Replacing Sound Card - Does It Help in Improving the Sound?

I am planning to replace the sound card in my Dell Computer with an M-Audio 24-bit/192 kHz.
I am transcribing some of my vinyl records to CD using an external A/D converter. That means I am feeding my sound card with music in digital format.
Does the sound card contributes to the sound of the music?

 

If you're using external converters and going in digitally then no. At that point it's just transmission of data.

 

AudiophilePhil,
If what you are asking is if by doing your needledrops with a better sound card you'll get better sound, the answer is yes. In fact, if you record them at 192/24 they should sound better, more faithful to the original.

Now, if you are asking is about playback, then what Jamie said is right on target.

 

He has external A/D converters so using a different sound card won't make a difference.

I'd also suggest doing them at a high resolution like 24/88.2 or 24/96 (or higher if you don't mind the extra storage it takes).

 

With your setup (an external ADC), you need to make sure the computer’s digital input (SPDIF or other) accepts a bit rate that matches what your inputting. Cheaper and older computers digital inputs may not be up to the standards of your external DAC/ADC.

I think we are also assuming that you don’t intend analog output from your computer.

 

Yes, I understood that part from the git go. That's why I mentioned you were right on the money in your reply. But he mentions buying a 192/24 sound card and mentions needledrops. He will get better sound from a better recording every time, no matter the DAC he uses for playback. Hence, my previous post.

 

Too right. Sorry.

 

Thanks for all the responses.
I am planning to use a Korg MR-1000 external A/D converter to feed the digital signal to a computer with M-Audio 24/192 soundcard.

 

A digital audio interface will not affect the digital output from your A/D converter IF AND ONLY IF the digital audio interface is bit-transparent (which the M-audio is NOT according to tests we've done).

Many issues can be 'hidden' within digital audio interfaces, including sample-rate conversion, re-sampling, dithering, truncation, inversion, etc.

One might think that it simply passes the 1's and 0's to the recording software (which is all it SHOULD be doing). However, we tested several digital interfaces in hopes of finding one to recommend to our ADC1 customers. Unfortunately, most interfaces were not bit-transparent. One exception is the Lynx AES16.

ATB,
Elias

 

Hmm... Good to know.

Thanks Elias and welcome on the forum!

 

Elias,
Great to have you here. Benchmark makes superb products and your insights/input will be greatly appreciated here.

 

Hi Elias, and welcome to the forum.

Have you done any of this bit-transparent testing with the E-Mu 1616m? If so, how did it fare?

 

Thank you all for your gracious welcome.

We have not tested the EMU 1616. We would be happy to test it and any others if you wanted to send it to us.

The test is very simple. We have an AP (Audio Precision) testing system, which is the standard system for most audio equipment designers. This system has a 'bittest' function, which generates a psuedo-random set of audio data. This audio data is then sent through the interface and monitored on the other end by the AP. If any 1's or 0's were modified, it shows the error.

ATB,
Elias

 

Interesting.

I am afraid that unless someone nearer to you can/does send you an E-Mu 1616m, it's a little bit complicated to try this from Europe.

Is this test (see bottom of page) a similar one to the ones you do on the Audio Precision hardware? http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/proaudio/emu-1616m.html

http://audio.rightmark.org/products/rmaa.shtml

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/proaudio/1616m/emu1616m-2496-loopback.html

http://audio.rightmark.org/test/EMU1616m.htm

If so, what do you derive from these results?

Again, thanks for your input.

 

Hi,

I would just like to say that having owned an M-Audio 192 and used it for the purposes described by the original poster, my findings were the same as those of Elias.

Additionally, I found the card quite cantankerous, introducing random clicks and pops (they got worse the higher the sample rate) that despite my very best efforts, I could not get rid of.

I am now using an external M-Audio Microtrack as a digital transport and an ASUS Xonar Essence PCI Express card for the analogue-digital conversion. I am very happy indeed with the results I am now getting. It is now a very transparent and pure processing chain. Although I doubt the Microtrack is indeed absolutely bitperfect despite syncing to the SPDIF signal, at least the final results do sound very good indeed.

 

Thank you for this testing. Which (names please) interfaces failed? Have you tried the RME 9632...should be bitperfect I/O.
Besides "SRC, dithering, resampling, inversion", what else could be going on?

 

We tested the M-Audio Audiophile PCI cards, some Creative SoundBlaster PCI card w/ Digital I/O, a couple M-Audio and Creative USB interfaces. I don't remember the model numbers, but I have it documented and could find out.

Well, those are typical digital audio processes, but anything could be happening. In other words, any bug in the code could slip by the software engineers, and they could be toggling bits or doing some other seemingly random modification to the audio data. Remember, its human's that write the drivers for these cards. If they don't do a bit-transparency test, they may never realize that something is happening to the audio.

ATB,
Elias

 

Did you test the Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS (USB model)? What were your findings?

 

Yes, we tested the Audigy 2 ZS interface. It was not bit-transparent.

ATB,
Elias

 

Hello Elias,

Excuse my ignorance of some of these technical tests, but is the bit-transparent test you mention different from the series of tests that I posted above (post #14) regarding the E-Mu 1616m?

 

Now this is interesting news. I never would have guessed a soundcard would be modifying digital data in any way; I always figured digital is digital and it's just passing it along to the CPU.

 

Thanks. The DAC is not *great* either. It does its job.

 

Having a better soundcard improves the sound even if you transfer the signal to an external DAC. I use a Mac Mini and a PC with a 24/192 soundcard and the quality of the playback is better from the PC all the time; especially recordings will sound better as mentioned before. But you don't have to spend x-amount of money for the soundcard. As long as the soundcard offers modern 24/192 everything should be fine - a real good soundcard for a reasonable price would be ESI's Juli@ , which costs less than 150 Euros. With this kind of soundcard quality you can even use real expensive external DAC's without any fear of loss in quality - Stereo magazine in germany used the Juli@ to test Wadia and Linn music Servers !

 

I didn't see any mention of bit-transparency tests in those links.

ATB,
Elias

 

Thanks Elias for sharing your experience with different digital audio interfaces.
I will consider your recommendation, the Lynx AES16 and see if it's compatible with high resolution audio (eg. 24-bit 192 kHz sampling rate) and if it's available as an add-on internal soundcard for PC.
I'm not going to use my PC as a playback machine. My intention is to convert my vinyl records to high-res digital through an external stand-alone KORG MR-1000 A/D converter, feed the digital signal to my Dell PC with a Lynx AES16 sound card as a digital interface and then finally burn the music to CD's and/or DVD-A's using the application software provided by Korg.
I will use my universal player for playing back the final product. I am eyeing for an Ayre C-5xe universal player as my ultimate digital player.
Thanks to you and the other posters!!