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47717768 (banned)
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL

47717768 (banned) to JimE

Member

to JimE

Re: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE Vs. ALC892

I have Logitech Z623 speakers. »www.logitech.com/en-us/p ··· tem-z623

By the way i am an Audiophile so sound quality and also video quality is very important to me.

Tirael
BOHICA
Premium Member
join:2009-03-18
Sacramento, CA

Tirael

Premium Member

Then get a better sound card than either of those, like an ASUS Xonar Essence STX.

Ctrl Alt Del
Premium Member
join:2002-02-18

Ctrl Alt Del to 47717768

Premium Member

to 47717768
said by 47717768:

I have Logitech Z623 speakers. By the way i am an Audiophile so sound quality and also video quality is very important to me.

Then get an external DAC and invest in a separate amplifier and speakers. Logitech is good, but not great.

Or get one of these, which connect directly to your PC via USB, and do the digital to analog conversion and amplification in the speaker itself: »audioengineusa.com/Store ··· Speakers
47717768 (banned)
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL

47717768 (banned)

Member

It's not worth it for over $200 i better buy a better set of speakers.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

1 edit

DarkLogix to Tirael

Premium Member

to Tirael
said by Tirael:

Then get a better sound card than either of those, like an ASUS Xonar Essence STX.

Forget that get a good USB DAC instead.

like this
»www.amazon.com/Lexicon-O ··· 002E4Z9G

Since you say you're an audiophile then why are you going to use any audio DAC that's inside your computer, get it external so its away from that RF in the case

if I had the space and money I'd do something like a nice audio receiver that has USB for an input plus a sweet set of kliptch home theater speakers.

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu

MVM

The problems I ran into with USB DACs is that most of them do not offer "simple" things that people have come to rely on, such as:

1. Microphone input (including where your own voice can be heard in the audio stream used for playback/output). A lot of USB DACs don't offer this, and those which do often do not implement what I put in parenthesis.

2. Headphone output impedance mismatch; I've been bit by this more times than I can count (but not specific to USB DACs either; happens with anything really).

3. "Stereo Mix" or "What U Hear", where what's being output is essentially software/hardware loopbacked and thus can be recorded.

4. Complications involving output jacks vs. speakers; quite often what speakers have do not match what the USB DAC outputs to (physical jack-wise)

The 3rd item can be accomplished using a physical loopback cable, but almost always results in volume/amplification issues where you're having to "fine-tune" volume settings in two places (input and output) constantly so things aren't over-amped/clipping.

These, combined with the problem of even more cables (good USB DACs are often AC powered, while some can be powered off a 9V battery), often drive general people away (myself included).

Just my $0.02 when dealing with PC audio nonsense. All the above is why I just stick to physical sound cards.

Ctrl Alt Del
Premium Member
join:2002-02-18

Ctrl Alt Del to DarkLogix

Premium Member

to DarkLogix
said by DarkLogix:

Since you say you're an audiophile then why are you going to use any audio DAC that's inside your computer, get it external so its away from that RF in the case

Not only that, but an external DAC also usually has better surrounding/supporting chips and better power supply. Yes, law of diminishing returns and all that, but a good external soundcard/DAC is appreciably better than onboard.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix to koitsu

Premium Member

to koitsu
Well that's likely just due to a few things.

1. internal sound cards are much more popular so issues are likely to be found/fixed.

2. the category of USB DAC, (IE basic junk vs recording studio gear vs home theater gear)

I hear the one I linked and its lesser counter parts is good and I have been considering getting it but can't decide if its worth it and also I've been thinking of using a USB DAC with VMware ESXi to give a VM an audio in/out.
DarkLogix

DarkLogix to Ctrl Alt Del

Premium Member

to Ctrl Alt Del
said by Ctrl Alt Del:

said by DarkLogix:

Since you say you're an audiophile then why are you going to use any audio DAC that's inside your computer, get it external so its away from that RF in the case

Not only that, but an external DAC also usually has better surrounding/supporting chips and better power supply. Yes, law of diminishing returns and all that, but a good external soundcard/DAC is appreciably better than onboard.

Ya an external DAC when targeted at recording studio gear should have better SNR rated chips, better supporting parts maybe an external powersupply so it can distance any RF/EMI the AC/DC conversion might have from the board or be powered via USB.

Ctrl Alt Del
Premium Member
join:2002-02-18

Ctrl Alt Del

Premium Member

For my home theater I simply got a preamp processor with a good DAC (Cirrus) built in: Emotiva UMC-200 »emotiva.com/products/pre ··· /umc-200

C0deZer0
Oc'D To Rhythm And Police
Premium Member
join:2001-10-03
Tempe, AZ

C0deZer0 to Ctrl Alt Del

Premium Member

to Ctrl Alt Del
said by Ctrl Alt Del:

said by DarkLogix:

Since you say you're an audiophile then why are you going to use any audio DAC that's inside your computer, get it external so its away from that RF in the case

Not only that, but an external DAC also usually has better surrounding/supporting chips and better power supply. Yes, law of diminishing returns and all that, but a good external soundcard/DAC is appreciably better than onboard.

Sounds like good advice, but there is one big issue there that pertains to why I can't take any USB based sound solution seriously...

Namely, all that traffic over USB? Yea, no. The amount of processing overhead would be even worse than any given onboard audio on the market. On a similar parallel, I know that people here love to poo poo on the Killer NIC idea, but at least I can appreciate their principle of trying to offload as much of that data from your system as possible, which is more than a 20¢ onboard NIC chip most of the market uses could ever do.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

Premium Member

said by C0deZer0:

Namely, all that traffic over USB? Yea, no. The amount of processing overhead would be even worse than any given onboard audio on the market. On a similar parallel, I know that people here love to poo poo on the Killer NIC idea, but at least I can appreciate their principle of trying to offload as much of that data from your system as possible, which is more than a 20¢ onboard NIC chip most of the market uses could ever do.

A good USB dac would be doing the same offloading as a sound card, and audio isn't bandwidth intensive.

Ctrl Alt Del
Premium Member
join:2002-02-18

Ctrl Alt Del to C0deZer0

Premium Member

to C0deZer0
said by C0deZer0:

Namely, all that traffic over USB? Yea, no. The amount of processing overhead would be even worse than any given onboard audio on the market.

The CPU processing overhead used by a USB DAC is nothing. USB 1.1 (yes, I typed that correctly, USB one-point-one) can support streaming up to 96-kHz/24-bits by itself, and that's higher than CD's 44.1-kHz/16-bit. And you're worried about the processing overhead? You might as well disconnect your USB mouse, because that puts the same strain on your CPU as a USB DAC.

»www.ayre.com/usb-dac.htm

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

Premium Member

said by Ctrl Alt Del:

96-kHz/24-bits

Gasp what if I want 192khz/24bit?

C0deZer0
Oc'D To Rhythm And Police
Premium Member
join:2001-10-03
Tempe, AZ

C0deZer0 to DarkLogix

Premium Member

to DarkLogix
said by DarkLogix:

A good USB dac would be doing the same offloading as a sound card, and audio isn't bandwidth intensive.

Yes, just like all those USB modems were also supposed to take care of that before broadband was more readily available.

Theoretically, yes; in practice, I've yet to see one that wasn't completely horrible at it, in the wild or in any actual review.

Case in point, my first real non-dialup internet was provided via a USB ADSL modem... it was consistent, until I tried to launch any given online game. Latencies were all over the place as soon as I connected, and the only solution came when the ISP allowed me to swap for a PCI modem at the time.

It's also well repeated that if you are stuck on dialup, the only type of modem that doesn't whore out the CPU like its (G/M)Hz are refined crack cocaine are those that use a serial port, because USB modems are even more guilty of the processing overhead than even a PCI WinModem.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

Premium Member

well that's modems and the cheap DACs

Ctrl Alt Del
Premium Member
join:2002-02-18

Ctrl Alt Del to C0deZer0

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to C0deZer0
Your experience with shitty winmodems from 15 years ago have nothing to do with how USB Audio works.

Firstly, USB Audio is actually built into the USB spec: »www.usb.org/developers/d ··· io10.pdf

Secondly, any OS worth a damn has built in support for USB 1.1 audio (class 1). Windows, Mac, and Linux support USB 1.1 audio out of the box with built in thin drivers. The overhead to package audio and send over USB 1.1 is smaller than TCP/IP's overhead.

And better OSes have built in support for USB 2.0 audio (class 2). Mac OS X Snow Leopard (and later) is able to stream 10 channels of 32-bit audio at 192 kHz to and from a USB Audio 2.0 device: »developer.apple.com/libr ··· dex.html That's higher quality and more channels than CD, DVD, or Blu-ray can offer.

Again, if you're concerned about the CPU overhead caused by a USB audio device, then you need to disconnect your USB mouse and USB keyboard, because those are just as taxing to your precious CPU.