PC Audio 101

I'd like to say this is a great guide, if not one of the best bit has come out with (there all good though). I dident realise I could get my music sounding this good, and im still working on it. ;) And it's good how the poll on the fourm ties in to an actual artical. (;) thumb again)

Ill have to give lossless a try. Ive been thinking about upgrading my ancient Creative speakers anyway.

Just thought I would also point out that mp3sparks.com offers FLAC and other lossless formats for download.

I'd just like to add, speaker cables Can make a difference; I upgraded my setup from 22awg copper to 12awg silver, and they actually sound better; Everyone who hears them says so, without knowledge that I changed the wiring.

For Foobar, it's truely a pain in the ass to configure, but well worth it. Fooblog and hydrogen audio have some setups and how to use them; it's against the EULA to share the entire setup.

Hrm I've now tried two plugins for winamp, the first stutters and sounds odd (the one on the winamp site) another from elsewhere that was reccommended in the comments started working fine after I installed the asio4all drivers, and I'm inclined to say sounds a little bit better, but that said the winamp volume control has stopped functioning, so to some extent it may also just be louder! :D

I might give foobar a try later to see if I get on better with that.

Originally Posted by Bladestorm
the winamp volume control has stopped functioning...

You may find a checkbox in the plug-in config to put that right - there is for the Kernel Streaming plug-in.

edit: nope. I have the same problem with that plugin. Back to Kernel.

Ive never heard of FLAC, but monkey's audio is widely popular, and lossless as well.

I encode my stuff in 192 mp3 or higher though. Just better compatiblity with stuff and its really hard to hear the difference.

:)

I'm usually so lazy with forums and stuff like it since seems that every site has one, but hell just had to register to give thumbs up for this article. I'm bit of audiophile (I love quality sound, but I don't have enough ear to notice smallest possible differences) so this article caught my eye instantly. I have been using foobar for a long time but I had no idea about this stuff and all I can say was that this got seriously a 'WOW!' effect out of me when I was done setting everything up. I instantly noticed the difference and actually had to get up and go set my subwoofer volume levels down a bit since it felt like the windows wanted to drop on the floor. I get a noticeably clearer middle and high sounds and quite manly bass.

Thank you for these great tips, best article I have seen here this far. Maybe I will comment more articles now that I actually registered, time will tell.

I just have to point out one very simple thing. First and foremost, getting decent final output devices (amp/speakers, monitors, headphones) is the single most important thing you can do for your audio. At work, i have crappy onboard sound running through the microscopically thin pass through cables on my keyboard (Enermax Aurora) to a pair of Etymotic Research ER4 earphones and even listening to 192Kbps MP3s I can tell the difference between these and several other expensive headphones.

After that, just a move up to any discrete audio card will make a marked difference - most noticeable by the lack of interference (no popping and hissing on quiet passages). Then, by using an ASIO driver, you'll probably notice another small improvement. But, it's only at this point that you should even begin to think about moving up to higher bitrate mp3s or FLAC.

Originally Posted by Meanmotion
I just have to point out one very simple thing. First and foremost, getting decent final output devices (amp/speakers, monitors, headphones) is the single most important thing you can do for your audio. ....

QFT: ;)

People think nothing of splurging £100ish on a discrete soundcard, and still using aged speaker system. or possibly worse spending another £100ish on a 7.1 UBERBASSBOOST system... do the math people, that £12.50 worth of earbleeding UBERBASS per speaker! :P

Originally Posted by David_Fitzy
Assuming that the data stays digital. Wouldn't a on board card with digital out to optical receiver work just as well?

The point of this arcticle (one of them) was that even when the digital audio gets loaded from the HDD and sent to your soundcard, it's allready being messed with by windows etc. ASIO bypasses this ensuring you get the sound exactly in it's original form (be it MP3, flac etc.)

I tried the kernel streaming plugin in foobar, it indeed sounded a lot better - crispier on the high freq.
But I like to have all my library in WMP11 - so I searched a bit and found out that Reclock enables you to override the directsound output with a kernel streaming output - and voilà! kernel streaming in WMP too :)

Side question: I always wondered about electrical consumption differences between a simple PC speaker system and an actual amp. I know most hifi amps are sucking power whenever they're on, no matter what is output. Is that the same for a PC speaker system? I kinda always leave the sound on when I work on my comp - for sound notifications about emails, IMs, etc.
But sucking down more watts for silence puts me off. Anyone knows?

Originally Posted by zeflash
I know most hifi amps are sucking power whenever they're on, no matter what is output. Is that the same for a PC speaker system?

The vast majority of domestic amps are Class A/B with power consumption roughly proportional to the sound level. With no signal the idle current is usually under 50mA. PC speaker/amps are often Class B using even less on idle.

Only a Class A amp is "sucking (a lot of) power whenever they're on, no matter what its output" and if you don't know, you haven't got one. ;)

One thing bothering me with all this ASIO crap hype - nobody at the development or pro-user end makes any claim it sounds better. The purpose is so you can do a karaoke act with your PC backing track without so much processing lag on your vocal or instrumental input. It's an alternative driver with low latency to help sound engineers mix tracks, not some "better" method for general listening. The audiophool element are seeing the Emperor's new clothes.

If you want really good quality sound from a PC, forget the internal soundcard all together, use ASIO and a USB enabled external DAC, some say that uncompressed WAV files, played via USB to a DAC can rival some of the best CD transports. There are now a fair few on the market including those from fairly inexpensive computer brand manufacturers, DIY kits and megabucks "Hi-Fi" brands, here are a few:

http://www.stereo-link.com/Static/Products-G.html
http://www.wavelengthaudio.com/usbdac.html
http://www.perreaux.com/product.php?idp=52
http://www.hagtech.com/chime.html
http://www.aqvox.de/products.html
http://www.belcantodesign.com/prod_eOneDAC3.html
http://diyparadise.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=62

Originally Posted by xion
QFT: ;)

People think nothing of splurging £100ish on a discrete soundcard, and still using aged speaker system. or possibly worse spending another £100ish on a 7.1 UBERBASSBOOST system... do the math people, that £12.50 worth of earbleeding UBERBASS per speaker! :P

Couldn't agree more :)

Yeah it makes me cry when I see people buing omgleet-gaming-fatal1ty-sound cards for 100 € and then using some el cheapo 10€ headsets with them. It should say in the package "This card wont make you frag moar if you're not using adequate speakers/headphones!" so those people would understand it.

Originally Posted by Jipa
"This card wont make you frag moar if you're not using adequate speakers/headphones!" so those people would understand it.

lolzorz

Don't get me wrong -- I'm really happy to see people go through the effort to put these guides together and round up a great collection of software. But there are some big misconceptions in this guide that make one of the most common use cases, combining computer + existing audio system, a lot more complicated than it needs to be.

I have a lousy integrated sound chip on my motherboard (ABIT AB9 QuadGT) , and I use iTunes, yet I get bit-exact replication of the source material all the way to my external power amplifier, which is at the edge of a high-end sound system. K-mixer is not as brain-dead as the article suggests. It only resamples if there is a mismatch with what the hardware is telling it that it supports. My MB came with a Realtek utility that allows you to set a specific sampling rate on the S/PDIF output. Just set it to 44.1kHz, and K-mixer does the right thing. There is no need for foobar2000, ASIO drivers, or kernel streaming. I think many people have problems with K-mixer because their drivers aren't correctly reporting the hardware capabilities. It is certainly worth checking what your hardware can do before you make things a lot more complicated with even more software and hardware.

There's only one sentence buried in the article about using an external DAC. If you already have an audio system, this is the simplest and cheapest way to go... lots of cheap integrated sound chips have digital outputs -- there is no need to sink money into something that is just going to serve as a digital passthrough, so that the amplifier down the line can do the real work.

Hope this helps...

Which is better in terms of quality for a Sony 5.1 setup, optical or digital coax? Now which would be better for the 18-foot run from my SB Audigy 2 to my reciever?

Originally Posted by devdevil85
Which is better in terms of quality, optical or digital coax? Now which one is better for a 18 foot run?

Coax will be cheaper but optical probably better.

Originally Posted by DougEdey
Coax will be cheaper but optical probably better.

the reason why I thought coax over optical in the beginning was that I have to make a sharp corner since the end of my desk fits right next to the wall which is of course a 90 degree angle to then get to my sound card, so I thought I would lose signal, but I could always try to lessen the bend...either way I want to go optical because I think my receiver would handle the signal better than coax because coax seems fake. I am also unable to configure individual speakers. Both my center speaker and subwoffer aren't noticed in the speaker config setup screen, so I want to go optical since I think there would be more precise handling of the speaker configuration....but I have no clue....

I'm using ASIO4All with my Realtek HD, through the optical out, Headroom External DAC, Discrete Headphone amp... does this mean i'm bypassing all the crappy bits :D It sounds pretty damn sweet through my HD595's :)

You can get T-bend for optical, but it'd be best it you need to go round a corner to take it under carpet at a gently bend.

Originally Posted by audionut
I have a lousy integrated sound chip on my motherboard (ABIT AB9 QuadGT) , and I use iTunes, yet I get bit-exact replication of the source material all the way to my external power amplifier, which is at the edge of a high-end sound system. K-mixer is not as brain-dead as the article suggests. It only resamples if there is a mismatch with what the hardware is telling it that it supports. My MB came with a Realtek utility that allows you to set a specific sampling rate on the S/PDIF output. Just set it to 44.1kHz, and K-mixer does the right thing. There is no need for foobar2000, ASIO drivers, or kernel streaming. I think many people have problems with K-mixer because their drivers aren't correctly reporting the hardware capabilities. It is certainly worth checking what your hardware can do before you make things a lot more complicated with even more software and hardware.

It was my understanding from previous readings on hydrogenaudio that the kmixer will always resample the audio regardless of what sample rate you have your sound card set to. It even as I mentioned earlier resamples from 44.1 to 44.1. I believe people on HA forums use/d DTS-CDs to test whether their set up was avoiding the kmixer because if the DTS was not bit for bit identical and had been altered in any way by resampling then it simply wouldn't play. I would be interested if you could confirm whether this is no longer the case. Vista's audio architecture is different from xp's so just for reference what os are you using for this bit-exact replication from itunes?

There are a multitude of audio utilities that can rip CDs to FLAC, but only one that does it properly, the appropriately titled Exact Audio Copy.

Incorrect. The audio ripper from illustrate DMC also supports "secure ripping".

http://img337.imageshack.us/my.php?image=foobarskinkh8.jpg
Foobar is pure win.
Theme Linkage:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=566958

I'm inclined to agree with OmegaRed59 somewhat. I would consider myself somewhat enlightened on this subject due to the fact I'm in the process of doing something similar myself on SK although I'm specifying more into gaming audio and also providing a group review of headsets and earphones as well.

Some of your suggestions were quite conflicting to be fair. Why introduce ASIO when typically everyone who reads this won't be affecting the number of input or outputs in their 'system'? You could argue reduced latency but that is negligible in this day and age. I thought you were quite shameful not to mention that neither Apple OSX or Linux have such 'issues' (regarded asio and latency) but instead choose to plug your chosen programmes.

Another thing, was the entire page on speakers and cabling. Firstly I felt you completely neglected the importance of cabling. I'm of the opinion either keep it to a bare minimum in your 'system' or invest properly, because bad cable negates the point of even attempting to improve your sound. I would stick clear of all speakers when your talking about gaming to be honest. A decent pair of speakers that could do justice to even just stereophonic sound would be beyond the price range of most gamers.

Regardless of latency, bandwidth issues, how many channels or what format you encode in. The 'last step' of the journey pretty much gulfs the rest of the system by importance. You invest in a good pair of headphones or earphones (or speakers if you wish to ask for trouble) and everything will naturally benefit.