Winter Audio Reference: On-Board, Consumer, and Pro Solutions
by Derek Wilson on February 3, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
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Final Words
Intel HD audio quality isn't the highest in the industry for on-board design. This is fine for an average user, but if Intel is pushing on-board audio experience, they should make some enhancements to signal quality. Listening at higher volumes to quiet tracks could sometimes give the hint of a little noise that wasn't supposed to be there. Overall, the listening experience was very good for Intel's solution. And their audio enhancement software by Sonic Focus actually does a good job of delivering on its promises where all other software of a similar sort (that this reviewer has heard) falls short.
The SoundBlaster Audigy 2 isn't the best for straight audio listening. The card has IMD problems at the very often used 16-bit/44.1kHz setting (CD's, MP3's, games), which seems to produce a slight coloration of the audio. This doesn't matter as much (at all?) for movies and games, but for listening to CDs and music files, we would expect better. As a consumer card, where the target is for an entertainment systemm the Audigy 2 offers a good setup, especially when movies and gaming will be a central focus of the machine. For those who wish to dabble in recording, the Audigy 2 is certainly better than an on-board solution and offers 24-bit/96kHz recording of either analog or digital sources.
The Gina3g hits the numbers really well in some cases, but falls short in places where we'd rather see them do better. Our test would have looked better if we had an external balanced device to test against, as our loopback test created a ground loop. Listening to the Gina3g was a very clean experience, although setting up surround is interesting with the configurable ¼ inch outputs, and buying proper converters was interesting. The Gina3g is made more to be a cog in a machine than something to be listened to, but it does very well in a pinch. Of course, if the plan is to listen on the same machine as well as be used in recording, a separate audio card may be desired. The Gina3g can only maintain one sampling rate at a time and will alter all sampling rates to the most recently requested. In other words, if we're recording at 96kHz, and half way through, I double click a 44.1kHz audio track that plays on my Gina3g, half of my recording is going to sound really high pitced and fast when I play it back. This is avoidable if a separate audio card is used for playback while the Gina3g is recording (though, we would still recommend against doing this).
Interestingly, the Audigy 4 is a top performer in our tests, as the improved build quality serve to mask some of the issues that we've seen with the Audigy 2. We would still like to see balanced I/O, and truly reprogrammable sampling rates (to avoid the 44.1kHz resampling issue and IMD problems altogether). But overall, the Audigy 4 Pro is a welcome improvement to the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. Not so much that we would recommend upgrading, but if you have to choose between them, we would point in the direction of the Audigy 4.
But that is by no means a conclusion to audio here at AnandTech. The preceding was meant to cut a cross section through PC audio. We've touched on integrated solutions, consumer add-in products, and professional cards. In future audio reviews, we will be using the cards from this review as a reference point for other products in their respective categories. As audio makes a return to the pages of AnandTech, we hope to bring out reviews of products based from the likes of M-Audio, Terratec, EMU, RME, DigiDesign, MOTU, Lynx, C-Media, NVIDIA, Analog Devices, more Realtek, and anything else you can suggest to us. We will also try to include older cards (such as the SB Live! and Turtle Beach cards) for reference in future articles as well.
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SkillS - Friday, June 13, 2008 - link
Pleas Do not review audio cards here,your knowledge of the subject is highly limited,
your testing methods with adapters for christ sake are more then questionable,
your pairing of pro audio cards with "demands" like EAX are laughable ,
and it all leads to one thing - Confusing Buyers,
Please stop this nonsense.
Stick to something you DO have a clue about.
NEVERwinter - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
so..., where's the roundup?I'd like to see these cards (compared to those already in the article):
envy24 (terratec DMX xfire 24/96)
envy24ht (terratec aureon universe, audiotrak prodigy 7.1, m-audio revolution 7.1)
realtek alc850 onboard
nvidia nf2 soundstorm
turtle beach santa cruz?
lynx, emu, motu and digi002 is also a good addition
by the way, i read somewhere that revolution 5.1 has better DAC than revo 7.1. is that true?
flachschippe - Thursday, March 10, 2005 - link
That should be "head-related *transfer* function" (HRTF), not "head-related transform function". The transfer function of a signal-transferring system is the reaction of the system's output signal to an impulse input signal.S0me1X - Saturday, February 5, 2005 - link
#83For the pure digital out card, go with AV710 because it can be flashed with Prodigy 7.1 firmware. Then you can install Prodigy 7.1 drivers (which are much better than Via's OEM drivers). This gives bit-perfect digital out for only $25.
Note that the AV710 only supports digital out via Toslink. So if your receiver does not accept toslink, then EMU0404 is the only choice.
Link to AV710 on newegg
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?desc...
Link to info about flashing to Prodigy firmware
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=75...
The AV710 has decent 2 channel analog out (in high res mode), but the EMU0404/1212 better.
DerekWilson - Saturday, February 5, 2005 - link
Disdain for 2 channel?I actually mentioned that I prefered listening to the dream theatre dvd in 2 channel ... i prefer all music listening in 2 channel actually ...
There are not many good 2 channel 24/192kHz DVD-Audio offerings out there ... does anyone have any good suggestions? Most of the stuff I like is mixed into 6 channel. Which just feels wrong for anything but techno or orchestral stuff that tries to put you at the prime listening point of a music hall or something.
Also, note I used rather nice 2 channel headphones while the sonic quality of my surround solution was no where near as good. It was more to test compatibility.
We are certainly open to suggestions on what and how to test to better suit our readers though :-)
Derek Wilson
sparky001 - Saturday, February 5, 2005 - link
#70 - S0me1XThanks for the comment on what I should use. I thought I should clarify. I need two seperate PC's (HTPC's) one is for my room and needs analog out. The other is for a the lounge room and will use digital out into an Onkyo 701 reciever.
What cards should I use for this?
#80.
Correct I would like to see the reviews a little more accomodating to 2 channel audio. All CD's are stereo and they are still the dominant format.
Maleficus - Saturday, February 5, 2005 - link
CSMR - Saturday, February 5, 2005 - link
Everyone's asking for so many things to be reviewed. It makes more sense IMO to do a general article on how to get good sound from a PC. Something for beginners, like the excellent articles on taking pictures which have appeared recently. PC audio is really quite simple; but you won't know how it works without digging for information.Gooberslot - Saturday, February 5, 2005 - link
I'd like to see the AV-710 and the Revo 5.1 reviewed. That emu 0404 doesn't look too bad either.I do wish the reviewer didn't have such disdain for 2.x solutions. Not everyone has room or money for a surround sound system.
LocutusX - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link
For those of you with Audigy 2's who want to get the highest quality possible from 44.1KHz sources - you don't necessarily need to spend the $$$ buying a new sound card.Instead, configure either Foobar or Winamp to resample to 48KHz in the output plugin. Both have versions of the high quality "SSRC" plugin available. For Winamp, you need to search for DirectSound 2.0 with SSRC output plugin. There is also an ASIO plugin with built-in SSRC resampling. The results of ABX double-blind tests seem to suggest that going this route is an effective substitution for one of the better Non-Resampling cards...