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Is On-board Sound Good Enough?


redtigerdragon

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Good test is to plug it into a decent hi-fi system. A decent hi-fi plays the signal with higher clarity, which really shows up a bad soundcard or onboard chip.

 

On my setup (Denon 1908 + Polk RM10), I can easily tell onboard from my X-Fi Prelude, even over digital. Onboard has a tinny sound, like those string and can walkie-talkies we made as kids.

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Would you say the same about separate CD players in a custom setup?

I'd be extremely surprised if anyone could pick out a "crappy" CD player over a "good" CD player in a matched double-blind test. So yes, I would.

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Onboard sound is fine to me, but I have never used a sound card or had the need for one.

 

Well, basically what everyone has been saying is that onboard sound will serve you well, but you will get some benefits with a sound card. You just have to determine if it's worth the price.

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I have never used a sound card, I'd like one, but I have never used one. The onboard on my 780i is pretty nice. Cant really ask me for a comparison though, unless a nice person on here wants to donate a sound card. :lol:

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I'd be extremely surprised if anyone could pick out a "crappy" CD player over a "good" CD player in a matched double-blind test. So yes, I would.

 

While I certainly won't make any claims of being right or wrong, it does make me curious. Particularly the fact that HiFi magazines that have been around for years would no doubt disagree in disgust, causes me to wonder.

 

While I don't have the best ears in the entire world, I am comfortable that the X-Fi sounds much better through every set of headphones (Sony MDR-EX71S; Shure SE110; Sennheiser HD595) and speakers (Yamaha Advanced-YST 2.1; Tannoy M3 floorstanders) that I own, when compared directly to the onboard option.

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Just to throw in my 2 cents here. If you wish to beat newer onboard sound, you're looking at around $200 minimum for a sound card before you'll notice a difference. if you are making music it is a bit different because a sound card can help a bit (but I doubt you would even need that because if you were good enough to need it, you'd be making music at a studio)

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While I certainly won't make any claims of being right or wrong, it does make me curious. Particularly the fact that HiFi magazines that have been around for years would no doubt disagree in disgust, causes me to wonder.

HiFi magazines also tend to have golden ears. :P None of them ever do blind A/B comparisons, they just talk about how "lively" and "sharp" things sound. :lol:

 

While I don't have the best ears in the entire world, I am comfortable that the X-Fi sounds much better through every set of headphones (Sony MDR-EX71S; Shure SE110; Sennheiser HD595) and speakers (Yamaha Advanced-YST 2.1; Tannoy M3 floorstanders) that I own, when compared directly to the onboard option.

I have no doubt you could hear a difference on a nice set of non-amplified headphones because the outputs on the card directly determine your available headroom (and if the onboard sound sucks it's really easy to hear noise) but with an amplified set or speakers it's a lot harder. Output levels make much less difference at that point and the only real difference is usually sound:noise ratio and background pops/clicks.

 

 

I'm not saying that you should not get a sound card because they have other benefits (like hardware processing and effects) but from a strictly sound quality standpoint on-board sound has come a *long* way in the past 8 years. I do still miss my nForce 2 SoundStorm board though...

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I don't buy sound cards. Although I may someday if I upgrade from my x-540's to a home theater setup. I figure on lower end speakers like mine I'd rather get new speakers before I get a sound card. So unless you're Eric Johnson, I don't think you'll notice a large difference.

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i use this card

 

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496.html

 

 

i NEED low latencys for MIDI instruments and this cuts it for that

 

if you use onboard midi you can sometimes notice the latency delay when you press a key on your keyboard and will notice the sound doesnt trigger straight away

 

20ms or less is recommended for this

 

also its 24bit so the sound quality is better that the usual 16bit sound cards

 

 

it can play music at 96Khz (CD quality is 41Khz) so its ideal for studio quality monitoring....

 

the other thing i like alot is having RCA jacks instead of the headphone type - so it can plug directly to a hifi or nearfiled monitors etc

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HiFi magazines also tend to have golden ears. :P None of them ever do blind A/B comparisons, they just talk about how "lively" and "sharp" things sound. :lol:

 

 

I have no doubt you could hear a difference on a nice set of non-amplified headphones because the outputs on the card directly determine your available headroom (and if the onboard sound sucks it's really easy to hear noise) but with an amplified set or speakers it's a lot harder. Output levels make much less difference at that point and the only real difference is usually sound:noise ratio and background pops/clicks.

 

 

I'm not saying that you should not get a sound card because they have other benefits (like hardware processing and effects) but from a strictly sound quality standpoint on-board sound has come a *long* way in the past 8 years. I do still miss my nForce 2 SoundStorm board though...

 

I do amplify my Sennheisers. Look at the amp in my sig. I also amplified my floorstanders.

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I would say it depends more on the speakers, if ur using crummy speakers then a high end sound card is not gonna help much. But with a high end sound card and high end speakers I belive there is a noticable diffrence.

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I have no doubt you could hear a difference on a nice set of non-amplified headphones because the outputs on the card directly determine your available headroom (and if the onboard sound sucks it's really easy to hear noise) but with an amplified set or speakers it's a lot harder. Output levels make much less difference at that point and the only real difference is usually sound:noise ratio and background pops/clicks.

Having modded my soundcards with opamps and caps, made my own interconnects with silver-plated OFC, own headphone amp (total cost ~$600 including experimentation), and just this evening recabled my AKG K701 reference headphones with silver plated starquad OFC, I really would have to say that amplified headphones are EASIER to make audio judgements...

 

Also I'd have to disagree with you on the primary difference between modern onboard audio and soundcards. To me, and RightMark, one key difference is with stereo separation. My modded soundcards are superior in this respect, which is *easily* distinguishable. Onboard audio sounds more towards monophonic, while the modded X-Fi and A2ZS have a somewhat live and wide sound.

 

The second major difference to me is the clarity of the bass. While the bass isn't really any different in quantity, the bass of the soundcards is more defined, and onboard is a muddled, farty mess (obviously an exaggeration).

 

One of the main reasons I believe soundcards to potentially have higher sound quality is they can use higher quality op-amps that have much faster slew rates. So even though RightMark will show nice graphs for onboard, in practise the soundcards just end up more capable to react to both massively powerful dynamic changes like kicks and bass, and also reproduce the fine detail at the same time. This is, of course, my own hypothesis, and don't quite know enough about audio signals (even though I studied them at BEng level) to give a full report lol.

 

That said, onboard sound is REALLY good now, and I find it's certainly tolerable for general use (for TV over speakers), but prefer soundcards for music/movies, especially on my headphone rig :music:

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