The mobo HD audio stuff

[the maddman]

It really seems to depend on the care taken laying the mobo out. Here at work we have HP business grade desktops, and they all have extremely clean analog outs. I get less noise from the onboard than I did from the SB Live I used before we upgraded to Win7.

I think the variance you see between motherboards is much higher than with a dedicated sound card, since more care is taken to make sure the card works.

Pretty much these days, I only listen to music either through my Blackberry or the PS3's optical out, so the sound on my laptop is for games only, and I don't really expect more than to make the noises.

 

[eastmen]

I was using onboard for a lnog time but i invested in some decent cans and then bought a forte 7.1 for its on board amp. The diffrence is night and day esp with the cs3d orwhatever its called helping to reproduce surround sound with it. I can more easily tell where sounds are coming from.

I think the saving grace on sound cards is that the x-fi is a good 4 years old. So buying a sound card once every 2-3 computer builds is really not a huge investment.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Why is everyone comparing onboard to the Creative Live! soundscards?
They are from 1998...12 years ago.

Is that the only way present onboard sound can keep up...if you compare it to +10 year old tech?

Try comparing it to cards based on the X-Fi, CMI-8770, CMI8788, Envy24HT-S or anything from this millenium...

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And they compare quite favorably as long as you don't enable the sound distorting features of the X-Fi that subtly alter the sound before it is output so that is is more pleasing to those who aren't audiophiles.

Turn off the sound processing/distortion, and it sounds virtually identical to a good MB implemention of the AL88x series of Realtek HD audio chips. Even when using purely analog out.

Just avoid the front audio jacks like the plague in most cases. As mentioned previously it's extremely rare for front audio connector cables to be shielded.

And if you are like me, that either use HDMI (HTPC to Onkyo TS-SR606) or 5.1 channel through TOSLINK (S/PDIF on game computer to Logitech Z-5500) connector then pure audio quality is often better than 5.1 through X-Fi. Again without all the sound altering processing/distortion.

I toss my old X-Fi in the case every now and then to see if I'm missing anything. But other than the sound processing, it's not worth it. Onboard audio has progressed greatly the past 5 years while the X-Fi has been pretty much stationary.

Had Creative not killed EAX by making it proprietary starting from version 3.0, there might still be a reason for me to use it, but meh, no need.

Regards,
SB

 

[Lonbjerg]

And they compare quite favorably as long as you don't enable the sound distorting features of the X-Fi that subtly alter the sound before it is output so that is is more pleasing to those who aren't audiophiles.

Turn off the sound processing/distortion, and it sounds virtually identical to a good MB implemention of the AL88x series of Realtek HD audio chips. Even when using purely analog out.

Just avoid the front audio jacks like the plague in most cases. As mentioned previously it's extremely rare for front audio connector cables to be shielded.

And if you are like me, that either use HDMI (HTPC to Onkyo TS-SR606) or 5.1 channel through TOSLINK (S/PDIF on game computer to Logitech Z-5500) connector then pure audio quality is often better than 5.1 through X-Fi. Again without all the sound altering processing/distortion.

I toss my old X-Fi in the case every now and then to see if I'm missing anything. But other than the sound processing, it's not worth it. Onboard audio has progressed greatly the past 5 years while the X-Fi has been pretty much stationary.

Had Creative not killed EAX by making it proprietary starting from version 3.0, there might still be a reason for me to use it, but meh, no need.

Regards,
SB

Not enough:
http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/audio-cards/auzentech-prelude-71/4/

 

[Npl]

Why is everyone comparing onboard to the Creative Live! soundscards?
They are from 1998...12 years ago.

Likely because I had one and the output was way worse than onboard audio. I had (still might have) an Audigy but I couldnt hear a difference to onboard with my plain ears.

Is that the only way present onboard sound can keep up...if you compare it to +10 year old tech?

I linked this earlier

Not enough:
http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/a...-prelude-71/4/

Any why do you post a review that doesnt even notes the onboard audio used? Realtek has a broad range of chips, not all are equal and Mobo layout matters aswell.
Here you have the values from a good Mobo with onboard sound, you will note that the values are quite competitive.

I dont think anyone claims that soundcards dont beat onboard, but the difference aint that big (good onboard is atleast on par with soundcards a couple years old) and you need expensive equipment to be able to hear a difference (and then its most likely a placebo effect). Which aint much of a point as if you got expensive equipment just use the digital output and the quality concerns are gone.

 

[swaaye]

Why is everyone comparing onboard to the Creative Live! soundscards?
They are from 1998...12 years ago.

Why not? The analog audio circuit design quality is what matters here unless you're using digital output. DSPs don't get much use anymore with Vista/7. An old sound card can be bliss if it has nice and clean circuitry, as good as anything recent.

A nice aspect to the Creative cards is they're great for DOSBox with their hardware MIDI synth.

Also, it feels like a little triumph to eek more life out of what I already own.

I dont think anyone claims that soundcards dont beat onboard, but the difference aint that big (good onboard is atleast on par with soundcards a couple years old) and you need expensive equipment to be able to hear a difference (and then its most likely a placebo effect).

Only if you use digital output. For analog output, onboard audio varies wildly in quality. Sometimes onboard is pretty amazing in quality, but other times its a warbly noisy mess even today. All I ask for is a noise floor that I can't really hear.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I use an Asus Xonar PCI-E 1x card under Win7 64 bit. Works great and is a noticeable improvement over the built in HD Audio on my mainboard, especially since I have a lot more control over the individual channels. Everything sounds a lot fuller now as well, and since I'm using a 5.1 Headset, the lack of noise is definitely very much appreciated.
No hassles with drivers, either. (which is why I didn't go with Creative. I heard the driver situation is a real pain under Windows 7, especially if you want true surround sound output)

 

[Albuquerque]

I will say that I've got some pretty terrible onboard audio in the Dell Optiplex 960 at my office. It's quite tinny, and has big problems with isolation on the front channels. I used the little applet to change my 2-channel audio output so that it uses the rear channel jack, and that seems to have fixed the ground isolation issues. It's still a very crappy sound though, the EQ on my media player is all whacked out looking to get it sounding even close to right.

My X38 board at home has like 100x better onboard sound, and I'm still only talking about the analog out.