Who Killed PC Audio, and will Soundcards Ever Be a Thing Again?

[BulletDust]

Audio in general went down with the introduction of MP3. Most people thought is was cooler to have an ipod stuffed with 10,000 songs of crappy quality then 'only' 1000 songs of good quality audio. I never considered myself an audiophile, but somewhere in that narrow valley between utter crap and ultra high-end. Many of my friends back in the day burned MP3 audio CDs with 100 songs on them, and I couldn't stand it. I had to have actual CDs played through my aftermarket midgrade car audio system. I can also remember buying a $200 Sony 5.1 surround system when I was 16 that always blew my friends away. The opening sequence of Gladiator was amazing. Even then, I see very few of my friends with anything but the TV speakers being used with their new 1080p/4k tvs all these years later.
Audio has been in a black hole for the last 15 years I would say. The problem is, unlike video, audio quality is hard to quantify. Everybody KNOWS a 1080p tv is better than a 480i TV. You also have things like screenshots and Best Buy displays. Sure, audio has things like dB SNR, but since it is logarithmic, the average person doesn't understand what a huge difference there is between 90 dB and 110 dB. "Why should I pay 50% more for a slight increase." Perhaps if they converted it to watts, people would wrap their heads around it better. Other specs like 24-bit audio are never sexy either. Also, marketing blemishes like Monster cable (and Best Buy!) trying to sell them $100 RCA cables while optical cables had been out for some time, left people all kinds of confused on where to spend their hard earned dollar. I could go on and on about why audio continues to fail against video/picture.
Photography saw a degradation with the number of megapixel wars but it only lasted a short while when people actually started to care about the quality of the pixels. Maybe VR will cause people to wise up in regards to audio as well.

I remember reading that a 128kbps MP3 was the equivalent of CD quality, my ass it is! I can even hear the low bitrate audio being played on the radio these days.

 

[Meeho]

As far as this goes, I appear to be in good company, as Jason Stoddard, one of the founders of Schiit Audio (a company I admire) has expressed very similar views in his "book" about the founding of his company on Head-fi.

As far as science goes, I don't think anyone is saying that there are subjective qualities that can never be measured. That would be anti-science. What is being suggested - however - is that maybe there are things that we are not yet measuring that can explain some of the subjective impressions that the typical measurements can't. If you read the post I linked above, you'll see the pains they go through to measure and spec their stuff. You'd also see him describe certain things that he just can not describe in measurements. He briefly mentions a test of theirs which includes multi-tone distortion. He doesn't have enough of a statistical sample size to prove anything yet, but he suggests it correlates very well with the subjective impressions of his trusted listeners, as well as helps find flaws in equipment that otherwise measures very well.

As a Quality Engineer I do a lot of measurements and statistics, and I'll be the first to admit that even on well understood subjects, we don't understand and know how to measure everything.

Sticking with one set of measurements and being closed to the possibility that there might be other ways to measure things isn't science. That's dogma.

But let's assume you are right. Lets assume for a moment that the difference is all placebo and wasted money, and he believes that taping $100 bills to his forehead improves his sound, and when he does he actually experiences an improvement in sound (due to placebo), who are you or anyone else to tell him he can't, or shouldn't?

You're misinterpreting my position. I didn't state that no differences measured = no differences exist. Any currently unmeasureable but existing differences can be accounted for in blind and ABX tests, yet those showed time and time again that even the most confident believers in stark differences couldn't tell the equipment apart. I don't want to stop anyone from buying anything they want. There might be properties that make all the difference to them, but difference in sound is not one of them. Actually, they even truly can hear a difference in many cases, it's just an imagined one. But to claim to others something that is not true requires evidence to back it up.

The beauty of relience on objective evidence is you're not married to a belief and can accept change in position when opposite is proven.

 

[Meeho]

Audio in general went down with the introduction of MP3. Most people thought is was cooler to have an ipod stuffed with 10,000 songs of crappy quality then 'only' 1000 songs of good quality audio. I never considered myself an audiophile, but somewhere in that narrow valley between utter crap and ultra high-end. Many of my friends back in the day burned MP3 audio CDs with 100 songs on them, and I couldn't stand it. I had to have actual CDs played through my aftermarket midgrade car audio system. I can also remember buying a $200 Sony 5.1 surround system when I was 16 that always blew my friends away. The opening sequence of Gladiator was amazing. Even then, I see very few of my friends with anything but the TV speakers being used with their new 1080p/4k tvs all these years later.
Audio has been in a black hole for the last 15 years I would say. The problem is, unlike video, audio quality is hard to quantify. Everybody KNOWS a 1080p tv is better than a 480i TV. You also have things like screenshots and Best Buy displays. Sure, audio has things like dB SNR, but since it is logarithmic, the average person doesn't understand what a huge difference there is between 90 dB and 110 dB. "Why should I pay 50% more for a slight increase." Perhaps if they converted it to watts, people would wrap their heads around it better. Other specs like 24-bit audio are never sexy either. Also, marketing blemishes like Monster cable (and Best Buy!) trying to sell them $100 RCA cables while optical cables had been out for some time, left people all kinds of confused on where to spend their hard earned dollar. I could go on and on about why audio continues to fail against video/picture.
Photography saw a degradation with the number of megapixel wars but it only lasted a short while when people actually started to care about the quality of the pixels. Maybe VR will cause people to wise up in regards to audio as well.

Most people don't care about picture quality either. How many times have I entered into people's homes to see a TV with horrid picture that could be improved with a couple of basic settings tweaks. Hell, even just changing from Dynamic to Normal. Megapixel war is present in TVs now. 4K, 5K, 8K, when the quality of those pixels is bad on most sets. Washed out or neon colors, no contrast, smearing movement...
60 Hz TN LCDs are still the standard and Bose is considered top quality. We went from Aureal 3D to front panel connected integrated stereo.

 

[BulletDust]

You're misinterpreting my position. I didn't state that no differences measured = no differences exist. Any currently unmeasureable but existing differences can be accounted for in blind and ABX tests, yet those showed time and time again that even the most confident believers in stark differences couldn't tell the equipment apart. I don't want to stop anyone from buying anything they want. There might be properties that make all the difference to them, but difference in sound is not one of them. Actually, they even truly can hear a difference in many cases, it's just an imagined one. But to claim to others something that is not true requires evidence to back it up.

The beauty of relience on objective evidence is you're not married to a belief and can accept change in position when opposite is proven.

Except your talking about electronic phenomenon that we know exists and can measure and view in real time. I'm not just talking about some seat of the pants placebo effect, I'm talking about switching distortion as a result of different amplifier designs.

Class D 'digital' amplifiers on a chip are vastly different to discrete class A,AB,B mosfet designs, out of every design of amplifier class D suffers from switching distortion the worst and it is very audible especially in older slower designs. As with everything there are tradeoffs. Class A has the best sound quality but the worst efficiency and therefore power output - So you wouldn't use class A for sound reinforcement applications. Class AB/B utilises two transistors in a push/pull configuration, efficiency is vastly improved over class A designs but switching distortion due to the use of a transistor for each half of the sine wave is a measurable and very audible problem - AB/B is more suited to higher power application and in the past sound reinforcement. The newer class D amplifiers are basically switchmode power supplies and suffer the most from switching distortion, an effect that is very real, very measurable and totally audible on decent source material (running all your music as low bitrate MP3's off an iPod is going to sound crap no matter what D/A converters, amplifiers and speakers you throw at the problem) - Class D amplifiers usually find application in subwoofers and electronics where space and heat output is a definite issue. These days digital designs are making their way into sound reinforcement application due to their capability for high power output with low heat and power consumption when used in dense rack mounted applications, sound quality isn't of paramount importance in sound reinforcement.

I haven't even begun to get into the susceptibility of clipping in differing designs and the massive effect that has on sound quality not to mention speaker life.

It's like claiming that 400HP is 400HP no matter what the engine. That's simply not the case as the characteristics of a 400HP turbo four cylinder engine are going to be compleately different to the characteristics of a large capacity 400HP V8 - This is measurable and observable behaviour, it's the tradeoff between horsepower, space, weight and fuel efficiency.

 

[BulletDust]

Back in the day of direct reflecting loudspeakers Bose were awesome. These days they make crappy docks and I agree, they're complete shit.

Hell, even Nakamichi make bloody iPod docks now!

 

[sirgallium]

Nope.

Yeah yeah slight exaggeration but still I'm more right than you might think. Read a bit about modern DACs and how much distortion they have. They have extremely high SNR even the cheaper ones.

I have this Xonar card which was very expensive when it came out about 10 years ago, many hundreds of dollars:

Now the dragonfly dac costs 80 dollars and absolutely blows away the sound quality of that Xonar card.

This is why sound cards are not as popular as they used to be.

Additionally onboard audio used to not be a standard thing 10+ years ago (unless you were getting into the higher end motherboards) which forced a certain amount of the market to buy sound cards.

They've become obsolete in form factor, USB has more than enough bandwith and power now and it's much easier to install a usb device than an actual card, not to mention cheaper to manufacture, so if it has the same capabilities why would you use a card?

 

[sirgallium]

I still have my Roland SC-55.. I keep it because most older games soundtracks were meant for it. The SoundBlaster was OK, but never as good as what the Roland did.

What is that midi that the roland is doing? It sounds really good.

Yamaha soft synth gives super nice synth sounds in a convenient software solution if you can manage to find and install it. I probably have it backed up somewhere.

I love having classic hardware that was made for a purpose like that. Very cool. I'm not saying softsynth could replace it it probably has different sound samples, just a friendly suggestion in case anybody comes across it.

 

[sirgallium]

That being said, moving from consumer on board DACs to entry level audiophile stuff should have a significant impact on audio quality. It's just that go above that and the diminishing returns have already set in so significantly that the difference is mostly imperceptible.

I agree 100%

Any general modern DAC even a cheap one is fine you will probably never notice anything wrong with the sound quality compared to a nicer dac until you actually have some pretty nice speakers or headphones. At that point you can upgrade to a nicer than baseline consumer DAC and you will probably notice some difference. But if you want to improve beyond that point that's where it really starts to get into super high dollar, low improvement amount territory.

So to summarize:

Step 1 - Buy good speakers or headphones, good enough to reveal the flaws of your dac

Step 2 - Upgrade your DAC to remove those sound flaws that you couldn't hear before with standard consumer speakers / headphones but now you can

Step 3 - If you want better sound beyond this you get into vastly diminishing returns for the money. By this point you should already have hundreds of dollars spent in speakers / headphones / dac / amp as a solid step up from intro consumer level. To improve from here you will get into the many hundred to thousands of dollars range and the upgrades will be much less significant than the original step up for the first few hundred dollars.

 

[geok1ng]

I've read up on the Richard Clark amplifier challenge in the past. He eq:s the hell out of the setups he is having people compare to make them sound the same so no one can tell, which in my opinion completely invalidates the point he is trying to make.

i went to the challenge FAQ and found this:

All signal processing circuitry (e.g. bass boost, filters) must be turned off, and if the amplifier still exhibits nonlinear frequency response, an equalizer will be set by Richard Clark and inserted inline with one of the amps so that they both exhibit identical frequency response. The listener can choose which amplifier gets the equalizer .

Why removing non-linear frequency responses invalidates the challenge?

The way i see it, non-linear frequency responses reduce the fidelity of the sound reproduction. What am i missing on this search for the nirvana of audio hardware?

If what you state is true, then there is no such thing as a "better amp", since any low end amp can be equalized to sound just like a high end amp- and this is exactly what the challenge has proved over the years.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

I seriously question their methods here.

I am in full agreement that once you get up the price ladder to car priced audio jewelry the difference is pretty much all placebo effect.

Really good hi-fi headphones have very high impedance. This makes them notoriously hard to drive. They make specialty headphone amps just for this purpose. So yes, with the right headphones, you CAN tell the difference.

Now I never spent over $90 on a set of cans (over the ear sennheisers) attached to my a RX-Z1 and RX-Z11 amps. I'm not a serious headphone user, as they contribute to hearing loss. But I understand the need for better onboard audio that can drive high resistance headphones.

Then we wouldn't need things like this:

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00NTR459S/ezvidtrack1078-20

 

[Meeho]

Yeah yeah slight exaggeration but still I'm more right than you might think. Read a bit about modern DACs and how much distortion they have. They have extremely high SNR even the cheaper ones.

It's not the DAC, it's what surrounds it. There are motherboards that made big improvements in that regard and there are options today with good isolation where a separate device is not needed. But they aren't better than past sound cards.

They've become obsolete in form factor, USB has more than enough bandwith and power now and it's much easier to install a usb device than an actual card, not to mention cheaper to manufacture, so if it has the same capabilities why would you use a card?

Various HRTF implementations, though there are some USB DACs with Dolby HP.

 

[sirgallium]

It's not the DAC, it's what surrounds it.

What do you mean what surrounds it? The DAC receives the digital signal from your file format. It creates a line level signal that then goes to your amplifier. That's it. So of course your amp matters if that's what you're saying. But there is nothing surrounding DACs on motherboards that makes them better than non-surrounded USB stick dacs.

 

[Meeho]

Noisy environment that gets picked up. There were times when you would hear window scrolling in Windows.

 

[Snowdog]

What do you mean what surrounds it? The DAC receives the digital signal from your file format. It creates a line level signal that then goes to your amplifier. That's it. So of course your amp matters if that's what you're saying. But there is nothing surrounding DACs on motherboards that makes them better than non-surrounded USB stick dacs.

I think the point is that if there is something actually wrong (as opposed to the much more common: imagined) with the sound, it isn't the DAC.

A DACs job is trivial today. Even cheap ones do it essentially perfect as far as human audio perception goes.

When people start going on about using external DACs today, to me it instantly translates into: "I'm a Hipster, here is my Hipster badge".

 

[sirgallium]

I think the point is that if there is something actually wrong (as opposed to the much more common: imagined) with the sound, it isn't the DAC.

A DACs job is trivial today. Even cheap ones do it essentially perfect as far as human audio perception goes.

When people start going on about using external DACs today, to me it instantly translates to: "I'm a Hipster, here is my Here is my Hipster card".

That's exactly what I mean. Even cheap dacs today are nearly perfect to human hears. And that's why sound cards aren't a thing anymore. A cheap built in dac in a motherboard does the job perfectly well.

Any hobby looks strange from the perspective of people who aren't familiar with it. For instance hitting your cpu with a hammer to pry the lid off to get it to run faster is probably odd looking to most people. (Regarding usb dac hipsters)

Fact is if you can get equal performance from a PCI card or a usb stick, people will always choose the cheaper and easier option especially since most people aren't computer enthusiasts who open up cases like no big deal.

So if you have an audiophile who dropped a grand on a set of speakers and they want to upgrade their sound source since now they have good enough speakers to actually hear the difference, they will probably get a USB dac. It's just cheaper and easier so that's the way things go.

Like you guys say though any trouble with signal will be introduced elsewhere so things like coil whine and proper grounding can still be issues. You will want a nice PSU and possibly a power conditioner before the PSU if you have trouble with noise and grounding buzzing or any kind of unwanted signals.

Edit:

Ok I understand now what he means by what's around them. But I consider that to be part of the overall dac or line level sound producing device. I guess I might be wrong with how I describe them but they are sold that way now so it's not my fault.

 

[Snowdog]

So if you have an audiophile who dropped a grand on a set of speakers and they want to upgrade their sound source since now they have good enough speakers to actually hear the difference, they will probably get a USB dac. It's just cheaper and easier so that's the way things go.

If you have >$1000 in speakers, presumably you will have some kind of decent receiver driving them. Anything made in the last 20 years should have digital inputs. So again where does the external USB DAC enter the picture?

For the guy with esoteric separate Power Amp, Pre-Amp, all analog???

I know one guy with a setup like this. Thousands into his separate components. Turns it on: HISSSS!

My $400 Denon Receiver, turn it on: Silence.

 

[tungt88]

Amazing post.

I never knew why my audio disappeared, I just woke up one day and realized it sucked compared to what I remembered. I even doubted myself that I was remembering it correctly.

I think I know why this happened. In about 2007 I went to Iraq and I had no computer, in fact, I loaned my desktop gaming rig to my kid. While I was in Iraq I bought an ASUS G1S laptop which wasn't a big time gaming laptop but it was good for where I was and what I needed, and so my overall gaming experience was already reduced. The G1S was a Vista only laptop, ASUS wouldn't release XP drivers and such. But where there is a will there is a way, I found common hardware on other ASUS laptops and collected all the drivers I needed, ordered in a 64GB SSD for like $989 bucks cause $1000 was my limit. And I order a copy of Xp Pro and slipstreamed those drivers into the build and got Xp Pro running. It was pretty damn good.

By the time I got back, Vista had been beat so hard, Win 7 was coming out, so I bought that and skipped Vista, and my next laptop was an ASUS G-whatever with the "Stealth" fighter look. And after that I bought a Razer Blade, and finally I decided I wasn't working on the road any more, didn't need gaming laptops, and I could go back to a new Desktop build. And so it's like just a couple years ago and I wanted that old desktop awesome audio and I couldn't find it. I never knew that it was gone, I just thought I couldn't find it.

I hope we get it back.

BTW, That killer setup I had was an HT Omega 7.1 card and the headset was Madusa's, OMG the best. If someone remembers what that quality was like and knows how to get it today, I'd be happy to hear it.

Can't speak for the headset, but HT Omega still sells sound cards (I had no less than 3 of them a few months ago: HT Omega Claro Halo, HT Omega eClaro, and HT Omega Fenix -- in order of quality).
The Claro Halo and eClaro are still two of the best sound cards I've ever had (slightly more oriented for music/movies than gaming, but very good in all depts.), and were considerably better than the 7.1 card that you're talking about (most likely the HT Omega Striker or the Claro II).
Sold all 3 of them recently on the FS forum -- why didn't you put in an offer? I even had HT Omega in the thread title

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

i went to the challenge FAQ and found this:

All signal processing circuitry (e.g. bass boost, filters) must be turned off, and if the amplifier still exhibits nonlinear frequency response, an equalizer will be set by Richard Clark and inserted inline with one of the amps so that they both exhibit identical frequency response. The listener can choose which amplifier gets the equalizer .

Why removing non-linear frequency responses invalidates the challenge?

The way i see it, non-linear frequency responses reduce the fidelity of the sound reproduction. What am i missing on this search for the nirvana of audio hardware?

If what you state is true, then there is no such thing as a "better amp", since any low end amp can be equalized to sound just like a high end amp- and this is exactly what the challenge has proved over the years.

The article I read on this years back suggested that he EQ:ed down the better performing amp to the level of the lesser performing amp, and also used of there trickery to try to compensate for tonal differences like with tube amps.


I'll have to see if I can dig that up again.

 

[Meeho]

I know one guy with a setup like this. Thousands into his separate components. Turns it on: HISSSS!

Ouch!

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

If you have >$1000 in speakers, presumably you will have some kind of decent receiver driving them. Anything made in the last 20 years should have digital inputs. So again where does the external USB DAC enter the picture?

For the guy with esoteric separate Power Amp, Pre-Amp, all analog???

I know one guy with a setup like this. Thousands into his separate components. Turns it on: HISSSS!

My $400 Denon Receiver, turn it on: Silence.

Not so esoteric

I know more people with 2 channel systems built off of separates, than I know with home theater receivers. If your friend has a noisy system then he is doing something very wrong.

As far as my HT setup goes, I find it truly great for movies, but kind of disappointing for music.

 

[Snowdog]

Not so esoteric

I know more people with 2 channel systems built off of separates, than I know with home theater receivers. If your friend has a noisy system then he is doing something very wrong.

As far as my HT setup goes, I find it truly great for movies, but kind of disappointing for music.

He has Hafler AMP/Pre-AMP and claims they are kind of known for hiss. You don't notice once the music is playing.

IMO thinking you need this old school Power/Pre Amp, kind of setup is just more hipster nonsense. It's one of those things that if you ABX tested, there would be nothing there.

It is all about: "I paid more money for this much less useful, more impractical setup, so it MUST sound better" and therefore it does, to the mind of the person who has to justify the overspending to themselves.

 

[sirgallium]

If you have >$1000 in speakers, presumably you will have some kind of decent receiver driving them. Anything made in the last 20 years should have digital inputs. So again where does the external USB DAC enter the picture?

For the guy with esoteric separate Power Amp, Pre-Amp, all analog???

I know one guy with a setup like this. Thousands into his separate components. Turns it on: HISSSS!

My $400 Denon Receiver, turn it on: Silence.

Yeah I'd forgotten the current state of affairs in home amplifiers mine is quite old by new tech standards. It's a Denon DRA-295 pretty damn simple but it does everything I need. It's a step up from integrated computer speaker/amps so that's all I was really looking for. Thankfully I've always had silence with it noise has never been an issue. Just a simple 2 speaker home sound system setup is all I want. You can get surprisingly good sound from 2 well picked reasonably priced speakers and an amp.

Of course if all you want is good sound quality for music and games which is what I want, and all you need is 2 channels you can get way better sound quality for the money just buying a dedicated 2 channel amp than a whole HT amp. I would basically be paying for lots of features I never used.

 

[Hielo_loco]

Which 5.1 speakers would be good for general gaming, movies and music with a soundblaster z? I have a Labtec 5.1 setup that sounds ok, but would I see a benefit from getting a logitech z906 setup, or would I have to go with a more expensive product?

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

He has Hafler AMP/Pre-AMP and claims they are kind of known for hiss. You don't notice once the music is playing.

IMO thinking you need this old school Power/Pre Amp, kind of setup is just more hipster nonsense. It's one of those things that if you ABX tested, there would be nothing there.

It is all about: "I paid more money for this much less useful, more impractical setup, so it MUST sound better" and therefore it does, to the mind of the person who has to justify the overspending to themselves.

Well, for what it's worth, I was very disappointed in my new HT setup when it comes to listening to music.

I had hoped it could be my all in one system, but now I'm starting to think I need a home theater bypass and a dedicated two channel power amp for music.

While it sounds great for surround sound d in movies, I find the receiver sounds like ass when trying to listen to music. It's a very disappointing experience.

 

[Snowdog]

Well, for what it's worth, I was very disappointed in my new HT setup when it comes to listening to music.

I had hoped it could be my all in one system, but now I'm starting to think I need a home theater bypass and a dedicated two channel power amp for music.

While it sounds great for surround sound d in movies, I find the receiver sounds like ass when trying to listen to music. It's a very disappointing experience.

It's worth very little. Because there is no real, measurable reason for that to actually be the case. There is nothing wrong with modern HT receivers. Mine is great for music. Put it in Stereo Mode, and just drive the front speakers. There is nothing magical that a separate power Amp will do.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

It's worth very little. Because there is no real, measurable reason for that to actually be the case. There is nothing wrong with modern HT receivers. Mine is great for music. Put it in Stereo Mode, and just drive the front speakers. There is nothing magical that a separate power Amp will do.

I'm not necessarily blaming the receiver, though it is one of my prime suspects.

I don't know what the cause is to be honest. It could be the speakers. It could be the room effects.

For whatever reason, I have plenty of bass, and plenty of treble, but the midrange seems lacking.

Reviews of my main speakers (Infinity Primus 360's) suggest they are pretty neutral, but I find the sound V shaped shouty and sometimes almost sibilant.

I can't help but wonder if the DSP inside the receiver is doing stuff I'd rather it not do, or if the woofer responsible for mid range on these speakers is particularly hard to drive and the amp in the receiver isn't enough.

Either way, I find the music listening experience less than ideal, coming from my Sennheiser HD650's driven by my Schiit Jotunheim.

 

[thesmokingman]

Either way, I find the music listening experience less than ideal, coming from my Sennheiser HD650's driven by my Schiit Jotunheim.

You can't reference those two dissimilar setups with each other. There's sooo much to do with acoustics you just glossed over. Headphones are simple and controlled. Speakers in a room are a huge mess with room acoustics, how well insulated a room is, reflections, surface materials of the room, furniture, etc etc, it endless. They are hardly comparable like apples to oranges.

 

[sirgallium]

I have seen a lot of trouble actually from effects being turned on without people realizing it in HT setups. Suddenly you are in arena mode, or theater mode, etc and everything sounds weird.

See if you have a 'pure direct' mode or any way to check the settings that you are getting an unmodified signal.

Also like thesmokingman said there are a lot of variables at play here. Have you heard different speakers on the same setup you have now that you liked the midrange of now? Have you heard your current speakers on another setup that you liked the sound of more? Have you never liked the midrange since you got the speakers? It could just be the way those speakers sound. Try different ones do you have any others you can try? Headphones almost always sound better than speakers anyway so it shouldn't be a huge surprise switching between the two, especially in the midrange. The only real weakness of headphones is bass and sub-bass. So you are going from outstanding midrange in headphones to speakers which generally you need to spend 10x more money on than headphones to get the same sound quality.

 

[bigstusexy]

Along with the 3rd comment in this thread is DIgital out. I've been using digital out since before I had an Acoustic Edge (can't remember the model) card, in fact by that time my requirements for my receiver and any Audio card I'd think of buying was that it had coax digital out so that I could run a long cable between them.

I could be ignorant of the field but I don't see why a stereo stream out was bad? I get the api for funneling the data back to the card was gone, I get developmental vs time and money contraints (why I know the switch will not be a smashing success) but it still seems to be more of a it's not us nor did the industry just shrink thing.

 

[lcpiper]

Can't speak for the headset, but HT Omega still sells sound cards (I had no less than 3 of them a few months ago: HT Omega Claro Halo, HT Omega eClaro, and HT Omega Fenix -- in order of quality).
The Claro Halo and eClaro are still two of the best sound cards I've ever had (slightly more oriented for music/movies than gaming, but very good in all depts.), and were considerably better than the 7.1 card that you're talking about (most likely the HT Omega Striker or the Claro II).
Sold all 3 of them recently on the FS forum -- why didn't you put in an offer? I even had HT Omega in the thread title

Ummm, because they don't "work properly" anymore.

Because if I understand this article correctly, it won't matter what audio card you have, If you cut out the software from the OS that allows 3D positional sound to function.

Now don't get confused, music plays fine in 5.1 and 7.1, but music isn't gaming audio and games need an API that will interface with the sound card. That API was removed from Windows Vista and all following versions of Windows. All that's left is a pale imitation.

If I understand this article correctly.

 

[lcpiper]

I have and a proper home theater setup will blow the shit out of any PC-centric audio solution unless you are using a home theater in a box in which case it would likely be comparable as most PC-focused audio equipment isn't much better than a lower end home theater in a box. As far as headsets go, I just use a mono headset with a mic on the rare occasion I play a multi-player game.

I am not challenging the quality of your setup, but you didn't answer the question I wanted answer, which was my fault. I wasn't clear enough.

The real question is;

Will your Home Theater over HDMI provide accurate 3D positional sound in games?

If the sound of a door being opened behind me doesn't actually sound like it's behind me, then it's not doing what I need. If you have never heard accurate sound like this from a PC, then you missed out.

 

[pendragon1]

I'm not necessarily blaming the receiver, though it is one of my prime suspects.

I don't know what the cause is to be honest. It could be the speakers. It could be the room effects.

For whatever reason, I have plenty of bass, and plenty of treble, but the midrange seems lacking.

Reviews of my main speakers (Infinity Primus 360's) suggest they are pretty neutral, but I find the sound V shaped shouty and sometimes almost sibilant.

I can't help but wonder if the DSP inside the receiver is doing stuff I'd rather it not do, or if the woofer responsible for mid range on these speakers is particularly hard to drive and the amp in the receiver isn't enough.

Either way, I find the music listening experience less than ideal, coming from my Sennheiser HD650's driven by my Schiit Jotunheim.

yeah its settings on either the pc or amp that are making your music sound goofy. try, as suggested, just reg stereo for music. turn off any room effects and/or "neo/sim surround" on your amp. if you have stereo music being divided into "surround" it will always sound weird. my onkyo amp's remote has a stereo button that is just the fronts and sub, sounds waaaay better than the amp's DTS NEO:6 surround trickery!

 

[lcpiper]

..........Really, the thing that killed PC Audio was onboard getting so good. ................... And any old sound card could do a passable job at positional audio on two speakers. That, and 3 GHz microprocessors were so much faster than these "accelerators" that they made no difference in games.

You are fooling yourself. I think it's because you never had the right equipment and experienced the reality of great 3D position sound in games that made it useful.

First off you needed a decent 5.1 or 7.1 sound card. Then you needed true 5.1 or 7.1 headphones or speakers. Lastly, you needed a game that did 3D sound right which means it had to use the API correctly.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 was one that did and there were others. Until I had all the right gear, I thought I was getting good sound. Then I got set up properly and the difference was unbelievable. The very first day I got my Medusa's I was playing and my kid came home from school so I put them on her. Then I found a bad guy and killed him, and I told my kid to listen for footsteps, kicked cans, etc and to tell me if the guy was going to come from the right or the left. She said, "How do you know he'll come back after you?", I said "cause that's what guys do". She said she could hear someone coming, And I was facing the basic direction and I started moving the mouse left and right rotating my character to let her ears pick out which way the guy was approaching from. She called it perfect, I got the guy who did come from the right just as she called it, and my kid said "that was awesome!". No stereo sound could do that, not to that level of accuracy. I know I am not the only one who knows this is true.

 

[Snowdog]

I am not challenging the quality of your setup, but you didn't answer the question I wanted answer, which was my fault. I wasn't clear enough.

The real question is;

Will your Home Theater over HDMI provide accurate 3D positional sound in games?

If the sound of a door being opened behind me doesn't actually sound like it's behind me, then it's not doing what I need. If you have never heard accurate sound like this from a PC, then you missed out.

Why would the delivery mechanism matter? Rear left channels is still rear left channel.

The issue is have software to do positional audio, like OpenAL.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

I am not an audiophile, but w/onboard audio I could hear noise when the mouse moved.
A $30 pci ( I know, I know ) asus xonar dg 5.1 fixed it and now powers my harx 900's with gusto.

This.
Embedded auto became an afterthought and what sucked was you would see the S/N ratio of the chipset quoted in specs, which was high 97+ dB but the implementation onto the motherboard was noisy as hell.
So yeah, kill the embedded audio in the bios and install a inexpensive ASUS Xonar card.
I did professional recording with such a set up with excellent results.

 

[whateverer]

You are fooling yourself.

You can keep telling yourself that.

I've heard expertly-assembled 5.1 systems, and they didn't amaze me, for anything except movies.

And audio tracks are almost ALL originally mixed for Stereo or Mono. This influx of 5.1 are all remixes.

I think it's because you never had the right equipment and experienced the reality of great 3D position sound in games that made it useful.

First off you needed a decent 5.1 or 7.1 sound card. Then you needed true 5.1 or 7.1 headphones or speakers. Lastly, you needed a game that did 3D sound right which means it had to use the API correctly.

Thank you for highlighting EXACTLY WHY surround sound is a niche.

You have to have:

1. The space to assemble (and actually make-out the difference from) 7 speakers.
2. The persistence to get the angles and balance right to actually make use of that system.
3. The content to actually get the most out of that system.
4. The PERSON who is the right mix of audio spacial fidelity, combined with a willingness to multitask in multiple dimensions.

I'm not saying you CAN'T HEAR A DIFFERENCE, I'm saying you're RARE. And the only reason you're complaining is because you can't understand THAT YOU ARE RARE. It's like me complaining about people with coke bottle eyeglasses that they can't see a difference between DVD and Blu-Ray - I don't give them a hard time, l I just accept that I have good eyes, and that I'm in the minority

I can't hear well in 3D space (besides what's on-screen), and I can't multi-task. So while I can enjoy spacial audio for movie (where I'm doing nothing else), it's completely lost on me for 3D games.

 

[grifter_66]

I am not challenging the quality of your setup, but you didn't answer the question I wanted answer, which was my fault. I wasn't clear enough.

The real question is;

Will your Home Theater over HDMI provide accurate 3D positional sound in games?

If the sound of a door being opened behind me doesn't actually sound like it's behind me, then it's not doing what I need. If you have never heard accurate sound like this from a PC, then you missed out.

While the overall quality is game specific I get positional audio in every game I play that supports it, which is most games.

 

[Darunion]

You can keep telling yourself that.

I've heard expertly-assembled 5.1 systems, and they didn't amaze me, for anything except movies.

And audio tracks are almost ALL originally mixed for Stereo. This influx of 5.1 are all remixes.



Thank you for highlighting EXACTLY WHY surround sound is a niche.

You have to have:

1. The space to assemble (and actually make-out the difference from) 7 speakers.
2. The persistence to get the angles and balance right to actually make use of that system.
3. The content to actually get the most out of that system.
4. The PERSON who is the right mix of audio spacial fidelity, combined with a willingness to multitask in multiple dimensions.

I'm not saying you CAN'T HEAR A DIFFERENCE, I'm saying you're rare, and you can't understand why you're rare. It's like me complaining about people with coke bottle eyeglasses that they can't see a difference between DVD and Blu-Ray - I don't give them a hard time, l I just accept that I have good eyes, and that's the minority

I can't hear well in 3D space (besides what's on-screen), and I can't multi-task. So while I can enjoy spacial audio for movie (where I'm doing nothing else), it's completely lost on me for 3D games.

I myself notice more often the difference between good speakers and crappy ones more than 2.1 and 7.1. I think the clarity of sound for me is more important than the number of channels. That and you can't hear behind oneself anyways, the pitch shift is what tricks the brain into thinking it is behind. I did that with a set of my fronts behind my tv, set them as rear and turned down the treble on them. It is a weird effect indeed. But I do often leave my entire setup on just 2.1 because I feel it just gives me better sound reproduction that I enjoy listening to.

 

[Todd Walter]

Gawd, I'd love to know how you did it. My HTPC's running Kodi via HDMI to the receiver and I can't get bitstream. Technically speaking, at the end of the day there shouldn't really be much difference between bitstream and Multichannel PCM, but I like seeing DTS-HD on my receiver!

On Linux I used to have to use iecset before I get the nice blue DTS light to shine. Some receivers are overly "helpful" and you may need to move to/off the "PC" input to workaround it.

 

[tungt88]

Ummm, because they don't "work properly" anymore.

Because if I understand this article correctly, it won't matter what audio card you have, If you cut out the software from the OS that allows 3D positional sound to function.

Now don't get confused, music plays fine in 5.1 and 7.1, but music isn't gaming audio and games need an API that will interface with the sound card. That API was removed from Windows Vista and all following versions of Windows. All that's left is a pale imitation.

If I understand this article correctly.

This setup is probably the best one can do for 3D positional sound right now, but it's pretty expensive:
http://smyth-research.com/index.html
Their A8 is already available and the A16 is their new flagship.
A8: http://www.head-fi.org/t/543517/just-got-my-smyth-research-realiser-calibrated-holy-crap and http://www.head-fi.org/t/418401/long-awaited-smyth-svs-realiser-now-available-for-purchase/2865
A16: http://www.head-fi.org/t/807459/smyth-research-realiser-a16

Smyth is the real deal.