Are sound cards just a meme?

>>52280565
yes

>>52280605
/thread

Internal pcie cards are meme tier but a external USB audio interface is far superior.

>>52280609
>audiophile snake oil
literally no difference with high-end onboard

>>52280619
This


is a lie

Depends on what you are doing. If you're a producer or something and you're rendering mad VSTs live or some shit a sound card will do it in a performant and good-sounding way that integrated audio won't. I'm gay.

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>>52280609

Any /g/ approved recommendations? Aiming for $100ish. Pic related is my motherboard.

In recent years; yes. Onboard sound has caught up to pci* sound cards.

DACs are still worthwhile though.

>>52280619
lol poor people

You can tell the difference. Well, probably not you poorfag teen virgins with your faggot gayming headsets. "Tests" done on untrained normals from irreputable organizations don't fucking count. You must be a retard. Try it yourself before you come to that conclusion.

I notice a huge difference. The sound is much crisper. You have to set it to Entertainment Mode in the Creative Control Panel.

>>52280619
I think he means a dac

>>52280655
fiio e10k

>>52280655
I have the D3H version of that. It has 2 more SATA connectors and no stupid leds. Pretty damn rock solid for the past 2 years.

Nah they're not a meme, but you don't need to spend >$60 either. Look at Xonar DGX if you're primary headphones or Xonar DSX. If you have PCI slots, used is a good option. Creative SB Audigy2 ZS is dirt cheap and still one of the best cards for linux compatibility and good sound quality.

>>52280746
>Creative Control Panel
What the fuck are you doing?

>>52280609
if you're a musician those are nifty as hell

otherwise not much point to it unless you're getting a fuckton of noise from your shitty onboard DAC but then you probably wouldn't get the kind with 1/4" and XLR jacks

>>52280656
>DACs are still worthwhile though.
For the outputs perhaps.

>>52280695
That the headphone matters is bullshit.

>>52280838
Using the software that comes with my sound card.

>>52280849
Why in the world would you buy Creative though?
They haven't been good in like 10 years.

>>52280868
Because the sound is extremely high quality.

>>52280695
i'd be willing to bet that you don't even know the definition of THD, let alone how it is measured

No. That doesn't mean everyone should buy one, or that they have a point for most people at all, but no. They are just another specific product for higher end consumers.

I'm thinking about getting a soundcard, or maybe a DAC. I noticed a while ago that music sounds slightly better on my phone, and I recently got a Surface which sounds so much better than my PC with the same headphones. I think this might be because I have a workstation motherboard that I got from a ThinkCentre that wasn't being used anymore, I'd imagine these kinds of motherboards don't need great onboard sound so they don't have it.

What do you think? Should I get a soundcard, and if so what one?

>>52280816
>Xonar DGX
>muh billion ohm autput impedance xdddd

fuck off asus whore shill

>>52280848
>That the headphone matters is bullshit
you're a fucking retard

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This bitch here on a nice mobo (no asrock or MSI) will sound as good or better than all your eric maymay "DACZ N AMPSZ"

Fucking consumerist retards ISTG

>>52280998
You can boil all the differences down to FR, timing, distortion and noise. Discrete external gear don't necessarily do better than onboard, especially if the onboard did it well enough to the ear.

>>52280565
Yes.

Physicist and electrical engineer here. I work in the lab of one of the leading audio companies in the world (14 years experience). I can tell you right now sound cards are 95% meme. There are virtually no use cases for them due to the nature of digital audio and amplification. Happy to answer questions about the topic.

computers are the noisiest thing in your home in terms of radio waves/etc.

why would you pay $100 for an internal card? how is that caring about sound quality?

>>52281380
4th year EE here.

...But it certainly made sense for me to get a portable DAC for my cellphone right? The shit processor and amp in my phone really wouldn't be enough to drive my 32 ohm impedance headphones... and i can certainly hear the difference.

>inb4 he literally and actually bought ane external DAC for his phone

>>52281018
fuckin realtek holy shit

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>>52281452
>not having an isolated audio circuit

and im currently on a low-mid tier $100 mobo

>>52280695

>I've convinced myself I can hear a difference

>I'm too retarded to build a hardware ABX box
>I don't have any friends to help me run a blind experiment

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>>52281380
Is "meme" an industry term?

Been wondering this myself, since apparently the Realtek ALC887 onboard audio on my mobo (Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H) sometimes lets through interference from the CPU heatsink/fan that sounds like a muffled lawnmower. Would a soundcard do me any good for getting around interference?

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>>52281456

>he literally and actually bought an external DAC for his phone

>he carries it around in his cargo pants

>>52281456
the CPU in your phone has absolutely nothing to do with it

a 4th year EE student should know this

a portable headphone amp/dac makes sense for high impedance headphones

>>52281380
not related to the topic at hand

are there jobs for a sound engineer and programmer? I'd have to learn the former

my ideal career would be working in digital audio gear

>>52281456
If you were an EE student you should know how the scientific method works and why you shouldn't accept shit just because its being market towards you. Maybe if you do a double blind study with a large sample size.

>>52281758
no, all they need is marketing to run an audio company because signal processing for audio has been solved for like 30 years

>>52281688
No, in my backpack.

>>52281380
I disagree. I would bet you $50 that if you sat me down at a computer and plugged my IEMs into onboard sound, I could tell you by the noise that I was listening to onboard.

All you have to do is connect and disconnect some USB devices, run a game that maxes out your graphics card for very short spans of time, even click and drag your windows around on your desktop.

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>>52281456
>4th year EE
>eating up audiowank
you're a failure

>>52280565
internal soundcards are. at least if you've got a good and recent motherboard. external ones make more sense

>>52281688
>You are officially out of excuses
I care about how I dress.

>>52280790
Are there comparable ones with audio in as well?

>>52281827

Right next to your thinkpad? :^)

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>>52281518
>isolated audio circuit
i don't see any isolation transformers there, nigga
i'd be willing to bet that MSI's interpretation of "isolated" is just keeping the analog traces away from the digital crap, which is what every PCB design engineer with half a brain would do anyway

>>52281856
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_impedance
>>52281884
Toshiba Portege

>>52281915
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_impedance
please tell me how a simple amplifier wouldn't be good enough for driving your low impedance headphones

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>>52281914
>keeping the analog traces away from the digital crap, which is what every PCB design engineer with half a brain would do anyway

exactly what they did mang. Was still a cheap $100 mobo.

>>52281967
AKG K271s are 55 ohms m8.

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>>52281968
still isn't an isolated audio circuit

i'm not saying the audio quality isn't great, it's just not an isolated circuit

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>>52282009
and your point is?

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>>52282028
I actually agree with you here, Im saying that i fell for the marketing in pic related

>>52280565

well I get buzzing sounds when i play graphically intensive games only, dunno what is causing it

>>52282066
If you only get it when you're running high framerates (menus and such), sounds like coil whine to me.

>>52280565

Sound cards only make sense if you intended on driving quality speakers and headphones.

Otherwise, integrated sound on most motherboards are good enough.

Hardware accelerated audio is a thing of the past. CPUs are so powerful and have cores to spare. The industry has gone with pure software audio processing.

>>52281656
>I don't have any friends to help me run a blind experiment

Are you a fucking retard? Holy fuck you're stupid. Why would I test untrained ears and think the results are relevant?

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>>52282103
At what point is it worth it? I own pic related and sometimes a loud buzzing noise happens. People over skype can hear it too and they complain it's deafening on their end. Would a card or external dac help me?

>>52282082

but through my headphones doe? seems odd

>>52282160
Definitely, electrical interference can go further than you might think.

I can build a computer, but I have no idea how sound works. I always believed that having a sound card was important, so I've been using the same Creative xi-fi card for over 10 years across different builds.
Say I want to continue to have good sound options (for headphones and speakers), and sound cards are no longer really necessary, what computer components do I need?

Seriously, my knowledge ends at "a soundcard".

>>52282157
dude really? we're talking about a $40 sound card. how much justification do you need?

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>>52282066
I had to get an external DAC just to get rid of that fucking irritating noise.

While I was looking for a DAC, I fell for the memes, took me a whole week to decide on one, sample rates, isolation, impedance, amplification, "stage sound", layered PCB's, solid caps, fuck.

I noticed the sound quality got better, but it novelty whore off, it's like getting used to high frame rates or HD.

>>52282187
Why not just keep your X-fi? No one here is even arguing that sound cards are a disadvantage, only that onboard (built-in) sound functionality might be as good.

>>52282126
The friend runs the ABX switchbox and queues the tracks etc for you you dumb cuck

>>52282187
The integrated audio circuits on most mid and high end motherboards are of so high a quality that you really have absolutely no need to buy a sound card for most audio needs. There are those fringe users (ultra audiophiles, recording studios, 1337 DJs and producers and moneyed /g/eeks trying to brag on this Nepalese rice picking forum) for whom onboard sound still wont cut it, but for 99% of end users, its a more than adequate solution.

>what components needed

A mobo with a decent sound solution and quality headphnes

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>>52282253
does this work?

>>52282207
It's getting to a point where its drivers are horribly outdated. At least that's what I figure.
The problem is after a couple days, the speaker option in my windows sound settings disappears. The only one left is External DAC or Headphones. I have to pretty much reinstall the Creative drivers for the Speaker option to come back.
The same issue still occurs using those "Daniel K" forked drivers.

sound cards give you extremely low latency ASIO 2.0 drivers, far better than any built in realtek driver

>>52282278
>using a mobo from 2002
>with a tube

Nigga why?

>>52282304
cause sound

>>52282253
How do I into "DAC" if I want to go that route? Is it a simple matter of buying a home theater entertainment receiver and hook my PC up to that somehow???

>>52282344
Buy a desktop DAC and connect that to your computer, and plug in all your audio equipment to it

>>52282292
*SPDIF is the option. Not External DAC. I don't know what spdif even is.

>>52280565
Yeah. I have one because my onboard died for some reason and I didn't feel like figuring out why.

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>>52281018
Has anyone measured Realtek before?

>>52280790
Well worth the money

>>52280849
>Using the software that comes with my sound card.

The crime against humanity that comes with Creative sound cards kind of stretches the definition of software.

And all their "high quality audio" is actually a DSP effect. Foobar2k has a crystalizer plugin that does the same.

>>52280868
>They haven't been good in like 10 years.

Almost 20. Their last truly good card was the AWE32. Since then they only released sub-par crap and relied on suing the opposition into bankruptcy, and forcing game makers to support their proprietary standard EAX (essentially building their own market).

>>52282433
Are you asking if the chip has been benchmarked for it's audio performance? If so, then yes, I'm sure google can find you 100s of documented tests.

>>52282398
>I don't know what spdif even is.

An early digital cable designed for CDs. It still works today but it can only do 5.1 if your output can encode it in dolby digital or DTS on-the-fly.

It was pretty fucking great if you had an amp that supported it.

Lots of stuff still use it today.

>>52282344
get an amp and connect it to your PC with HDMI. That way it can send 7.1 uncompressed audio to it, completely noise free, provided you have a videocard made in the last 5 years.

>>52280565
It's one of those situations where if you actually need one over using the motherboard's sound, you'll know. Otherwise, it's a waste.

>>52282472
Im looking ang i can't find one, the only thing I found was a cring filled headfi thread

>>52280565
Depends on the reason you're getting it. It can sound slightly better on high quality headphones but unless you listen to them side by side you won't ever notice.
I use one for a headphone amp and virtual 3d sound in vidya. SBX is way better than dolby digital which is usually used in onboard sound.
https://youtu.be/2BxO9cd-sYA?t=30
check this out if you're curious about the differences in virtual 3d audio. It's premixed so turn off any audio effects you have on.

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>>52282557
Also pic related is what I use. Much better than an onboard card.

>>52280619
>>52280636

Just fyi, regardless of how good the on board hardware is you're still stuck behind windows mixers.

We're talking about some crazy diminishing returns but an external DAC and amp with drivers will always be better.
>>52280565
Generally. Some decent ones.

>>52282599
What's a good one to get?
Again, no experience when it comes to good sound and what to look for.

>>52281018
alright anon. ALC662 is pretty obscure but here's one assuming you meant that specific chip.
http://www.ixbt.com/mainboard/asus/rmaa/asus-g-surf-365-alc662.htm

Realtek's popular chips are things like alc889 and alc1150 and whatnot - benchmarks for those are super easy to find.

>>52282657
Best advice is stick with on board sound unless you're messing with price headphones.

I get a bit of noise floor/static noise from my on board amplifier/sound solution.

Would buying a Soundblaster Z/other dedicated PCI-E card fix this problem? Or is it external DAC only for me?

>>52282727
Any good sound card should solve the problem. External doesn't mean anything performance-wise - there are bad external 'DACs' just as there are bad internal cards.

Xonar DGX or DSX is a good price/performance choice.

>>52282763
Yeah, I was mostly just considering the Soundblaster Z since I have 100 bucks in Best Buy gift cards from Christmas so I figured that'd chop the price down considerably.

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I have a 5.1 home theater that only has rca input
how do I plug that thing to a regular soundcard

It makes a difference, but not enough to even be worth buying.

>>52280565
If your onboard can't push 250+ohm speakers/headphones, a soundcard is nice. Otherwise, meme.

>>52284176
i bought a cheap chinese external sound....card?
for some reason my motherboard only came with headphone jack, line in, and mic.
also comes with coax (rca) and s/pdif out.

All I know is that my Xonar could convert any audio into 6channel dolby on the fly and send it over optical spdif, and that since my Xonar died I have to use three 3.5mm cables to get 6channel audio for everything which means I now get pops whenever the washing machine is going.

A USB sound card sounds like a better investment though.

>>52280565
They are now. They used to actually serve a purpose before Realtek blew them all the fuck out

>>52284176
http://www.amazon.com/3-5mm-Stereo-Female-Y-Cable-6-Inch/dp/B000I23TTE/ref=pd_bxgy_23_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1N23A3K0H4XXJB2KF425

http://www.head-fi.org/t/692709/realtek-hd-integrated-audio

Audiofools sure are guys who like to throw objective examples, aren't they.

I mainly bought my soundcard for the creative surround sound tech since I sound whore on cs go and bf 4. Well worth the purchase imo. It sounds way better than razer surround + onboard sound.

>>52282448
>Their last truly good card was the AWE32

That noisy piece of shit with unbalanced samples, wavetable header bugs, hanging notes and 10 million revisions? No son. Creative was never good, only 'ok'.

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>Buy a shitty virtual surround usb adapter for something like 50$ from a friend
>hook it up with a pair of mid range earbuds
>it sounds better than stereo and sort of emulates surround sound
>get used to it
>now everything sounds like shit in true stereo

You don't have to spend much to enjoy your 320 mp3s

Have audiophiles managed to produce any double blind data showing that discrete audio makes any difference compared to onboard?

Until they do I don't give a shit.

>>52280695
>MUH
>GOLDEN
>EARS

>>52280565
Got a Xonar DG.

It got rid of the noise my shitty onboard audio produced, and it powers my HD600s better while I wait to get a DAC/amp.

I'd say if you can get a sound card for cheap they can be useful but most onboard these days is fine. My motherboard was dirt cheap so its sound chip was unusually awful.

>>52285662
It's usually features and shit.

I once pretended my mums Dell computer had a $1.000 sound card in it. My friends ate it all up, they even got me to rip their CD's for them. I even used to sell generic burned audio cd's for $5 each which I used a stamp set to stamp "Ultra High Quality Dolby Surround Sound Audio"

>>52280565
I have an MSI Z87-GD65. Although it sounded great, I've wanted a decent audio card once in my life, so I bought a Xonar DX.
I'm very happy that I've bought it, I can hear things I've never heard with the integrated sound card on 5.1 and with my headphones.
Sure, you can say that "it's on separate circuit, sounds good, blah blah blah", but I think that the external sound cards will be always better than the mobo's sound cards, and they're worth of their money.

>tl;dr
not a meme, sounds better than my mobo's integrated sound card (Z87-GD65 Gaming), they're worth of buying if you have the money for it.

>>52280619
Citation...

>>52282066
It's electromagnetic interference from the coils on your gpu
I ended up building a separate system just for my sound card because of it
Putting a ferrite core around your audio cable is supposed to help as well (I unfortunately didn't try)

>>52285898
Placebo.

>>52285945
sure faggot, ">Placebo.". I know what I heard when I used the DX for the first time - and when I've used my mobo's integrated sound card again to compare things. It wasn't as good as it was with the DX.
Don't tell me what's placebo and what's not. I know what I've heard when I've compared the two sound cards in my system.

I run ASIO >behringer uca202 >~1972 Kenwood KA-2002A >HD 555's with foam delete or speakers.

So far this is the lowest distortion/cleanest setup I've used. I've tried the headphones straight out of some pretty high end meme cards and fancy integrated chipsets and the sound was meh.

tldr: Even cheap USB DAC's sound amazing.

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>>52280565

>>52282599
Creative SoundBlaster cards used to do this until Microsoft became a jew with windows vista and forced many manufacturers to change the driver design because of pirating and removed the synth/wave loop from the operating system. I hate the new sound stack in the current version of windows today.

Windows 2000 and Windows 98 had it much better when WDM existed. VxD was pretty much a clusterfuck but again, Creative was king with external amplifiers....

The reason why we don't have many soundcards with external DAC's is due to Microsoft's demands. Starting with windows Vista/server 2008

>>52285501
I have to agree with this. But like I said where creative excelled was the external on soundcard DAC.

>>52284394
If you have conduit in the house, run another wire and install another breaker if you can; this will stop. I have a 1500w heater that used to cause static, I put the outlet on it's own circuit and utitilized 12 gauge wire and a GFCI plug with usb port for my phone.

Static stopped + QUALCOMM 2.0 charging on the same outlet.


IF you have no more room in the panel, use a cheater if you can

>>52280565
Also if you remove the 2 Phillips screws under the red chipset cover, there's a realtek chip right under it.

>>52282599
>DAC and amp with drivers
Like, a usb DAC/AMP? Why do the drivers matter?

>>52285973
if you didn't do a double blind comparison you have no idea if it's a placebo or not.

>>52286083
You did good champ.

Sound cards are only good when they have wavetable and OPL chips.

But nah, apparently everyone is in the "digital" audio market nowadays!!!

Kids these genrations.....

The only reason I got a soundcard around 2008 was because my shitty internal motherboard sound didn't let me record Stereomix for both videos or getting sound effects. I swear though, I thought i heard some sound effects in War Thunder with that old Audigy ZS that I wouldn't hear in my 1 year old computer.

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>audio ports stopped working
>order soundcard instead of using shit usb headset

not just a meme, but I dont hear a quality difference

>all DACs are the same
Yeah, that's why the audio line-out on my monitor has a shitload of distortion

What the fuck are you chugging? I want some.
Of course it's not a meme if you're using a 2006 PC with very very shitty onboard audio. But that's long gone and now, it's a meme.
>>52286681
Literally cheaper buying new mobo if your audio ports stop working.

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>>52286821
>soundcard was $30 with free 2 day shipping
same mobo has been discontinued for 5 years and can only find it for ~$300. I wasnt finding a mobo for cheaper than $30

Bought USB DAC and love it.

Yes less noice and hiss, and better recording mic. utnil linux fucks up almost everyrhing, but thanks based mint for oftb xonar support. Debian lacks it.
And fuck you linux for trying to actualy record something and random audio strange souds. Not supporting any reasonable audio standards and mixing.
Pls make better alsa and pulseaudio

which is better, internal sound card, or a dac? And is there anyway to tell if it will be supported by linux before buying it?

>>52285926
Ferrite does fucking nothing.

However, a closed ground loop will work.

>>52287923
DAC.

I doubt any motherboard has a good enough SC to compete with external DAC

>>52280565
Yes cards but not DACs, especially if you have a laptop. All my laptops have some weird audio buzzing sound and my external DAC solves that problem. It doesn't sound any better than the onboard DAC other than having no more buzzing.

They are useful if your motherboard doesn't have the sound outputs you need.

I got one for the optical-out for example.

>>52282278
define "work"

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Has anyone tried the Coconut Audio balls?

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>>52288152

I'm just looking through the site. Is it a fucking joke?

>>52288169
I want to say yes but I know some people might believe it

Do usb dac's work out of the box in linux, or are only some supported?

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mirin?

>>52280772
this

>>52288503
Good taste in DAC.

>>52288665

Thanks I got it on special from Richer Sounds

>>52288706
I've used one for a while with 2.1 Genelec setup, nothing bad to say about it.

>>52286471
You don't have to do a double blind whatever if you look at the specs. S/n should be 90 db or above. Distortion should be low as possible. Dynamic range should be above 100db. Go from there.

>>52281018

Based crab.

>>52288728

No me neither. I love the foobar/ASIO setup I have as well to automatically change sampling. The only problem with mine is the LED light for the USB has failed, but it's like a 3-4 week turnaround and I'm not that bothered.

Used to be running it with some Monitor Audio BR2s which I preferred, but needed something smaller for my dorm so now I'm using Q Acoustics 3010, which still sound great.

>>52281018
Post s/n specs.

>>52281914
Still has pretty good onboard audio.

>>52280565
Why the fuck is /g/ so retarded when it comes to audio stuff?
All this shit has been explained a million times if you do a bit of searching for proper tests.

You'd think retarded audiophile shit wouldn't make it here, but faggots just have to spout their "DAC" nonsense like they know what they're talking about.