Subject: Re: CD player From: Steve Beet <steve.beet@xxxxxxxx> Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:17:57 -0000 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>> -----Original Message----- > 2010/1/27 Neil Waterman <neil.waterman@xxxxxxxx>: > > If you go this route, note that the general run-of-the-mill soundcard that > > comes as part of a PC-bundle or laptop is not a very high-quality piece of > > kit > > As far as I know these is not true anymore with newer motherboards. I recently tried out a rather useful piece of free software - RightMark Audio Analyser - which tests sound cards, and I did a number of measurements of a couple of different laptops, two USB sound cards, and one desktop motherboard-based sound card. None of these were even close to being "top of the line", but as you say, most of the modern cards do seem pretty good for sound output. The same wasn't true for input though. The biggest difference in sound output was in the low frequency response - those cards which don't operate right down to DC often have a roll-off which starts at quite a high frequency (even as high as 100 Hz). There were also significant differences in distortion, but none of them were really bad. The differences on the input side were dominated by noise levels: both the laptops' built-in sound cards were prone to quite bad electrical noise, especially if the signal level was low. The desktop motherboard sound card was much better, but the cleanest were the USB sound cards. Overall the best audio quality was from the cheapest USB sound card (Behringer UCA-202). The down-side is that it doesn't have any "bells and whistles" - no analogue recording level control, for example, so you usually need to drive it with a pre-amp if you're using it for input. So as usual, the moral is - don't judge a sound card by its price tag.