Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 13:02:11 +0000 () From: PB <pb@wave.campus.luth.se> To: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: High fidelity sound cards Message-ID: <199811191302.NAA22271@wave.campus.luth.se>
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----- Forwarded message from pb ----- >From pb Thu Nov 19 13:00:29 1998 Subject: Re: High fidelity sound cards To: drussell@saturn-tech.com (Doug Russell) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 13:00:29 +0000 () In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.981119015926.2887A-100000@calvin.saturn-tech.com> from "Doug Russell" at Nov 19, 98 02:21:22 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2548 There is a shop in my town that sell a PCI-Turtle Beach soundcard. And the card is said to be 100% soundblaster compatible. The real good thing is that it has a S/P-DIF output. If you want, I can find the exact model ID. I think to have any fair chance to make good sound out of a PC-box you must use digitial (AES/AUB , S/P-DIF) output from the soundcard to an external D/A. (some info at http://wave.campus.luth.se/~pb/comp/audio/digital_if.html) When you use an external D/A u can also start to using professional equipment. Feels somehow tempting to just use an ECP/EPP parallell port to feed an external D/A :-) /Peter Doug Russell wrote: > >Does anyone know of a sound card (supported by FreeBSD, of course) that is >"better than normal"? i.e. Better frequency response through the audio >band, better signal:noise ratio, less static in the background, certainly >a seperate non-amplified line out, etc. > >I'd like to use the best cards possible for the main stereo in the living >room, etc. in my audio server for my whole-house audio system. Right now, >my main is an old SoundBlaster multi-CD (CT2230). This card is mildly >nice because it has a seperate line and amplified out, but I've yet to >actually connect it to one of the "big" stereos and see about noise, etc. >Noise is always especially annoying anywhere that headphones might be >used, too. For general purpose, I also have 5 AD1815 cards, and 2 >CT-4170s (or some such number - I don't have one close). None of these >others have working bass/treble controls, either, which is mildly annoying >as a bedroom or something is the one is where you'd actually USE those >controls. > >Anyway... I remember an old PC Magazine article some years ago about the >new 16-bit sound cards of the day, and that the Turtle Beach >somethingorother had by far the best sound quality. In fact, the response >graph was flat... Every other card was significantly off. Some dropped >off well over 3db, well above "regular" cutoff (20Hz, 22.1 Khz, etc.) > >A few things have changed since then, no doubt, however, I have a funny >feeling that today's cheapo brand-X card probably doesn't have the hottest >sound quality, whereas I've no doubt that several of the better models are >very, very good. > >So... Does anyone have some more recent test results that could point me >to, or some specs on some possible "good" cards? > >Later...... <Doug> > > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message > ----- End of forwarded message from pb ----- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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