Thread: Sound Card on PCI rather than external

Reasons to go external may be space (a card perpendicular to your MB can be quite cumbersome), lack of slots (many people use mini-ITX boards with only one PCI slot) or securing it (PCI cards in some custom enclosures might come loose from vibration). If these aren't issues for you, then internal should be fine.

External is easier. I have a SB Live in my car computer. Without it, the computer would be about 5cm high. With the SB Live, it's about 12cm, which makes it more difficult to fit in tight spaces.

Unless you need some special features that aren't available with onboard sound, or with a USB sound adapter, using a PCI card is a bit of a hassle.

Hey,

I have read tho that external USB soundcards, esp the cheaper ones such as Trust 510, creative soundblaster live usb & mp3+ usb, resample the analogue signal to 48khz, so all audio that is encoded @ least than 48khz (i.e CDs (44.1khz), and pretty much all mp3s) has is resampled by the software drivers up to 48khz, this leads to a decrease in audio quality, which i'm sure is the last thing you want.

I can't say if you can hear the difference, im sure some people can tell, but i don't have an external card to test this out. If your amp is digital then you're ok, as they send the spdif signal @ 44.1 & 48khz.

I was gonna consider an external usb card myself, but after reading this Im gonna stick with the audigy.

Dunno if this is true with the expensive audigy 2 external range, i only looked up the cheaper ones.

Something to research methinks!

Gaz

FYI audigy 2 NX is 96kHz and has optical in & out and spdif in & out, as well as mic in and line in

Originally Posted by cold_fusion

I have read tho that external USB soundcards, esp the cheaper ones such as Trust 510, creative soundblaster live usb & mp3+ usb, resample the analogue signal to 48khz, so all audio that is encoded @ least than 48khz (i.e CDs (44.1khz), and pretty much all mp3s) has is resampled by the software drivers up to 48khz, this leads to a decrease in audio quality, which i'm sure is the last thing you want.

Yes some of them do. It depends on the chipset and what the driver's designed to do. iirc some AC97 Codec ICs (eg. Sigmatel STAC) will only output at 48khz and nothing else (cost cutting i guess), though the resampling is done digitally so it's hard to notice unless you look out for it.

I thought some other PCI cards do this as well? I think most of the Emu10k series cards do this (SB Live, Audigy), as they output 48khz AC97 to a AC97 Codec for DAC on some of the channels... Everything's upsampled.. That's why you get plugins for Winamp like this.

yep, i stand corrected, seems like the audigy isn't the best example for a great music soundcard...

See here half way down in the FAQ

I know my soundcard for the car computer! envy24ht based

of course if you have the cash u want one of these...

EMU Soundcards