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Yep, I would never buy them too, but it's just to prove that there are some pretty good systems with the classical line of the high fidelity.


But about this thread, no matter what amp you will use in ur computer, one made for computer or connecting cables and more cables to an heavy Hi-fi system (old or modern)... You will still be needing a good sound card 4 it.


So if the hardware outputs of any normal onboard soundcard like realtek are really the most big garbage you can get, no matter how good the amplifier you will use can be, it will amplify a very crappy sound signal. So I do recommend a PCIexpress card like the new best creative card, or a good auzentech, or an Asus xonar, or any other good sound card, they are really a must if your a pc gamer sound lover, specially for use in a good heaphones.

Pc sound-cards are pc sound-cards, you can't just go there and solder a studio huge hardware in the pc to make it work as a sound card...
Keep Cool

Haha, is that thing any good? Haven't seen the specs, but it does look like it won't make anything better .

I also don't like USB cards, which has a lower speed transfer, unless you gonna use it in a laptop!
Keep Cool

Nobody needs tons of bandwidth when all you need is to feed line level signals to an amplifier. All you need with something like that is low latency. Install and forget.

You're a total fucktard. USB 2 is more than enough for 24/192 which is more than most people need. USB 1 will cap at 24/48 I believe.

Whatever dog...

I don't like USB cards...

And also I wasen't even talking on it's full 400mbs bandwidth.

I'm talking that you won't get any better connection in a PC other than PCIexpress specially for having the lowes latency possible between all the hardware.

And also I don't know if there's any good USB soundcard that produces really a good quality sound and with high SNR of around 120db and with big impedance for who likes to use some good headphones... (don't really have any clue on that, cause I never cared for USB audio cards, and never searched 4 them).

I'm also going to buy a USB cheap sound card for my laptop, but it's only for the laptop cause my bro broke a 3.5mm sound jack inside, I drilled it and it screwed the output, it only outputs sound to one side of the headphones... >
Keep Cool

Damn, that thing it too heavy LOL... The usb card I'm gonna buy for this laptop will be the one from creative that cost like 30$, it's not much good, but all I care is being able to hear from the 2 sides of the headphones, and it must be something very little to go with the laptop (powered by usb power ).

For my Desktop I would only buy a PCI Express soundcard. PCI was slower than USB, but I do believe the latency would still be higher on the usb since it goes trough all the USB controllers and that crap, and they also depend a lot on how good is the usb controller in the motherboard.

PCIexpress is faster. But don't care much for that, it's just because it stays inside the computer, and never have to care more about it...
Keep Cool

Guily, you're spinning more opinion as fact misinformation again. There is no latency difference with PCI-e versus USB. Think about it. There's a lot of high-end studio equipment that interfaces with USB. EMU 0404 is a good example, heck I think it even had a PCI interface. If you want less latency, get rid of your useless CPU processing and use ASIO. That's what the professionals use for recording because they NEED 0 latency.

Think about it for a bit. If PCI-e was so much better than USB in terms of latency, gamer companies would make PCI-e mice with pretty lights to sell to customers as being the fastest mice ever. They don't because USB is plenty fast.

I use Reclock to synchronize audio and video playback on my computer for movies so if USB did have noticeable amounts of latency I would see it because the audio and video is synced when it leaves the CPU. Yet, the graphics go over PCI-e and the sound travels through 10-15ft of USB cable into a DAC, through a tube, into an amplifier and out the speakers in the same time. Everything looks and sounds perfectly in sync. How is that possible with your logic?

*EDIT*
Found this on Wikipedia:

PCIe sends all control messages, including interrupts, over the same links used for data. The serial protocol can never be blocked, so latency is still comparable to conventional PCI, which has dedicated interrupt lines.

I will say that PCI-e is better for studio work where you have a lot of channels coming and going and USB 2 would be overloaded. But, for 99% of computer use (including gaming), it doesn't matter.

You made one good point about that DAC being too big/heavy for your laptop for portable use. If you want a serious one, check out Fiio, they have portable DAC's that can run on batteries or off of USB power.

I don't really know about that, but there's also some PCIexpress HDD's, which aren't either SATAIII, or USB3, and they made it claiming that only the PCI express can have the fastest hardware connection directly o the motherboard. That's what some OCZ said from their 1000$ PCI EXPRESS 1TB HDD, but still I don't think it has much to do with the latency from the transfer of the SSD to the Motherboard, I believe it's only because of their bandwidth of 1GB\s of Data transfer, but still they do claim it's also the fastest way to connect to the hardware...

And yeah USB like I though is way slower on latency:

A single USB transaction takes at least 125 microseconds, and empirically usually consumes 250 microseconds, even in Linux. 125 microseconds is significant in computer-based systems, especially in the embedded world where human input is often a smaller portion of the system’s total operation. This means USB takes longer to issue control events, like setting up a mode of operation, or polling for a status change.

PCIe, on the other hand, can complete a single transaction in anywhere from a fraction of a microsecond to around two microseconds, depending on the system architecture. This low latency allows more control requests to be issued, or better timing to be achieved even when using relatively few requests. The difference in latency effectively means USB is less “real-time” than PCI Express. Many applications don’t need microsecond latencies, but only PCIe can deliver it when necessary.

A single FPGA-based PCI Express design may have three to five times the parts cost for the bus interface alone—completely excluding your circuitry! When you factor in the increased PCB, assembly, and test costs, PCIe is truly an expensive proposition compared to USB. Even if you use a COTS PCIe-to-local bus bridge chip instead of FPGAs (greatly reducing your device’s flexibility), design and parts costs exceeds USB by a significant margin.

Score one for USB for being easier and less expensive to design, and for its lower parts cost throughout.

That's why I would still go to a good gaming sound card. That's also why PC gaming designed cards are expensive too, but they do quite have very low latency and already big outputs, but the best is really their processor (which sadly is not much used lately with the gay OpenAL... Bloody Realtek and other craps can only be paying to have them, but they'r outputs are pretty ugly, that's a thing they never change in their 1€ crappy sound cards)...

How much is the cheapest little usb DAC powered by USB? (just need stereo). If there's one with better portability than the creative (little usb kind with X-FI), and if it costs the same, which is around 30 bucks, I wouldn't mind buying.
Keep Cool

I'm posting this for a friend whose audio advice (and experience) I value greatly. His current setup is:
Audio GD NFB-3, Sony 444-ESX, modded and refurbished JBL L110, Morrow Audio MA-1s, Cryo Parts USB cable, 12ga shielded volex power cables, Sennheiser HD600 with custom mogami cabling.

I'll start by saying that while there are some decent PCI-E "sound cards" they are multi-thousand dollar ADC interfaces that have external components, that often don't quite compare to higher end external ADCs. As for DACs anyone that works with professional audio has an external one, that is almost always USB 2.0 these days, occasionally Firewire. I work with recording artists, and my own music, near daily, and USB 2.0 has suited me well, both when it comes to ADCs and DACs, all run USB 2.0.

Most of the time latency is less physical and more software-based these days. If you can use something like ASIO, KS, or JACK - and circumvent any other software based audio processing than you're in the clear, and that is exactly what you want.

Most all pro audio gear today is run with USB 2.0, Firewire, or something proprietary.

On the topic of speakers, it is less about how old or new they are and more about the design and quality of the components used. There have been some outrageously good (and still relevant) speaker designs since the advent of the loudspeaker, that, while being consistently improved upon, have largely plateaued since the 70s. Coincidentally these designs, and the materials used on the better models beat just about all the consumer junk out today. My example being - it doesn't matter if you use neodymium magnets if the enclosure is made of particle board or plastic. Nor does it matter if you have a titanium Tweeter if the crossover is junk.

Its about the overall quality, and for the money, you're best off shopping around for a higher end model from the 70s/80s that you can refurbish yourself, or get someone else to do - either way the several hundred dollars (and a little time) you pump into this project will get your speakers near the multi-thousand you would need to spend today to get comparable sound. This is coming from someone that has auditioned $2k-20k+ systems. Simply, for the money - spend the time and research and buy used, then refurbish.