Sound card choices

[Zato]

Hey all,

I need a sound card for my HTPC, that will output 5.1 digital to my home stereo receiver. I was just about to pull the trigger on a Diamond DDL sound card due to it having my requirements:

Toslink Optical output,
Dolby Digital,
and low price ($36 after rebate)

But the I notice the card does NOT have an internal digital input for the DVD-ROM. I am assuming this matters, since I will be playing DVD movies and such. Can anyone comment?

The next logical choice price-wise would be the Auzentech XMystique at $65. This has the internal digital input for the DVD. But it's using the exact same chipset as the Diamond card above that is almost half the cost. So it comes back down to whether that digital input connection matters or not.

Finally... if I'm willing to spend $65, then perhaps I should just spend $25 more for the Auzentech Xplosion. The reviews on this card are great, citing superior sound quality over the XMystique mentioned above. It has the addition of DTS - which my receiver doesn't support anyway, but I suppose it would be nice for future upgradability reasons.

But now I'm near the $100 price range, which puts the M-Audio cards into consideration as well. I am not really considering the X-fi cards as they don't have Toslink output and I don't want to buy/hassle with conversion devices.

Arrrg!! Cost is obviously a concern, but I want good 5.1 quality. I just want the best bang for my buck here.

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

[JonnyCam]

Hi,


Please correct me if I am wrong - but:
I dont think you need to connect the DVD to the sound card as the software takes the entire stream and demuxes it - then sends the AC3 out via SPDIF (if configured) or thorugh your analogue outputs.

I dont think there will be any issue with 5.1 quality even on the cheapest nastiest card - if you only uses SPDIF - as it's a straight pass-through of the DD signal - the quality is based on your receiver / speakers etc.

Cheaper sound cards have cheap DAC's and so the analogue signal is crap - higher price, better DACs.

Do you not have any coax digtal inputs on your receiver? I find that the coax gives me better performance than my toslink - more so for music from the DVD player & PC than for movie sound.
The sound is "fuller" on the coax - and while you could potentially get interference as it is a metal cable - at least you can run the cable wherever with out worrying about breaking it (cant have too greater angle on your toslink as to bot strain / snap the glass / plastic fibre)

So if you are not going to use any analog out (even to the TV) then you can go for a cheaper sound card - the one you are looking at is a good candidate - good price, DD live (so everything is going to be in DD 5.1, upsampled from source through the SPDIF)
AC3filter already does this is (software, at about 2% CPU) but anything which removes CPU load is a good thing - right?

So - if you are going to connect analog, then go for a nicer sound card - but if sticking with digital, dont bother- a $20 card and a $200 card have the same output stream.

Others may argue - but I have tried the difference between my very cheap sound card (like $30 US) via optical and coax to the receiver, and they sound about the same as my Denon DVD player using the same DVD source and connectors.
The analog on the cheapie is not that nice - but doesnt matter as it sounds alright when playing back recordings through the TV. (the sound getting recorded is not mind blowing to start with! - 2 channel RCA)

Just my opinions though, so you have to decide whats the most important part of your sound card.

[Zato]

Thanks much for the input JonnyCam!

Interesting, so what is the point of those internal connectors between DVD/CD and the sound card?

My receiver only has 1 digital input (Toslink), which currently my stand-alone DVD player is connected to. My HTPC will soon replace it however, once it's all working .

I won't be using analog out except on those rare occasions when I output the HTPC to a cheap 20" stereo TV in my den. I probably won't notice any differences in sound quality on that thing.

If I can get away with only spending $36 for the Diamond XTreme DDL vs. the $65 for the XMystique, that would certainly be ideal. They use the same chipset, so it seems like it should work ok.

Thanks again. The rebates on the Auzentech cards expire tonight, so I need to make a decision this evening.

[dneprrider]

Interesting, so what is the point of those internal connectors between DVD/CD and the sound card?

The "sound card to CD/DVD drive cable" is to provide CD audio sound when playing CD's on the computer.

[Zato]

I ended up buying the Diamond DDL card last night. After installing drivers, I get a BSOD. :| Tried newest CMedia drivers, the original Diamond driver disk, as well as the Turtle Beach drivers, same result. Grr! I shoulda gone with the Mystique, lol.

Gonna try to install it in my main PC to see if the card is just bad or if it's an incompatibility issue.

[JonnyCam]

Whos to say that the same issue would not have happened with any card.

What does the BSOD say? Have you googled the message?

What sound did you have installed prior to getting this card? Did you uninstall of of the drivers for that?

[Zato]

Yeah, true enough. Thanks for your help.

Yeah, I googled the error, didn't find much of anything.

BSOD is just a STOP message pointing to one of the new sound card drivers (have it written down at home).

I did read the card was picky about sharing IRQs, so I moved it 3 different times until it now has it's own IRQ. But problem still persists.

Had an Audigy Gamer card installed prior, uninstalled it and drivers before installing the Diamond.

It's hard to find any support for this chipset.

[bobrap]

I dont think there will be any issue with 5.1 quality even on the cheapest nastiest card - if you only uses SPDIF - as it's a straight pass-through of the DD signal - the quality is based on your receiver / speakers etc.

Would I be correct in assuming then that using my Motherboard AC97 audio that has spdif out would be just as good as using a sound card? I've been thinking of upgrading my sound, but, if there would be no impovement, why bother:confused:

[JonnyCam]

But chnaces are - you will want to use analogue sound at some stage - but personally, I never care when watching on the TV - because the quality of the speakers in TV's are dubious to say the least - even on high end sets - this is partly because of the plastic housing
(wood just has a much better resonance, and looks lots better - solid wood especially - chip wood with veneers is the next best thing)

So if you are using on-board sound then the SPDIF should be as fine as these $600 sound cards I see around - but with some of the newer ones (such as the diamond as above) have better onboard chips which off-load all of the sound hardware duties from the cpu, leaving it free to struggle along with the mpeg decoding.

If you PC is higher spec and is 6.1 channel, I dont see a lot of point in spending more money on a new card (as long as the onboard sounds OK to you now)

That said - I am getting a new sond card as I have been getting issues with my old sound card and this new DD live encoding / DTS connect sound better than my AC3 filter software up-sample solution - apart from the fact that these cards are actually Dolby licensed, and may be more compatible / closer to Dolby specs.

The only thing to watch with cheaper cards is the drivers as in the above posts - have a look around and see if people are complaining about drivers not working under your ver. of windows fo whatever - but shouldnt be a prob for onboard sound.

Hope that helps.

[daza67]

Arrrg!! Cost is obviously a concern, but I want good 5.1 quality. I just want the best bang for my buck here.

If your not concerned with gaming it's hard to go past a Chaintech AV710 or similar using the Envy24 chip, take a read here: http://www.htpcnews.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3616

Once you've heard bit perfect music playback you won't accept anything else again.

Daza