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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: PCI soundcards
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on: November 16, 2009, 11:15:15 am
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Your card will be resampling ?
Well, in the VIA driver control panel, the current sample rate is specified when playing. If a play a song vanilla in XXHE, it shows 44.1. If I then tick double or quad, it shows 88.2 or 176.4. If I set the card's sample rate to 96khz, for example, it will not play materal with another sample rate, only 96Khz. The same thing goes for foobar w/WASAPI, the card can only play the sample rate it is locked to (unless using auto, and then it specifies the sample rate its running at). I don't think the card is resampling or upsampling anything; I don't think it can. The DAC should be running at whatever is sent to it. |
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32
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: PCI soundcards
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on: November 15, 2009, 01:04:11 pm
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Right from the beginning you try to tell us (explicitly or not) that an internal (PCI) soundcard used with its analogue outs is able to compete with "our DACs" you may never had to begin with.
Peter, I have listened to six or seven different DACs (and a few sound cards) between £150 and £1000 here whilst owning my Onkyo card, so I do have something to compare with. An external DAC is, by nature, obviously more expensive to produce (more parts, power supplies, cases), and I feel that a good sound card offers more vfm. Moreover, they are made by big companies and sold mostly to computer-savvy people, a combination that doesn't exactly raise the prices unneccesarily. internal soundcards which are just toys. We are not toying here but instead the most serious (and probably the most serious of all audio "communities" out there).
I do not agree with this at all. Proper sound cards are serious sources designed by people who know what they are doing imo. PS: Fidelio, if Frank is right, it is no wonder that Arc Prediction makes it worse for you.
I do not understand this, what do you mean? |
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: PCI soundcards
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on: November 15, 2009, 11:32:33 am
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Fidelio, You gave the following specs for the Onkyo Wavio SE 90 Card:
Chipset: VIA Envy24MT
DAC: Wolfson WM8716
Singal-Noise Ratio 110dB (Line Out)
Frequency Response 0.3Hz - 44kHz (line Out +0/-0.5dB)
Digital IN Sampling Frequency 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192kHz
Connection Line Out x1 (RCA / Stereo) Digital Out x1 (Toslink)
I couldn't see anywhere in the published specs that it had those "digital in" sampling frequencies - "digital out" yes.
Even the upmarket SE -200 LTD card doesn't have digital in sampling frequencies above 96kHz.
So when you use quad arc upsampling is it really accepting a 176.4 kHz straight through "in signal" or processing it in some way first?
With the SE 90 are you hearing better sound using quad arc upsampling than when using arc double upsampling?
Thanks Frank
The SE-90 doesn't have digital in, but the SE-200 does. But I don't need digital in, unless I were to digitize vinyl or loop a cdp(!) through the card. Digital in is for connecting external sources to the card digitally. It is a sound card, you mix its playback capabilities with its connectors to external sources. It does 176.4, and up to 192 of course. I don't like the sound with upsampling, and I like the sound with arc upsampling even less. Edit: It's supposed to say "digital OUT" lol. |
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34
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: Goodby USB, Hello SPDIF
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on: November 15, 2009, 11:27:40 am
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I really can't understand why everyone has gone completely gaga after USB DACs when all modern mainboards have S/PDIF out; even an onboard S/PDIF will arsewoop most USB connections SQ-wise when hooked up to a DAC.
Because the quality of that spdif out is awful. It is polluted by all components that resides on the mainboard (including the cpu) and the drivers are usually poor as well. Is this necessarily so? I vastly prefer toslink out from a modern mainboard than the average USB-connection for hooking up to a DAC. The newer Realtek codecs doesn't meddle with the signal and support all necessary sample rates. And the toslink out of my Onkyo card is very very good, and the card is rather cheap. There is no reason whatsoever to use USB. |
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: PCI soundcards
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on: November 14, 2009, 09:20:24 am
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Why are there no reviews of this yet? Granted, the Onkyo 'eats the (standard) Audiotrak for breakfast', but this SE version looks like a pretty massive upgrade. Maybe it 'eats'/owns the stock Onkyo?
Well, the Onkyo is japanese and not really sold officially in Europe and the US. So that doesn't make it very interesting to review, since it can't be bought locally. The Audiotrak is Korean I think, so I guess the same goes there. |
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36
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: Goodby USB, Hello SPDIF
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on: November 14, 2009, 09:12:12 am
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I really can't understand why everyone has gone completely gaga after USB DACs when all modern mainboards have S/PDIF out; even an onboard S/PDIF will arsewoop most USB connections SQ-wise when hooked up to a DAC. Moreover, a sound card with a high quality toslink or coax out is dirt cheap. There is no need for USB DACs at all, and it is starting to look like a hoax of some kind. I particulary enjoy the belief that toslink is OK for Macs, but if you have a PC, you need USB  |
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: PCI soundcards
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on: November 11, 2009, 12:33:33 pm
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Yep, this means that the power can be filtered before going to the card (i'm thinking of a small but effective shunt regulator). A better shielding all around both cards should allow us to put them in the same case of the PC, which if is already fanless and not very polluting should be sufficiently quiet to not pollute the card HF.
This does not work. Some guys over at Head-Fi tried this, but the power connection is a bit more complex than that. The card draws power from both the molex and the PCI slot. I think they concluded that it was near impossible. |
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