Onboard sound and SPDIF

[Freak'n Big Panda]

If your outputing digital to a external DAC does your sound card actually matter? The quality of outputted sound would be entirely reliant on the quality of your dac (in this case it would be my logitech z5500 speakers) right? Just trying to gauge if a new soundcard would be worth the investment for mainly music playback with a little gaming.

 

[Skrying]

If your outputing digital to a external DAC does your sound card actually matter? The quality of outputted sound would be entirely reliant on the quality of your dac (in this case it would be my logitech z5500 speakers) right? Just trying to gauge if a new soundcard would be worth the investment for mainly music playback with a little gaming.

Besides some electrical noise possibly, then no.

If you only do a little gaming then theirs no point in a gaming sound card, and from your speaker setup then there's no point in a dedicated DAC or a sound card for that.

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

yeah I didn't think so. My friend got a xfi plat and he swears the sounds quality is better using the analogue out and the xfi's integrated DACs vs. on board sound and SPDIF but I'm thinking it's just a placebo... is this is case or is does the xfi actually do a better job at converting digital to analogue than our z5500s? Anyways if we're talking about gaming do things start to matter? If they do why?

 

[Skrying]

yeah I didn't think so. My friend got a xfi plat and he swears the sounds quality is better using the analogue out and the xfi's integrated DACs vs. on board sound and SPDIF but I'm thinking it's just a placebo... is this is case or is does the xfi actually do a better job at converting digital to analogue than our z5500s? Anyways if we're talking about gaming do things start to matter? If they do why?

Well, the first thing is audio is extremely subjective. So......

It is possible that the onboard DACs on the X-Fi are of higher quality than the Z5500s. I have no clue for sure, but it is a real possibility.

Now, to put things in perspective, the DACs on the X-Fi's are actually pretty crappy for the cost of the card. You can buy a dedicated DAC for around the same price that is immensely better audio quality wise (of course, I'm not so sure the Z5500s would be good enough to show such a difference.)

As for gaming, the X-Fi platinum, or any X-Fi card will help when a game is using EAX. It will off load the processor and use the sound cards dedicated audio processor for this. Many say it doesnt matter, they cant tell a difference game wise, but in my experience a sound card (Creative ones if you are serious about game audio) really helps remove hitching, but not so much a FPS improvment.

If you really want to do some research then I suggest you go to head-fi.org. They have several forums, you'll want to check out the PC audio one. They'll stear you in the perfect direction, but be prepared you could end up spending so serious cash, hehe.

 

[_xxx_]

does the xfi actually do a better job at converting digital to analogue than our z5500s? Anyways if we're talking about gaming do things start to matter? If they do why?

I don't know for sure, but I think it does. X-fi has very high quality DAC's.

 

[willardjuice]

It is possible that the onboard DACs on the X-Fi are of higher quality than the Z5500s. I have no clue for sure, but it is a real possibility.

They are about the same, perhaps the X-Fi is slightly (and I mean slightly) better.

Also remember, unless if you have DDL or DTS:I, one will only get two channels from the SPDIF (unless if you are watching a movie). In this case, personally I would get the X-Fi since it has hardware acceleration and will always support the latest games. Games get too choppy with on-board.

 

[willardjuice]

I don't know for sure, but I think it does. X-fi has very high quality DAC's.

Only the Elite Pro.

The other three cards use the same DACS the Audigy 2 ZS uses.

 

[_xxx_]

Only the Elite Pro.

The other three cards use the same DACS the Audigy 2 ZS uses.

Ok, then I confused that, I thought they all have the better ones.

 

[tmp]

If you are using SPDIF for music playback, you may want to make sure that your sound card supports 44.1kHz(CD audio) output. Many(most?) integrated audios and soundcards only support 48kHz, and the 44.1kHz->48kHz conversion is not always what it should be. This may have changed - I got a nice PCI soundcard, and haven't been paying much attention since.

 

[Bolloxoid]

Like tmp said, the sound card still matters even when using SPDIF because of the internal resampling by the audio codec. The resampling is of bad quality on most consumer cards.

Hence, with most sound cards, by using digital out you'll bypass the DAC but not the resampling.

 

[_xxx_]

Hence, with most sound cards, by using digital out you'll bypass the DAC but not the resampling.

AFAIK the only cards doing resampling are Creative cards. Envy24 doesn't resample, for instance.

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

Also remember, unless if you have DDL or DTS:I, one will only get two channels from the SPDIF (unless if you are watching a movie). In this case, personally I would get the X-Fi since it has hardware acceleration and will always support the latest games. Games get too choppy with on-board.

I'm upmixing most of my music with the integrated Dolby Pro Logic II in my z5500s, so I get 5 chanels. btw why can't you send 5 descreet channels over the SPDIF interface? I never understood this.. in games like CSS for example if I use SPDIF I only get stero regardless of if I have it set for 5.1, headphones, 4.1 or w.e. It's not too big of a deal cause I just upmix it using Dolby Pro Logic II which results in pretty decent chanel seperation but still it's annoying. Is it just a matter of the game supporting the digital audio standards like most DVDs do?

Like tmp said, the sound card still matters even when using SPDIF because of the internal resampling by the audio codec. The resampling is of bad quality on most consumer cards.

Hence, with most sound cards, by using digital out you'll bypass the DAC but not the resampling.

Hmm do you think it'd be worth buying a new card to avoid the resampling problems? I'm using the integrated audio on my MSI Neo 4 Plat.

 

[_xxx_]

AFAIK SPDIF doesn't allow multiple streams simultaneously, thus you can't stream 5 channels separately.

 

[tmp]

MSI Neo 4 Platinum uses ALC850 for audio, and I think it lacks native 44.1k out. Dunno about the resampling, never had one.

A discrete sound card is nice if you have some weird requirements about the connectors(I needed coaxial S/PDIF in&out).


IEC61937 is an extension to IEC60958(S/PDIF) which allow for non-PCM datastreams. So, if this is supported(on both ends and with suitable encoding), then yes, you can stream multiple channels.

 

[Bolloxoid]

AFAIK the only cards doing resampling are Creative cards. Envy24 doesn't resample, for instance.

Anything that is AC97, which includes most of the sound cards and integrated audio chips in use, in principle does, so it is by no means exclusive to Creative. But yes, the newer Envy and C-Media solutions don't seem to do that anymore, at least obligatorily.

 

[Bolloxoid]

btw why can't you send 5 descreet channels over the SPDIF interface? I never understood this..

It is simply a bandwith issue. SPDIF is an antiquated standard designed to carry CD audio on a cheap coaxial cable. You can't cram much more bandwith on top of that.

Of course there are better solutions, like Firewire (known as i.link on audio devices) that aren't bandwith-limited and can carry as many channels that you can practically need. But because audio isn't a priority computer audio manufacturers are still living in the past decade and using SPDIF.

Is it just a matter of the game supporting the digital audio standards like most DVDs do?

Multichannel audio on DVDs is compressed, so the bandwith of SPDIF is sufficient to carry it. The issue has got nothing to do with game audio support.

Hmm do you think it'd be worth buying a new card to avoid the resampling problems? I'm using the integrated audio on my MSI Neo 4 Plat.

Can't really say anything about any particular system. But you might try software resampling plugins for your audio player if you are interested in the subject. The idea is to resample the audio output of the player to 48 kHz using a high-quality software resampling algorithm to avoid the low-quality resampling done by the audio codec. If you can hear a difference, then hardware resampling is degrading the sound quality.

 

[Guden Oden]

Envy24 doesn't resample, for instance.

It must resample, in one form or another. Envy24 doesn't support multiple hardware audio streams, so somewhere along the line (for example) a 8kHz audio stream and a 44kHz stream have to 'match speed' somehow in order to be output through the one hardware stream the soundcard does support.

 

[_xxx_]

Guden, I'm talking about native 44.1 support and thus not resampling CD's, not the resampling as such.

 

[Frank]

Not many people hear a difference nowadays. And if you want it to play MP3's, why bother?

 

[Accord1999]

Only the Elite Pro.

The other three cards use the same DACS the Audigy 2 ZS uses.

But even those ones are pretty good, same ones as used in a number of <$500 receivers.