44.1kHz resample it again (Creative does this for example, even in it's Audigy's) back to 44.1kHz (still not unaltered). This Chaintech card (thanks to it's VIA Envy chip) can output real unaltered 44.1kHz, as it should be.

So, no, almost no card outputs digital signals unaltered. If you set your software to resample (with a better algoritm than on-chip) you won't notice it when listening, but still, if you want to record bit-perfect copies or just want to get it out with no loss, this Chaintech card is one of the few that does the trick.

[Bananatree]

I'm still looking for an external sound card with similar specs that I can garuntee will work on OSX.

[Sparky191]

Breepee2 - I didn't realise the digital output was resampled, I thought it was only the analog. On doing a bit of reading about the web I see that how this can effect the sound.

FlameGrilled - Yes there are non technical/audiophile users (probably the majority) who would be happy with a simple audio card. But its good know the difference between the cards isn't it.

[FlameGrilled]

Non technical non audiophiles too, Sparky.

Sure it's nice to know the difference between what a spec offers, if it matters to you as an end user. An obscure, or bascially 'invented' spec is enough to make me discard anything without question.

But remember, Sony in particular (of all the companies who produce for the domestic market) along with Awia and others in the main four or five 'high street' brands, sell a heck of a lot of their domestic grade output to end users who don't know one end of a spec, nor really care..

I mean, someone once asked me what oversampling meant, in ref to their CD deck that had the feature splashed on the front panel in bold letters. About 2 mins into the explanation, i got a 'whatever, who gives a ferk' type response.. which in practise, i should have expected. When i was doing formal tech support for manufacturers of DAP's, i got a similar level of 'dont give a ferk' attitude to details, until someone got their teeth around some audiophile-inspired matter and then i got landed with a demand for an explanation, provided it could be interpreted with two-functioning braincells only

Definately in the majority, non tech users, in any variety and flavour of mass-produced DAPs

[FlameGrilled]

As far as 'in line tampering' goes with soundcards...

It's hardly anything new in audio

The vast majority of equipment, short of anything specced with a direct-bypass type output to digital ports, alters and tampers with the goods in small and major ways.

Since someone mentioned the Audigy 2, you can tie it down (without hacking or suchlike) to not resample, but pass data raw to it's SP/DIF output (based on the 2ZS), but i assume that also applies to other digital ports on the premium models.

As long as i get an acceptably clean output, it's kinda irrelevent really.

Like i said before, i aint perfection-obsessed, just interesting in delivering the goods that deliver the goods when played back on domestic non-audiophile kit.

I never treat audiophile pandering and generally meeting audiophile demands, as worthy of my time.

The only times i get into 'max it to the max' attention to detail in mastering, is when i am producing for commericial professional mastering - aka like i would for producing the goods ready to supply to the plant for production of commericial distribution DVD/CD/SA-CD, or when i am doing restoration work - in the instance of restoration work, the obssession often makes each job a lost cause re making money .. but since in such instances i am more interested in making good what was once good in analog form, i am prepared to go all out to do the certifiable for keeping analog audio allive in clean long-lived digital form.

[Sparky191]

FlameGrilled - I have no idea what point your trying your get across. Sorry.

[The Low Volta]

at Spark and Flameg. and everyone else contributing to the discussion... I guess you both (/all) have made your points... if you want perfection, look around for one of the real/unaltered 44.1kHz type cards, if not... just get a cheap good one

but please, let's quit this 'bickering' and stick to more 'useful' posts... remember this is a stickied recommendation post for all members, private discussions can be held in private (PM)

so mods, please remove my post... and perhaps some of the endless discussion as well

[atrain]

i've split the topic as volta suggested. please feel free to continue this discussion but i'll leave volta's post in a reminder.