Computer Sound Card for Rotel/B&W N805 setup

[bnieman]

I just bought a pair of N805 bookshelf speakers for use in my home office which I am running with a Rotel RC-995 Preamp and RB-9808X amp. I love it already but my sound card is the weakest link in the chain. I am currently using a Sound Blaster Audigy 1 as my source from the computer.

Any recommendations on a high quality sound card for my desktop computer? When I am working it's much less of a hassle to deal with music on my computer then to switch discs constantly.

I have heard good things about M-Audio cards...

Keep in mind the RC-995 preamp does not have digital input.

Thanks
Bryan

[sikoniko]

I have no experience, but I have read good things about the m-audio card as well.

[ShadowZA]

I believe that the E-MU cards are not too shabby:

http://www.creative.com/products/welcome.asp?category=237

[bnieman]

Thanks for the input guys

Anyone done any A/B comparisons?

[jack667]

M-Audio 24/96 - without a doubt, best pci soundcard for the money - mark my words!!!!

[bnieman]

Thanks Jack, looks like a great card! It has seperate RCA hookups for right and left channel right on the card... nice feature

Any significant differences in sound quality between the Audiophile 9624 card and the Audiophile 192 card?

[dknightd]

I'd suggest you get a cheap soundcard with an optical out (unless your computer already has an optical out) and use a Benchmark DAC1. I don't think there is a PCI card that can touch that combo.

[bnieman]

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't the sound card process the sound and turn it into a digital PCM bit stream? (unless of course you are sending it an untouched DTS or Dolby Digital stream)

I had my Audigy sound card hooked up through the digital coax connection to my Rotel RSP-1068/RMB-1075 set up with my B&W 703s and anything but DTS or Dolby Digital pass through sounded terrible (the difference in quality between playing the same song through my Pioneer Elite 79AVi DVD-A/SACD player and the computer was staggering)

If it isn't the job of the sound card to create the PCM bit stream then whose job is it?

This is a subject that has always perplexed me.

[dknightd]

I'm not really familiar with PC sound processing (I'm a Mac guy), but my understanding is that unless you do direct kernel streaming there is this k-mixer thing that determines what gets sent to the soundcard - typically it resamples everything to 48khz. As I understand it, the soundcard in a PC takes the digital stream that is sent to it and converts it to analog, or a PCM stream, or DTS or other surround format. I think the best solution is to have the soundcard recieve 44khz digital signal (easy on a mac, doable on a PC) and convert it to an optical signal, then send the optical to an external DAC. I prefer optical for this because it isolates the DAC from the PC electrically - no direct ground hash to worry about. If you are interested in using a computer as a srouce a good place to visit is http://www.head-fi.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59

Some think a PCI card is just fine. and it may well be. I pretty sure you can do better than an Audigy card. And again, with a Microsoft driven PC you have to jump through a few hoops to make sure the signal is sent out bit perfect - at least that is my understanding.

[jjahshik32]

I would like to know as well.. I dont know what kind of sound card that the mac pro has.. but thats what I use and running via line in via 705's sounds really good but is there another way to run them?

[dknightd]

The mac pro has optical digital out. I have two mac music systems. At home I use G5 optical out to Benchmark DAC1. At work I have Mac Pro (used to be another G5) feeding optical to an Entech DAC (probably no longer available). In the past Mac analog output has not been too bad, but could be easily be beat using an external DAC. I have not compared the mac pro analog out to its digital out with an external DAC. Maybe if time allows I'll try that. I suspect however that using an external DAC will still be of benefit - this preconception might contaminate the comparison (frankly it is difficult to do serious comparisons in my work office - too much other noise, and speakers are not as good as in my home).

From what I've tried so far.
G5 desktop analog about equal to mac book pro analog output.
Benchmark DAC1 clearly better than both.
Entech DAC a step down from benchmark, but better than M-Audio audiophile firewire,
and better than both built in soundcards.
M-audio firewire better than built in sound card on G5.
Based on that, and previous experience with Macs, I would be surprised if the mac pro built in card was better than using an external DAC. I've never heard a stock PC analog output that was better than a stock Mac soundcard. But I have heard aftermarket PCI cards in a PC that were better than the built in Mac soundcard.

I love using a computer as music source. But I think an external DAC is the best way to do that. YMMV

[jjahshik32]

ahh no more money right now for external dac =( just bought 705's =D

[dknightd]

ahh no more money right now for external dac =( just bought 705's =D

Take your time. No reason to rush. Just something to keep in mind for the future.

Edit: If the amp you bought to drive those speakers has an optical digital input you might consider giving it a try. All it will cost is the price of a cable - a cheap one is fine for a quick comparison.

[bnieman]

Thank you for all the input dknightd, I really appreciate it.

In my sound card settings I am able to specify what sample rate to convert to (44.1, 48, or even 96 khz) but I still think the weak link in the chain would be the direct kernel streaming or the k-mixer (neither of which I have heard of before your post.) They are obviously doing an extremely important job. They have to convert any audio stream (wav, mp3, wmv, internet audio) to a usable format by the sound card.

Does every sound card use the same k-mixer? Who made the k-mixer? Is this something that is determined by your operating system, motherboard, sound card or other?

This is all very confusing...

Bryan

[dknightd]

Again, I'm not a PC guy. But my understanding is that k-mixer is part of the Microsoft Windows OS. Apparently it converts everything to 48 khz, then passes that on to the soundcard. Kernel streaming is a way to bypass k-mixer and send 44.1 direct to the soundcard. If you go to the link I posted above, I think you'll find the anwers to your question - search for k-mixer, or kernel streaming, or asio. Somebody must have put together a guide on how to do this stuff. . .

[bnieman]

Will do, thanks

[madcat]

bnieman, lots of people tends to buy emu 1212m or 0404 soundcard and use spdif hook it to dac of their choice (most popular choice is either benchmark dac1 or bel canto 2/3) and use either xlr or rca connection to their amp.
To get the best sound out of windows is to bypass the kmixer. You can use either kernel or ASIO driver through foobar2k or winamp.

[bnieman]

Thanks madcat I will try your method to bypass the kmixer.

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

[Miroku]

My hifi dealer has been pointing people towards a Musical Fidelity DAC called the X-DAC I think. It actually has a USB input, so its sort of made for being hooked up to computers. I think via USB you dont even need a sound card because the DAC does everything.

I heard it set up with an iMAC and wilson sophias at their shop and it sounded great playing back MP3s!

http://www.musicalfidelity.com/products/xseries/xdacv8.html

I think they said it retails for $1500, which is a little more expensive than the benchmark dac, but it does have some other interesting features like a button to switch from solid state sound to tube sound. Pretty cool stuff!
:T

[madcat]

Benchmark DAC1 and Bel Canto DAC3 also has a USB port as well.

[BassThatHz]

"I had my Audigy sound card hooked up through the digital coax connection to my Rotel RSP-1068/RMB-1075 set up with my B&W 703s and anything but DTS or Dolby Digital pass through sounded terrible"

This is because the Audigy and Audigy 2 cards from Creative upsample or downsample everything to 48khz. Not only that but so does the k-mixer, so you are actually getting double re-sampling. To make things even worse the old creative cards will then re-sample it again at the output to 44.1 or 96khz if needed... just crazy.

Since all CD are 44.1khz this basically means forced re-sampling at least twice.

Since DTS and Dolby Digital pass-thru require's an unmodifed stream it will sound better in this case, even though its a lossy compression (like MP3).

I use Creative's X-FI series which has bit-perfect output and allows you to choose the output rate from 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96khz. I know its bit-perfect because I can stream a DTS signal hidden within a 44.1khz PCM format and my processor decodes it just fine.

I choose this card because I also like multi-channel gaming with EAX effects.

I also run a dual-boot, xp and vista, bit-perfect or not, Vista audio sounds better to me; am I crazy or is this just placebo effect?
To make things even weirder the DTS-PCM trick doesn't work in Vista, which means Creative's current Vista drivers aren't PCM bit-perfect yet.

I just downloaded their newest audio-console from the Sept 12, I'll give it a try but I'm not holding my breath.

I just don't buy this optical/coax noise thing, the output is either recieved by the processor as a one or a zero (no other option). The signal is +/-0.5V or more so you would have to have an inverse polarity of greater than half a volt to flip a single bit (that's some big noise).

I got curious to see if one could detect a single flipped bit, so I recorded a five second sample of a piano piece, Saved it to disk and opened it with a hex editor; I picked a random spot near the middle and changed an FF to 7F which is the most significant bit in Hex.

The result is that YES it is possible to hear the 23 microsecond long distortion even though 2-Channel 16bit 44.1khz audio is zooming along at ~1.4 million bits per second.

I also found that with heavy rock you can flip as many as 1640 consecutive bits and barely hear the difference; so it is highly dependant on the type/randomness of the music.

This further goes to prove that non-optical digital is neither flipping nor introducing signifficant enough noise to flip bits, as I would be able to hear that in the full piano peice given enough playbacks over time; that and the fact that it would be dropping DD and DTS packets like crazy as they are CRC checked before being decoded.

Very common/cheap card for optical digital output.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=12624&vpn=AV-710&manufacture=CHAINTECH%20COMPUTER

[bnieman]

Very informative BassThatHz! I suspected the sampling to 48khz because the only mode that would play when using ASIO output from WinAmp was when I set resampling to 48khz otherwise I wouldn't hear anything if it tried to pass the original encoded sampling rate (and this was even using the analog output on the card.)

I have spent a ridiculous amount of money on my home audio lately and I just cannot justify a ~$1000 DAC right now. I think I will go with the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 and use the analog outputs for now... in the future I can always use the digital output on the card to send it to an external DAC.

Also, I agree with you 100% on the optical vs coax digital debate. I also like your scientific approach to debunking it

Cheers,
Bryan

[jjahshik32]

The mac pro has optical digital out. I have two mac music systems. At home I use G5 optical out to Benchmark DAC1. At work I have Mac Pro (used to be another G5) feeding optical to an Entech DAC (probably no longer available). In the past Mac analog output has not been too bad, but could be easily be beat using an external DAC. I have not compared the mac pro analog out to its digital out with an external DAC. Maybe if time allows I'll try that. I suspect however that using an external DAC will still be of benefit - this preconception might contaminate the comparison (frankly it is difficult to do serious comparisons in my work office - too much other noise, and speakers are not as good as in my home).

From what I've tried so far.
G5 desktop analog about equal to mac book pro analog output.
Benchmark DAC1 clearly better than both.
Entech DAC a step down from benchmark, but better than M-Audio audiophile firewire,
and better than both built in soundcards.
M-audio firewire better than built in sound card on G5.
Based on that, and previous experience with Macs, I would be surprised if the mac pro built in card was better than using an external DAC. I've never heard a stock PC analog output that was better than a stock Mac soundcard. But I have heard aftermarket PCI cards in a PC that were better than the built in Mac soundcard.

I love using a computer as music source. But I think an external DAC is the best way to do that. YMMV

hey is optical digital out the same plug from the back of the xbox 360? I see it on the mac pro.. but my amp doesnt have optical out =( because its pretty old..

[dknightd]

hey is optical digital out the same plug from the back of the xbox 360? I see it on the mac pro.. but my amp doesnt have optical out =( because its pretty old..

Probably. Don't know, don't have an xbox

[george_k]

I have a friend that runs his own small recording studio, according to him creative labs sound cards (even the new audigy's) were no good because the lag they introduced between his key presses on his sample console and his PC and recording software.

He found a used pro audio card from Event Electronics for sale and picked it up for his main machine.

He's also impressed with the sound card built into his macbook

[BWzes03]

For what its worth, I've had serveral SB's (Live! 5.1, Audigy, Audigy2 ) and now using the M-audio Audiophile 2496 and couldn't be happier.
The sound from this little card is amazing and makes you wonder why you've even bothered with anything from Creative in the past....
there's no EMU chip that can beat the Via Envy HT for sound quality.

Plus the added bonus of having proper RCA in and outputs.
and using the break-out cable having proper RCA based S/P-DIF out and inputs.

Just my € 0.02

[jjahshik32]

to use optical out.. I have a mac pro with optical out.. but not my amp.. is there a way to connect the two like a converter cable or something?

[akhter]

imho the creative xfi cards are damn good.