Digital Audio Myths - Listening on a PC

MikeEnRegalia wrote: maidenrulez wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: maidenrulez wrote: Wich basically means that if we record speech wich got a bandwith of about 3khz then you would need a samplingfrequency of 6khz Exactly. The reason why modern soundcards (and SACD) use sampling frequencies up to 192khz is that when you process digital sound (add reverb, eq ... anything) the rasterisation used during A/D conversion can cause artefacts ... nasty enharmonic overtones. So you need a large safety margin, although twice the frequency is enough if the signal is just played back. Yup NOMATTER how good your sound cards there is really a huge limitation in using the PCI-bus because it has great limitiations when it comes to sound.  What does the bus have to do with it?

Infact CREATIVE wich is a huge manufacturer of sound card admitted that there where no point in making their sound card's better until they have gotten a better BUS to fit it... Actually they are working for a special bus only for sound-cards that should be optimal

MikeEnRegalia wrote: maidenrulez wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: maidenrulez wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: maidenrulez wrote: Wich basically means that if we record speech wich got a bandwith of about 3khz then you would need a samplingfrequency of 6khz Exactly. The reason why modern soundcards (and SACD) use sampling frequencies up to 192khz is that when you process digital sound (add reverb, eq ... anything) the rasterisation used during A/D conversion can cause artefacts ... nasty enharmonic overtones. So you need a large safety margin, although twice the frequency is enough if the signal is just played back. Yup NOMATTER how good your sound cards there is really a huge limitation in using the PCI-bus because it has great limitiations when it comes to sound.  What does the bus have to do with it? Infact CREATIVE wich is a huge manufacturer of sound card admitted that there where no point in making their sound card's better until they have gotten a better BUS to fit it... Actually they are working for a special bus only for sound-cards that should be optimal The bus doesn't affect digital playback in any way. Of course if they want to transmit 7.1 signals in 24bit/192khz you'd need PCIe ...

Nope actually PCI-E is even worse...i can explain later but for now i gotta go...so bye then...

cobb wrote: Hey guys, I've just done some research on the MPC cable from cdrom to soundcard. I did this because I know for a fact that I have installed computers without a cable attached and they have not produced sound from the cdrom. Now, it appears that the cable is a direct connection to stream audio to a soundcard and if the MPC cable is present this is how the audio will be fed to the card. The CPU has nothing to do with sound other than to start the player. If the cable is not present then WDM drivers must be present on the system so the standard bus can be used. The WDM drivers will encourage the problems that have been discussed. Am I correct in this?

Which problems? 

cobb wrote: maidenrulez wrote: There has even been sound card with TUBES on...regardless of how much money you spend on your soundcard it will not sound right as the PCI-INTERFACE in wich the soundcards are put is not designed for optimal sound performance at all The one that is alluded to above. I should have said may in my final sentence, as I don't know whether or not WDM drivers have any inherent problems in sound reproduction. But even if they do, the point is moot if there is an MPC cable connecting the cdrom to soundcard, as the PCI bus will not be used for sound transference.

1. There's nothing wrong with the PCI bus, it does not change the audio data in any way
2. Using the analog connection between drive and soundcard is about 10 times worse.

cobb wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Using the analog connection between drive and soundcard is about 10 times worse. Where does this information come from? I'd be interested to read up on it. Why do we connect the cd and card together if this is worse?

This was done more than five years ago, when sound cards were limited to the ISA bus.

What happens is this:

1. The drive reads the digital audio and converts it to analog. This is not the primary function of a computer CD drive, so not the best D/A converters are used, and the result is a reasonably good signal at best, a bad jittery one at worst.
2. Then the signal is routed via a cheap analog cable without proper shielding to the sound card.
3. The sound card converts the signal to digital again. It's like recording analog audio through the line in - it has to be digitized, and this ALWAYS results in signal degradation.  The signal is also sometimes distorted, or sometimes too weak, because some CDs are "louder" than others ...
4. From here on the signal path is the same as for digitally extracted audio. But in the following D/A conversion (either in the amp or the soundcard) the errors introduced by the previous A/D conversions multiply.

cobb wrote: Okay- thanks Mike. So I should pull out the cord then! Not too sure that WindowsDM driver would not be just as buggy as any other Windows product, though

You can remove the connection and test if the audio still works ... it should, unless it's a really old soundcard (like from the 90's).