Winter Audio Reference: On-Board, Consumer, and Pro Solutions
by Derek Wilson on February 3, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Final Words
Intel HD audio quality isn't the highest in the industry for on-board design. This is fine for an average user, but if Intel is pushing on-board audio experience, they should make some enhancements to signal quality. Listening at higher volumes to quiet tracks could sometimes give the hint of a little noise that wasn't supposed to be there. Overall, the listening experience was very good for Intel's solution. And their audio enhancement software by Sonic Focus actually does a good job of delivering on its promises where all other software of a similar sort (that this reviewer has heard) falls short.
The SoundBlaster Audigy 2 isn't the best for straight audio listening. The card has IMD problems at the very often used 16-bit/44.1kHz setting (CD's, MP3's, games), which seems to produce a slight coloration of the audio. This doesn't matter as much (at all?) for movies and games, but for listening to CDs and music files, we would expect better. As a consumer card, where the target is for an entertainment systemm the Audigy 2 offers a good setup, especially when movies and gaming will be a central focus of the machine. For those who wish to dabble in recording, the Audigy 2 is certainly better than an on-board solution and offers 24-bit/96kHz recording of either analog or digital sources.
The Gina3g hits the numbers really well in some cases, but falls short in places where we'd rather see them do better. Our test would have looked better if we had an external balanced device to test against, as our loopback test created a ground loop. Listening to the Gina3g was a very clean experience, although setting up surround is interesting with the configurable ¼ inch outputs, and buying proper converters was interesting. The Gina3g is made more to be a cog in a machine than something to be listened to, but it does very well in a pinch. Of course, if the plan is to listen on the same machine as well as be used in recording, a separate audio card may be desired. The Gina3g can only maintain one sampling rate at a time and will alter all sampling rates to the most recently requested. In other words, if we're recording at 96kHz, and half way through, I double click a 44.1kHz audio track that plays on my Gina3g, half of my recording is going to sound really high pitced and fast when I play it back. This is avoidable if a separate audio card is used for playback while the Gina3g is recording (though, we would still recommend against doing this).
Interestingly, the Audigy 4 is a top performer in our tests, as the improved build quality serve to mask some of the issues that we've seen with the Audigy 2. We would still like to see balanced I/O, and truly reprogrammable sampling rates (to avoid the 44.1kHz resampling issue and IMD problems altogether). But overall, the Audigy 4 Pro is a welcome improvement to the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. Not so much that we would recommend upgrading, but if you have to choose between them, we would point in the direction of the Audigy 4.
But that is by no means a conclusion to audio here at AnandTech. The preceding was meant to cut a cross section through PC audio. We've touched on integrated solutions, consumer add-in products, and professional cards. In future audio reviews, we will be using the cards from this review as a reference point for other products in their respective categories. As audio makes a return to the pages of AnandTech, we hope to bring out reviews of products based from the likes of M-Audio, Terratec, EMU, RME, DigiDesign, MOTU, Lynx, C-Media, NVIDIA, Analog Devices, more Realtek, and anything else you can suggest to us. We will also try to include older cards (such as the SB Live! and Turtle Beach cards) for reference in future articles as well.
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smn198 - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
For me personally what I would want is reviews of gaming perfomance since I used the SPDIF outputs and my HiFi so they all should so the same. I'd also like to know how much difference there really is between different EAX implementations and if it is true that a new SoundStorm board is coming out. I'm sure you know. Can't you just claim you forgot the NDA? ;)reidc - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
My main reason for a soundcard is transferring analog audio from my Turntable(remember those 12" pieces of vinyl????) to CD- or commonly referred to as "needle-drops". The higher quality DAC's and discrete components the better.When I went from my old SB-Live to turtle Beach Santa Cruz- I recevied a huge boost in quality- the drop in noise was huge.
I'd love to see how the TB SC holds up in this regard compared to the listed products.
Oh- my TB SC is currently not in a PC- as I am just getting the Intel 915 board running in a mchine. I assume by seeing the Intel HD Audio tests- I WILL be putting my Santa Cruz in.
Chris
sandorski - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
Yup, a wider range of cards would be nice.ottodostal - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
I am quit disappointed with this review as there are only so few audio cards there. There are so many of them on the market! You must definitely include M-Audio Revolution 7.1, and some card from Audiotrak Maya + Prodigy series (aka Prodigy 7.1), and Aureon 7.1 Universe or DMX 6fire from Terratec. These are of the major cards on the market and there are missing. You could also include Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, and some card from Hercules.I would also include more mid-range and maybe some even some high-en cards (like those from Aardvark or R M E or MOTU ) generally, do not concentrate on low-end cards like Audigy 2 from Creative. In graphic cards reviews you expect us to pay over 600USD for them, so why to concentrate on value cards in audio tests? BTW if you think that people are not doing such things like playing games on audio cards which cost over 800USD you are wrong :)
You should also include some external USB and Firewire cards like Audiophile USB or FireWire 410 from M-Audio (one of my friends recently brought the Audiophile USB replacing some older Audiotrak Maya and he is quit happy with it. He told that even listening to mp3 files is clearly better).
You must also include latency tests in the review and you should comment on support of main standards lide ASIO and GSIF.
DerekWilson - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
#13, ceefka,if you're refering to not calling Intel HD audio, it can do 24-bit/96kHz ... It just can't record at that bit rate. Playback is no problem. Of course, it's not as high quality as we would expect to see from that many bits per sample at that sampling rate.
#12, S0me1X,
The gina3g uses an external DAC/ADC which is one of the reasons we see a cleaner signal. Of course, the soundblaster uses a /better/ DAC, so we see lower noise and dynamic range even though the signal looks a lil shaky at spots.
external DACs are a very good idea.
Derek Wilson
ceefka - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
Any chance for one of the Terratec soundcards? I heard they're pretty good.My ideal soundcard or onboard solution should be
-96KHz/24-bit DTS/Dobly Surround and any previous standard
-optical and coaxial s/pdif input and output
-perhaps an analogue breakoutbox for simple stereo operation and additional analogue outputs.
With so many DVD-players around (even in cars), there is no need to stay in the 44.1/16 realm. 48/24 already sounds so much better than 44.1/16.
It would be nice to have onboards being taken more seriously by the manufacturers. The leads on a mobo are all quite exposed to everything else going on in there. A few efforts in shielding would probably make a real difference, even without changing the chip. I am not ready to pay for a crappy onboard solution. And don't call it HD unless it can do 96/24.
S0me1X - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
Best way to get quality sound out of a pc is to use an external DAC. I'm using a Benchmark DAC1 that I'm very happy with :)SignalPST - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
I just hope that Creative would fix the 44.1kHz resampling issue and IMD problems with the Sound Blaster Zenith sound cards thats suppose to come out sometime this year.sxr7171 - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
I don't see how the Audigy 4 is so much better than the Audigy 2 to recommend it over the Audigy 2. They are pretty much the same with the Audigy showing weaknesses and one strength in 24/96 D/A conversion. I guess internal computer audio is still not to be taken very seriously except for games (which the reviews sort of hints at).wrecktangle - Thursday, February 3, 2005 - link
any chance you could take a look at the m-audio revo 5.1? i've been looking for a review of this card for a long time. even a short update/comparison to the revo 7.1 would be great.on the whole, this review seems alright. kinda short though. definitely touch on recording quality in the future. maybe you could also stretch out the qualitative bit with some more music listening tests of other genres.
is it just me, or are the spectrum plots missing?