ds4 mobo sound quality?

Nick Xero · 12 Dec 2006 at 22:32

i've got the Audiophile 2496 - its a really really good card and does everything i want it to. I'm a home-studio producer and it represents the sound so much better than the Creative ever did. Dont buy in to the marketing speil that is the XFi!

whats cr@p is that there are no Vista drivers for it - so i'm currently using the (rather poor) onboard sound on my DS4

WJA96 · 12 Dec 2006 at 22:41

domyboy said:
Not using valves in the amp though cos there crap, but i do like good old vinyle, pure analogue

Valves are crap? I don't think so. Bulky, hot, old fashioned maybe - but crap? Never. The best transistor based amplifiers can do class AA, but only valves can do true class A amplification. If you want really smooth sound, then you need valves.

Steves_pc · 13 Dec 2006 at 00:40

Bit of a late question but what are you going to be listening to from the computer?

i was going to say anything from the pc will be a bit off anyways - then remembered i used an Arcam Alpha a few years back and that made a difference to mp3's though t'other half werent too impressed when playing FPS.

Now i just use the onboard coax output into a marantz 6.1 that does me.

stoofa · 13 Dec 2006 at 10:46

Nick Xero said:
whats cr@p is that there are no Vista drivers for it - so i'm currently using the (rather poor) onboard sound on my DS4

There are no final drivers for the Creative cards because as has been pointed out in many threads, Vista hasn't been released yet.
It's available to MSDN subscribers and businesses - neither of which are likely to be running Creative cards.
If they are, they don't demand the level of drivers that a home user does.

There is nothing crap about a piece of hardware just because it doesn't have drivers for an as of yet not released OS.
Unless of course you want to group the NVidia 8800 series in there too?

domyboy · 13 Dec 2006 at 18:10

wja96
maybe crap was a bit harsh, but they just arnt as good as mosfet amplifiers, personel oppinion, as ever, ofcourse

domyboy · 13 Dec 2006 at 18:12

Steves_pc said:
Bit of a late question but what are you going to be listening to from the computer?

mostly everything apart from rnb, hip hop, that sort of crap music

WJA96 · 13 Dec 2006 at 18:43

domyboy said:
wja96
maybe crap was a bit harsh, but they just arnt as good as mosfet amplifiers, personel oppinion, as ever, ofcourse

You cannot be serious, surely - what on earth are you basing that opinion on? MOSFET amps might be better for stadium rock bands but for most home systems valves are just on a different planet. You talk about pure analogue then you chuck a digital MOSFET into it? It's not pure analogue unless it's got valves.

domyboy · 13 Dec 2006 at 19:35

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

WJA96 · 13 Dec 2006 at 19:38

It is largely down to personal taste, but MOSFETS are very definitely digital components. Anyway - did you get your soundcard issues decided?

squiffy · 13 Dec 2006 at 19:41

There's the arguement of valve pre-amps paired up with mosfet poweramps

WJA96 · 13 Dec 2006 at 19:48

squiffy said:
There's the arguement of valve pre-amps paired up with mosfet poweramps

Not in my house

As we've all agreed to disagree - it's a matter of personal taste.

domyboy · 13 Dec 2006 at 20:08

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

lol anyway, yeah iv decided on getting the m-audio audiophile 192.
its a class peice of kit iv heard

FatRakoon · 14 Dec 2006 at 11:29

domyboy said:
Not using valves in the amp though cos there crap

Excuse me, but... What?

I dont have any decent Amps anymore... Not that my best have been the Highest of the range, but I have had some good ones in the past that are well above the best of what you would call Home Hi-Fi ( snigger ).

My old Valve amp ( it was american but cant remember the exact model ) was far superior to any other amp I have ever had, including my Yamaha Studio Amp, and many people still wont bother with anythign else.

Today Im stuck with a simple affair of good old PC speakers ( Altec Lansing 955 ), but as my hearing has gone down the swanny, it makes no sense anymore to splash out too much on anythign better... These are more than good enough for me now though.

WJA96 · 14 Dec 2006 at 11:38

FatRakoon said:
Excuse me, but... What?

That makes 2 of us! I think he's building a mega-power amp though so valves are possibly not the most cost effective solution for his particular requirements. My father brought me up to love valves and I'll cheerfully bankrupt myself for a good set of class A amplifiers but I suspect that on this occasion he is correct that MOSFETs are a better choice for his project.

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

domyboy · 15 Dec 2006 at 11:20

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

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