soundcard
 

After a soundcard for my desktop but want to avoid creative if possible since I have an x-fi but i put it in the other pc because the driver support is rubbish peritucally on Linux where its non existent


The on-board Audio (sigmatel) on my dell e520 has a poor SNR it seems as there seems to be a lot of noise generated by it, this is noticeable if i'm playing something quiet and therefore have to turn the speakers up.

I'm feeding a denon pma350se (thanks zingle ;)) and a pair of q accostics 1010 speakers and I feel the soundcard is letting it down somewhat.

---------- Post added at 21:37 ---------- Previous post was at 21:17 ----------

anyone know if this would be better than the on-board?

http://www.shop.bt.com/productview.a...avigationKey=0

Re: soundcard
 

You didn't state your price range.

M-Audio Delta 44, about £80-£100, PCI card goes inside your PC, all connection are via an external breakout box.

http://www.nusystems.co.uk/music/214...o+Delta+44.htm

If your thinking about spending a bit more, you could try the Edirol FA-66.

http://www.nusystems.co.uk/music/20179/Edirol+FA+66.htm

BTW, the Delta 44 and FA-66 is what alot of professional studios use.

These cards are also used where high SNR and spectral purity are important.

Re: soundcard
 

Not looking to spend a lot currently, just want one to tide me over for a while then once Christmas is out of the way I can think about buying a nice one ;)

Re: soundcard
 

fair enough, thought I might be looking a bit too high end when I posted my reply:)

Re: soundcard
 

no problem the onboard sounds ok (to my ears anyway) but i find if there's something playing that has low volume levels (such as some video files) and I have to turn the amp up I can hear a lot of hiss.etc coming from the soundcard.

I know its not the amp because If i change inputs it goes away.

Pretty sure its not the cable either since its a double screened so shouldn't be picking up interference.

Lets face it dell motherboards are probably made on the cheap and I was thinking pretty much any sound card should be an improvement unless its one of those really cheap £3 jobbies

---------- Post added at 22:10 ---------- Previous post was at 21:54 ----------

I ordered the Aureon 5.1 in the end, for £15 or so i'll take a gamble on it.

Re: soundcard
 

I would recommend the M-Audio 24/96 Audiophile: £48.99

http://www.nusystems.co.uk/music/214...phile+2496.htm

Re: soundcard
 

Thumbs up for the M-Audio Delta and Audiophile cards.

Another card worth looking at is the Emu 0404.

http://www.dv247.com/invt/22115/

A brief word of caution: Like some other musician/audio production oriented cards it does lack full support for some older games if you play them. You can overcome this by keeping your existing card enabled and manually switching between the two as your default playback device for compatibility's sake.