Sound Cards/Amps

[Zyon Base]

Would you need to splash out on a great sound card when you have a decent Amplifier seperate?

Surely this is the function of a sound card, so could I not just go straight from my pre-installed card through a flat-EQ'ed Amplifier, then through my monitors?

Can anyone help me out with this?

::holmes:

[poi]

I dont know much about sound cards but a crap soundcard is going to put out a crap signal, and as others have said before you can't polish a turd (with a great amp).

It's to do with signal to noise ratio and all that i think..

[Humod]

I don't think they're all that expensive soundcards. I got a soundblaster '5.1 Live' a couple of years back and its pretty decent, no noticable probs at all and I think it was about £50.

[poi]

When i said crap sound i meant relatively speaking. My soundcard is a 15 quid jobby and sounds fine to me. I dont produce any music with it tho..

[Sol]

Originally posted by poi
I dont know much about sound cards but a crap soundcard is going to put out a crap signal, and as others have said before you can't polish a turd (with a great amp).

It's to do with signal to noise ratio and all that i think..


Crap out , crap in.

If ure feeding a crap signal into your amp - then you are going to get an amplified crap signal out.

I assume ure going to be using it for music production, as its the production section. . . .

When looking at a sound card for running VST synths etc you are looking beyond the quality of the output (although it is a factor).

The better the soundcard the better the ASIO side of it can fuction with your audio apps. Meaning the more accutrate it is a triggering what the computer tells it to be do.

A crap soundcard (like poi's £15 one) would have bad latency, so if a sequencer triggered a VST then there would be a slight delay from the time that the event was triggered to when the sound was heard.

This makes for things sounding out of sync with each other - even when they are perfectly programmed.

Plus some sound cards have multiple out so you can route the output to chanels on a mixing desk.

The higher end cards like some of the MOTU one's actaully take all the audio processing away from the CPU and do it internally. So u dont need a flash PC to run loads of audio channels. Although they proberly cost the same amounts as flash PC :p, there are obviously other advantages.

This is what I use - http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/Gina24/index.php

but i've heard good reports from the delta series of card and the MOTU range.

Oh - and if it is for general computer audio or all ure production is midi - then go with the Soundblaster range.

:guitar:

[loz]

i wouldn't go for anything less than an audiophile from midiman. its about £140 and its a really nice quality.

[supressor]

yeah, what he said! :guitar:

[Zyon Base]

oh dear, this all sounds rather expensive...

back to chorlton street again then! (sigh)

[Theos]

Originally posted by sol
Crap out , crap in........
.............The better the soundcard the better the ASIO side of it can fuction with your audio apps. Meaning the more accutrate it is a triggering what the computer tells it to be do.

Is it me or does that make no sense what-so-ever......

Lee, you been smoking crack again???

:drewl:

:bumfat:

:crackhead: