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Ugh, I need a better soundcard...

 
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2003 2:01 am    Post subject: Ugh, I need a better soundcard... Reply with quote

Well, since it's nighttime, a few minutes ago I decided to put my headphones on and listen to the Hikaru No Go Best Of 2003 soundtrack that was posted to ABSA today-- it was a high-bitrate VBR MP3 track, and I figured it'd sound a fair bit better than the old 128K copy that I had.

So I put on the headphones (a massive pair of Sony MDR-AV5 phones that sound quite nice), and fired up the tracks in Winamp. I should note that normally I play music over my stereo system at a fairly low volume so as not to excessively disturb anybody else in my house, and there's usually background noise from the washing machine or (fairly-quiet) background noise from my computers, etc.

Anyway, the HnG music was sounding worse than I would've expected a 298K VBR MP3 track to sound-- it's been a looong while (over a year) since I last used my headphones at night while carefully listening to music, and for whatever reason, I remember high-bitrate compressed music as sounding better than this. A few years back I was into the VQF format, and I remember that music (compressed at 96kbps), sounding very very very close to the original (far better than 128K CBR MP3 at the time, anyway).

So there I was, realizing that the music I wanted to listen to was sounding downright poor-- I was wondering if it was a horrendous encoding job, or if it was the soundcard in my "new" computer (picked it up in fall 2001, haven't ever really done much of a music test with it). The computer's got an SB128 chip on it (onboard, yes, but not the "crystal" chipset that I see advertised on-board with so many motherboards...), so I just blindly assumed that it'd be as-good or better than the inexpensive SB Ensoniq AudioPCI cards that I had in my two previous machines.

Boy was I wrong to assume that-- I found a CD that I'd encoded to VQF format a few years ago, played the compressed tracks back and it sounded downright poor as well-- searched around under my bed for a while and found the source disc, popped it in my CD player (a nice mid-range Kenwood unit from a few years ago-- early in my university career, when I felt richer than I do today...). Wow, the definition of the cymbals, the presence of the vocals, and the music had so much body to it-- ah, it sounded so much better. Popped the disc into my computer's CDROM, and played it-- same thing, it sounded very nice! My old VQF-encoded track can't be *that* bad-- my hearing 3 years ago was pretty good-- couldn't have been worse than it is today... Rremembering that clueless idiot who was trolling on ABSA a couple months back (I can't remember his nym-- he ranting about how computers couldn't make perfect copies of CDs because they were music and not data, or something like that), whose soundcard had a different DAC than his CDROM (of course), I decided to rip a track from the CD to WAV, since the WAV would play back through the same DAC as my old VQF file.

Fired up Winamp to place back the ripped WAV file, and it didn't sound all that great-- the cymbals didn't sound as lively as they should, and the music sounded flat. Played back the VQF, sounded just about the same. Played the WAV, VQF, CD, WAV, VQF, WAV. Both the WAV and VQF were substantially inferior to the CD-- yup, definitely the fault of the soundcard-- poor tonal accuracy, interference, ugh. The VQF was audibly inferior to the WAV, though not by much (pretty damn close given that it was encoded at 96kbps).

Hmmm... Rather than study tomorrow, I think maybe I'll swipe the Ensoniq card out of my old machine and swap it into my newer one. I wonder if I can disable the on-board sound direct from the BIOS or if I'll have to set a motherboard jumper... Gonna have to check the manual on that one...

Does anybody have any suggestions on reasonably-priced good soundcards?
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2003 10:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I usually choose a sound card for gaming, so I've been generally unimpressed with the sound quality from my computers since I'm an amateur audiophile. Recently, I read about some alternatives that make sense for music listening and for audio output for anime. I had planned on mentioning it here in case anyone was interested, but your question broached the subject nicely.

As many know, I had DirecTV DSL which closed its doors. I switched to Speakeasy for my DSL ISP. Soon after I joined up, they had an offer for 1 free year of a music service so I took them up on it. At the website for the service, they listed some interesting alternatives for audio output that bypasses the sound card.

At http://www.listen.com/connect.jsp?from=stereo_DBG scroll down to "PC Optimized Audio Connectors". The Harmon Kardon one is very neat because it converts to optical digital which is unused on my home theater, but it costs allot. Therefore, I was considering the Xitel Hi-Fi Link which is a reasonable $50, but outputs to RCA connectors.

Xitel also has a product for isolating ground loops, which has been a thorn in my side ever since I started playing anime through my TV-Out. It was thanks to an old discussion here that I even found out that that horrible hum was caused by a ground loop. I hadn't experienced it prior to connecting my laptop to the home theater.

I'll probably pick up both products at some point, but have delayed doing so, so I cannot really comment on how well these options work. I like the concept, though.
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2003 10:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm glad you brought this up as I had another look at the Xitel Hi-Fi Link Pro. Apparently it has both optical and coax digital outputs. Since I use my coax digital input for my DVD player, I only have the optical input free. But it turns out the Xitel Pro product has both digital outputs, so I'll probably pay the extra $50 and purchase it instead of the baseline product. I just need to verify my amp can take inputs from both or just one or the other.

They come with a good amount of shielded cabling a well, which is rare since companies always want to externalize anything they can, these days.

One other thing, if you dont have an amp nearby to make these products an option, I think all you'd need to do is pass the signal through a headphone amp. Supposedly the HeadRoom amps at http://www.headphone.com/layout.php?topicID=3&subTopicID=27 are great, but I've never had the $$$ to try them. Kinda silly since I'm willing to spend the money for high end Sennheiser cans and yet pass them through the so-so headphone jack on my amp. *shrug*
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Wed Mar 26, 2003 9:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cool, once my job starts in a month I may pick up one of those guys!
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 12:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm considering buying this amp:
http://www.jvc.com/product.jsp?modelId=MODL026800&page=2

Good reviews:
Consumerreview.com

It's got a USB input so computers can output digitally to it-- given the MSRP, I'd assume it's got a pretty damn good DAC inside. My current receiver is an old Kenwood Pro-Logic unit that I got way back in... crap, must've been in high school! Probably grade 11, I think. 8 years old? Yikes, time for a replacement!
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 8:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's neat, I hadn't seen amps with USB inputs before. Wouldn't it be great if all the components had them for control as well as bidirectional data and had an API. *drool* That'll never happen, of course.

Anyways, let us know how it turns out if you decide to go that route. I've spent the last 5-6 years only upgrading my speakers so my components are way behind. Sound Advice has a speaker upgrade program I've been doing where you get full value for speakers when you upgrade to more expensive speakers if it's within a year of purchase. So I've been doing that every year for all this time. Unfortunately, Tweeter bought out Sound Advice and since they are a national chain, they dropped B&W who is just too small a company to supply a large chain. Evil or Very Mad Messed up my whole plan. In the end, after a lot of luck and a lot of work, I got a pair of Nautilus 800 bookshelfs which were one level away from what I wanted to end with, so that's not too bad, although that expense was supposed to be spread over two years so I got hit with a much bigger price jump than I had saved for.

Safe to say I have no plans to upgrade the amp for a few years after that. Smile If and when I get one of those USB->Digital Input devices, though, I'll let everyone here know how they worked out.
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2003 6:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I bought a refurbished JVC RX-8020VBK from eCost.com for a helluva lot less than the MSRP-- $179! http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?dpno=154920

Just hooked it up today, played some music on it (listening to it with a decent set of Sony AV headphones), and I give the JVC receiver with USB inputs a thumbs-up. Listening to the audio being pumped out of the computer before enabling the USB device, it sounded as mediocre as it did before (aside from nifty 5-speaker effects it provides from analog stereo sources). Plugged in the USB cable, and it identified itself to the computer as a USB composite device, USB audio device, and says it's a Burr-Brown Japan PCM2702.

Playing a WAV track on my harddrive extracted from a CD, and comparing it to the source CD playing in a standalone CD player, switching between the two while listening on headphones, I'm impressed-- the USB output sounds at least as good as the CD player's output!

Thumbs up to the JVC RX-8020VBK. It's a *huge* improvement, and the refurbished receiver doesn't seem to have any immediate problems (some *tiny* scratches on the plastic covering the display, but nothing that I'll notice if I'm not scrutinizing the receiver). Hopefully it won't develop any problems. (I'm always a little nervous when buying refurb goods-- most of the time they're fine, but I've had a two instances of crappy refurb electronics).

One negative that I have about the system is the remote-- it's downright confusing, and I'm not holding out much hope that I'll be able to memorize anything other than the power button and volume controls...
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2003 7:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's good to hear (hehe), Melchior. Thanks for letting us know about that. Hopefully I'll get similar results from that Xitel product (which I guess will boil down to how well its DAC works) when I get around to buying it. I'll post here once I do.
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