Noise level test

Global_Inferno · 27 Jan 2011 at 21:18

I just ran a noise level test on my Asus Xonar DG, so for those that were wondering how much of a steal it really is:

That's a SNR of -109dB on average! (= Pretty darn good!) Which is actually better than the amount they claim (-105dB), unless I've got something horrendously wrong somewhere!?

Uriel · 27 Jan 2011 at 22:41

I don't think SNR is a meaningful measure of soundcard quality any more. CD SNR is 93db. Pretty much any current soundcard exceeds that.

Unless you're listening on extremely sensitive equipment, noise is not much of an issue. Most onboard sound has decent SNR now. When my PC was upgraded at work last year I was very surprised to find that I could plug in sensitive IEMs and not worry about EMI / RF / Hiss etc.

Global_Inferno · 27 Jan 2011 at 23:07

Uriel said:
I don't think SNR is a meaningful measure of soundcard quality any more. CD SNR is 93db. Pretty much any current soundcard exceeds that.

No, I agree that it's not a good test for how good the sound card is, however it does give you some indication as to whether a sound card's line-level output can be amplified to without having too much noise... Doesn't it? :confused:

Uriel · 27 Jan 2011 at 23:13

I think so, but it's becoming increasingly rare to have a problem - even with onboard.

You do sometimes get grounding issues that lead to noise problems from PC soundcards.

Global_Inferno · 28 Jan 2011 at 08:22

Uriel said:
You do sometimes get grounding issues that lead to noise problems from PC soundcards.

Yeah, just ask the people who have had their entire cases apart!