ds4 mobo sound quality?

Associate
Joined
22 May 2006
Posts
603
Location
Glasgow
hello, im at the edge of buying a new rig, however im debating weather or not to buy a creative sound card to add to the spec, is it worth getting a sound card or is the onboard sound quality from the ds4 good enough?

i know the signal to noise ratio of the creative x-fi extreme music is 109dB, which is pretty good (anythign over 100dB is considered good) so what is the snr of the ds4 outputs? i cant find anything on the gigbyte website, which is odd.

I also realise that depending on the speakers and amps performance this will be irrelevent, however i would like to know :D
 
thankies wja96 :D i just downloaded the pdf for the ds4 and its 7mb :eek: , and still cant find anything on the sound spec output :rolleyes:
 
ha ;) wel thanks again. hmm athough thats the digital to analouge converters not the overall performance but its close enought to let me see what sort of dB's its aimed at, pondering on weather or not to buy the sound card, any ideas? :p
 
okies, ty again :D

yup there is a sound forum but im comparing it with a mobo, so i like it on this forum :P cos i get a response time in pico seconds(not really) rather than an aeon(also not really) on the sound forum, although a forum mod will probably move it soon :)

im just not sure if the ds4's sound quality is gonna be good enough, as u could probably tel im a bit of an audiophile:D
 
Last edited:
lol thanks for the advice ;)

naim, wel i hant personnely heard there euipment although id guess it would be good.
I have heard bang and olufsen equipment and it was pretty good i must say but the price is a bit shady as with all high end stuff.

For me however i could build an amp with a better signal to noise ratio then half of the b and o stuff, and for about 300 quid, as for the speakers and cd player i would need to buy good 1s since i cant build them...yet ;) Not using valves in the amp though cos there crap, but i do like good old vinyle, pure analouge :D
 
Last edited:
squiffy said:
If you're an audiophile don't buy Creative soundcards, the EMU based card or M-Audio cards are higher end stereo soundcards. Something like the M-Audio 2496 or Audiophile 192. Seems to have better drivers than Creative pap, and not have Creative "LP crackling" feature :p

yes but how much more exspensive are they?, and everyone only seems to sell creative stuff, or am i looking in the wrong direction :O
 
Last edited:
everything is presumed good by ones own oppinion however to look at what is actually better specifications do have to be looked at.

also i have a good hifi, so i just dont want to spend too much on a sound card as can listen to good quality on my hifi, i just want decent enough sound quality from my computer by either adding a 50 quid sound card or using the onboard sound chip on the ds4 mobo.

ps thanks for looking those things up wja96 :)
 
Last edited:
just looked at the m audio range , the audiophile 2496 does appear better than the creative one, thanks for pointing that out squiffy :p still not sure if its worth buying though. what sound card, if you have one, do you have?
 
wja96
maybe crap was a bit harsh, but they just arnt as good as mosfet amplifiers, personel oppinion, as ever, ofcourse :D
 
mosfet is not digital, the transistor can work at speeds so high that its regarded as continuos. if u say mosfets are digital then valves in a way will be digital too, the electrons that are made between the gap will be quantised and will happen in quantised intervals since they need a specific energy lvl to leave the metal. also the capacitnace between the contacts even although it is redused by the grid will act as a filter and cut of some frequencies.
This is one of those debates that never will be settled everyone likes there own style, sometimes i like the twang when u thrash a valve amp with a guitar, but guitars for this purpose of sound are not ment to be clean anyway.
The point im making is u get far better performance with mosfets statistic wise comparing it to valves. The THD and SNR of some mosfets are incredible. valves do take a better kicking than transistors, they can go into overloads for a while b4 melting, transistors would frie instantly allmost.
To conclude this, it is down to personnel taste :D
 
Last edited:
i have to disagree with mosfets being digital, mosfets are almost the same as valves, as the base current will provide a bridge of electrons to connect the collector and emitter together to form a path for the curent to pass, so if u input a sine wave of 1khz into the base and there is a sufficient bridge ie by the base current being high enough to have enough electrons in the gap between the c and e to form a conductive circuit, then the output will be a 1khz sine wave amplified by whatever ratio of amplitude the base current is depending on the maximum voltage the rail can go to thats connected to the collector, so it is not digital, obviously there will be a slight difernece in the input wave from the output wave, its never perfect, however there is also as ever limitations and problems with transistors just like valves, the intrinsic impedance effects conduction, also the valency band influencies characteristics aswell, temperature being the most influential as high currents means high powers which means high temps :D

lol anyway, yeah iv decided on getting the m-audio audiophile 192.
its a class peice of kit iv heard ;)
 
Last edited:
quote: Excuse me, but... What?

as i said beofre maybe crap was a bit harsh...

quote: You'll also note that later on he recants and admits that valves are OK actually

they are ok, some people prefer the sound they create, but im not recanting because for sound quality transistors are better.

quote: I think he's building a mega-power amp

not really 250w rms is what i would build, sound quality is better than sound quantity :p

The funny thing is both valve and transistors are practically the same, they both use the same idea, whatever you want weather its an electron bridge via a vacumm or electron bridge via doped silicon, the idea is the same!

also i would just like to point out that on my previous post it would not create a sin wave at the output it would create just the top half (or bottom half depeding on npn or pnp transistor types) of the sine wave :D
 
Back
Top Bottom