Best Audio card for Linux?

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

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Ok, put simply, I waffle, so this is short as I can be.

What are some great options for an INTERNAL Audio card for Linux?
 
Interesting question, you often see people using linux for media and music creation yet i can't recall seeing anyone discussing Linux supported Audio cards.
 
Ice Tea said:
Interesting question, you often see people using linux for media and music creation yet i can't recall seeing anyone discussing Linux supported Audio cards.
Click to expand...
Can't say I have either. I think small external USB DACs have taken over from internal sound cards these days as they are cheap, decent quality and you can easily move them between devices.
 
I've been looking into this myself due to moving to Cachyos from Win10 (my PC is a 4930K so really old for Win 11) and my Asus Xonar Phoebus is detected but won't work in Linux. I've tried a few things but it won't work.

So, I'm looking into this myself and apparently the Creative AE-5 and the AE-7 work in Linux via reverse engineered drivers. Also the external X3 and X4 USB DACs will too. Although any USB DAC seems to be fine.

I've read the Asus Xonar AE works in Linux as well but I've been focused on the Creative AE ones as they seem better quality.

I'm just eying Ebay for a cheap 2nd hand X3/4 or an AE-7 model.
 
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Well, the thing is, that I have tried the OnBoard and frankly, its awful.

The sound Quality is very poor compared to my cards, and not only that, but under heavy gaming, it jitters crackles and pharts badly, and it is simply not even remotely useable.

As for a DAC then sure, I have a couple, and also I have the Creative OMNI External USB and that does a great job, however, I want to have an internal card not a USB one. I also have a couple of other USB Audio devices and also a couple of FireWire ones, but again, they are external.

I have also bought HDMI Sound adapters that rob the Audio from the HDMI Output, and for most things, its actually ok, but I am not happy with that solution either!

I keep having to reset the audio from time to time with the creative cards and its getting on my nerves now.

Its gone again and I have been using a Logitech USB device for the headphones for the moment and thats doing a great job.

I may give up and use the OMNI again, but I dont want to.

I am now 100% on Linux and for this to be the ONE thing that sets me back, then I am going to kick myself.
 
I’m not an expert on this, but I’d take a look at ALSA support for any cards you may be interested in. Then you can see if it should work at all. After that, you may want more on top for different functionality depending on what you’re doing. I have found Linux sound issues in the past but in recent years it’s pretty good.

External DACs seem to now be the more popular option and are likely to work fine. I was a sound card user before but since going ITX I’ll likely follow suit on that as often the DAC and amplification for headphones are superior anyway, not least due to being somewhat more isolated from the noise/EMFs from inside a PC.
 
Wow those cards are really pricey! They probably are the best though. that Alsa support page is a great shout as well. It doesn't seem to list the ae-5 or ae-7 cards though but people have confirmed they do work.

I want an internal card but I think I'd have less hassle and stress if I just buy a USB external DAC. :D
 
Just a small update on my setup at the moment.

First off. I did another fix and thats sorted the card out again.

Now, some time ago I bought a handful of second hand USB Sound devices for my Laptop as I use that for recording music from my Atari setup, and I had huge LAG and so I tried a few things and ended up with a seriously nice Beringer USB I/O box that cured my Woes.

I did actually buy a few other cheap and nasty things, but I did come across a couple of really nice sounding ones... and sure they are not the best, but, I dug them out and had a play with them.

I was comparing them with the Creative OMNI and in truth, I found one that seems to have a more natural war sound to it and I really really like it. I dont know the exact model, because the sticker has worn off it, but its a Lexicon and I have been using that now for a fair while and I am going to stick with it.

I know the original plan was to have a card, but sod it... This seems to be a really nice sound that I like.

Just saying.
 
Feels like a good thread to post a very recent finding regarding Linux Audio. I've been using external USB headphone DAC/AMPs for years across Windows and Linux (mostly Fedora, but have used other distros) with very few issues on Linux. But as per this thread over in the Sound City sub-forum; Link to my post in the gaming audio thread have recently been alerted to this annoying quirk with them on Linux audio.

Apparently a known issue, but a lot of these USB DAC/AMPs go to sleep/low power mode and then only 'wake' up when audio is played. However the waking up action can take a second, or so which means that you miss the very start of audio playing, or in the case of a short audio alert (i.e. Discord) miss the whole alert. I did some testing with my DAC/AMPs and found most were impacted. It apparently seems to be the behaviour of these XMOS chips the DAC/AMPs use to enable power saving mode by default. Some of those manufacturers, i.e. Fiio have recently updated their Windows drivers to give you a setting to switch off the power saving mode, but of course that is no-good if you aren't on Windows.

Personal preference could mean you're not bothered and most probably wouldn't be, but it can be annoying on your workflow. Very much a hardware issue.

I did look at whether edits to the pipewire.conf file, but hit the limits of my Linux knowledge. I can't see anything in the Pipewire documentation that would override this behaviour. I did try one of the workarounds of creating a systemd service to send a silent sound to the DAC/AMP and that works. But this means my DAC/AMP loses the ability to auto change frequencies; say 44.1kHz for Spotity and 48kHz for Youtube etc.

Wanted to flag it here for reference.
 
I have now been using an external device for a while now, and I have to be honest, but I am absolutely in agreement that I have been overly concerned and that he external option was by far the best choice.

I have a number of various options, and believe me, none of them are high end or professional, but some have been proven to be absolutely flawless for me.

Right now, I am using a TASCAM US-100. I do have 2 TASCAM U-120 devices but while they are slightly better, for my needs the 100 seems to be the better choice.

I also have a few other similar devices, most of which are MIC & Guitar inputs but also have USB Audio and they have varying levels of good to bad audio.
IO also have the older Firewire ones that I used to love, and while I was using a basic amp, they did nicely enough, but once I got a half decent amp, I realised they are absolutely awful.

Now, back to the Tascam, I dont know if this is capable of playing anything at any specific frequency, and I dont know if it switches in and out of any specific frequency, but it just plays what I ask it to and I have not had a single issue with it.

One huge bonus, is that the Creative card is stil in the PC, and if I unplug the tascam, the creative card continues playing almost as if its unaffected and the same when I plug it back in... They switch almost instantly between each other, and that I like.

I will admit however, that I have not used the Tascam on the AMP much at all, its mostly through the headphones.
 
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