Perfecting PC sound

My advice:

1.) What do you want? just to hear the game noises and listen to those em-three-pees?
2.) Do you want to introduce your neighbours (three houses away) to what the "trip-hop" revolution has done for the clubbing scene?
3.) Do you want to put on a pair of headphones to not wake your parents while you play WoW?
4.) Do you want a "High Fidelity" setup that integrates your PC into your home theater?
5.) Professional DJ or dabble in mixing/mastering on PC.
6.) I have a Steering-wheel-vibrating-chair rig for my games and I want to make my ears bleed!

Category 1:

Stick with on-board sound.
On-board sound cards are brilliant for the basic user. If you just want to listen to some music while working or playing and aren't too bothered with all this dolby pro whatsit malarkey then buy a comfortable pair of headphones or a nice pair of stereo speakers and plug them directly into your machine.
Some suggestions:
Good headphones that are pretty stylish:

http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/home_en.nsf/page.html?ReadForm&path=private_headphones

They have everything from basic but beautiful, to professional audio sets.

Good speaker sets: Those funky SHOX DUO sets or any powered stereo speaker system... they're REALLY cheap these days.



Category 2:

You can stick with your on-board soundcard. It really doesn't make a difference.
Just plug it into your dad's HiFi system and you can play it as loud as you like!
(if you don't know how to plug it in... get a friend to show you)
Most on-board cards now come with "co-ax out" or even "optical out" nowadays so connecting it to your dad's system is even easier.


Category 3:

You play games right?
well...
Most modern computers are more than quick enough to cope with the soundcard's workload so you don' "really" need one. Especially if you're just going to slap on some headphones and not take advantage of a soundcard's surround sound features.
This is a fact that the soundcard manufacturers don't want you to know... their cards are not really better than your on-board soundcard.


Category 4:

Again... most on-board sound cards have "optical out" jacks to plug your PCs into your amp.
If you want to go the soundcard route, look for one that has the features you want and more importantly, the interfaces that you need.
I bought an expensive soundcard from our brothers at Creative. One of the first Audigy 4 cards that came out, for roughly, R1200. Thinking I was buying a good piece of kit.
The problem was that the "digital out" connector on the card was a "mini-jack". Not a co-axial attachment like 99% of other sound equipment.
When i finally located a "mini-jack to co-ax" adapter, I still wasn't getting digital sound to my amp.
After much screaming and gnashing of teeth, I found out that you need to connect the "creative black box of digital awesomeness" to the soundcard to get digital decoding which only works with a very specific three layered mini-jack that ONLY works with the aforementioned "Creative black box of digital awesomeness".
This cost another R1000 or so...
Then the Xfi came out and the ruddy thing was included.

Moral of the story... make sure it has the correct interface that you're looking for!


Category 5:

Get a proper studio card.
Don't bother with Creative. Go straight to a studio card.
The DSP's are better and the channels are not "optimised for crappy PC desktop speakers"
You'll get proper numbers on the frequency deviations and you can really hear the difference with good quality speakers or monitors.
Besides, If you want more than 2 input channels, creative can't help you!

M-Audio make AWESOME studio cards that are not disgustingly priced and their drivers are brilliant... good support from their site too.


Category 6:

The fastest and cheapest way to get surround sound is to buy those "ready to go" systems from logitech and a 7.1 surround sound card. They're designed to compliment your "Vibro-chair" game immersion devices.

The external amp in the subwoofer will drive those little speakers just fine and the card will do all the "digital thinking" for the dolby digital 7.1...
Just be prepared for a mass of wires and you'll notice that 7 speakers is alot to fit around your driving chair... They look a bit tacky and low budget sitting on books and whatever else you can find to prop them up.

Your mom and/or girlfriend secretly thinks that that was the biggest waste of money ever BTW... But who cares right?

Now all you need is a bigger screen!
 
I still dont have surround on my PC. I have an LG 5.1 surround sound setup for my console with optical input, the other surround input is SP/DIF
I dont know of any reasonably priced cards that have that output, and I don't want to spend R2000 for a soundcard, or have to get another set of speakers in the same room.

Any suggestions?
 
Went from onboard sound with my old Sennheiser HD200's, to an SB Live! plus Jazz 2.1 speakers, to my X-Fi paired with Altec Lansing MX5021's.

I defy people who say that the Z-2300's are a good 2.1 set, after experiencing mine. The Z2300's sub overwhelms somewhat and the satellites have 2x40w "full-range" drivers. The MX5021 set has 2 mid-range drivers on each satellite along with a tweeter on each. The sound quality IMO is far superior, even when comparing the frequency response ranges:

35Hz - 20kHz on the Z2300s, vs
30 Hz - 22 kHz on the MX5021.
 
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The articles completely overlooks the music production side of things...:(

Granted it is a different beast altogether, but would have made for a nice addition to an often overlooked side of computer audio setups...
 
Not to knock the awesomeness of the reporting...

but was there any new info?

To PERFECT PC sound... you have to get BETTER stuff. I moved from standard issue PC sound to real top drawer audio level equipment. It was a gradual progression as I started earning more cash.

I will never forget my enthusiasm at opening my first "Sound Blaster" package. It was a combo "CD-Rom and Sound Blaster". I used all my birthday money to buy it (Back then it was a big deal). It was at that very first "computer fair and bexa" they held WAY BACK!

Anyways...

I've eventually moved away from Creative to a more "specialised" sound card.

It is a M-Audio surround sound card.

I've setup studios with M-Audio's other cards and was blown away by the quality and simplicity of the drivers and their interfaces. No "effects" no frills... just what you need!
Proper RCA inputs and outputs and MIDI I/O... perfect if you got a decent microphone. The internal components are all from top class audio product manufacturers and the DSPs (digital sound processors) were all top end stuff.

So I thought I'd buy the "home use" card when I heard that the internal components were the same as the studio cards.

Best move I ever made...
I take great pride in my setup at home... all my equipment is "extreme" quality, and I'm glad that my PC now has become a major part of it all where before I used to put all media onto a flash disk and plug it into my DVD player.
My amp is capable of 24/192 on all channels and I'm glad that I now can play media directly from my computer in "tru-surround" format.
Before... it was next to impossible to find a media player that played HD mkvs with a tru-surround AC3 soundtrack.
The card also delivers phenomenal sound!
My Xfi used to fire the sub a fraction of a second after the front speakers and would give a real "fuzziness" to the sound when listening to music and watching movies. (something that never happened with my Audigy2)
I tried EVERYTHING to rectify the situation, but to no avail... even my friends with the same card had the same problem.

When i installed the M-Audio card - WOW!
It all came together as it was supposed to! I couldn't tell the difference listening to music on my PC to listening to it through my DVD player... (which is incredible considering my DVD player)

I'll never go back to a creative card... period!

If you want to PERFECT your PC's audio. You're going to need the following:

1.) A proper soundcard. with the acceptable balance of game performance and sound quality.
2.) "Better" speakers to enjoy the "better" quality sound coming from the "better" soundcard. This can get expensive...
3.) A good quality amp, which gets really expensive.
4.) A proper active subwoofer that delivers distortion free bass. This must be coupled with the correct cross-over frequency and correct polarity and placement in your room... something that isn't possible with those combo bundles I'm afraid.
5.) Good, well trained ears.
6.) Time, patience and an understanding family/girlfriend
 
I got me the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro with the Creative GigaWorks S750, hand in hand, I'm happy with the 7.1 Surround Sound I obtain from these. I mostly listen to music and watch DVDs, with the odd game chucked in. I know there is better :p
 
I hav the Logitech Z-2300.It's super with action movies and gaming.It's poor with music because of the excessive boom from the sub.
 
I'm def in category 4..... a creative X-Fi elite pro coupled with a Sony DWT 6.2 setup. It's not the best speakers around but those will slowly become more integrated. I have a NAD amp for headphone listening.
 
OverKill69 said:
Not to knock the awesomeness of the reporting...

but was there any new info?

To PERFECT PC sound... you have to get BETTER stuff. I moved from standard issue PC sound to real top drawer audio level equipment. It was a gradual progression as I started earning more cash.

If you want to PERFECT your PC's audio. You're going to need the following:

1.) A proper soundcard. with the acceptable balance of game performance and sound quality.
2.) "Better" speakers to enjoy the "better" quality sound coming from the "better" soundcard. This can get expensive...
3.) A good quality amp, which gets really expensive.
4.) A proper active subwoofer that delivers distortion free bass. This must be coupled with the correct cross-over frequency and correct polarity and placement in your room... something that isn't possible with those combo bundles I'm afraid.
5.) Good, well trained ears.
6.) Time, patience and an understanding family/girlfriend
Click to expand...
I agree, the article didn't really tell us about the perfect pc sound, but rather just gave old details and explaining how some stuff work without actually going into, making pc sound perfect. :(
 
How To Record Sound
Hello Members, while we are this sound issue, can anyone give us an idea of how to record sound for more that the default 60sec that Win supports.
My son plays the guitar (little better that average) and I would love to be able to record an entire song (about 3 min) and play back to him to aid him getting better.
regards,
 
Hi guys

I'll try write up something on the recording side of things soon. I'm quite familiar with the subject.

This article was intended to be a broad overview of PC sound in general.
 
d3th_n1gG4 said:
@Overkill69

Does that m-audio card come with a gm compatible synth on it. I know i can use it for timecodes, whilst messing around, but as far as GM information has been I have found it rather scant.
Click to expand...

*cough*
yes - as far as i know... haven't come across any issues so far with MIDI inputs.

We setup a friends studio machine with Pro-Tools and every plug in we could get our hands on.

Works 100% with his old Creative Audigy2 card with a USB keyboard.
When we installed the M-Audio card, nothing changed... worked perfect! Sounded a bit better with a few of the racks performing better with the higher quality DACs

ASIO 2.0 support from the lads at "Steinberg" so i guess it is GM compatible MIDI no?

this is the card I installed on my machine:
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/revo/

But if you really want to pump music into your machine, rather hit the studio cards like the one we put into my mate's computer:
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=PCIinterfaces



Like I said... I'll never go back to a Creative card.
 
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