Which sound card for music? Question for musicians!

[Artas1984]

Most of PCI or PCI-E sound cards delivered for computers are meant to enrich gaming/movie experience mostly. I have a Z 5500 system connected to a mid-range realtek "nothing special" chip.

My father came to me, i wanted to show him my new setup, and so we were listening to a piece of Steve Vai from a DVD G3 Live In Japan. My father (a former drummer himself) noticed that my Z 5500 lack quality! He said that the speakers are powerful and the bass is an overkill, but the speakers lack strength in reproducing higher frequency sounds - he said that he does not hear the plates and similar higher pitched sound sources that clear, and that the bass is just "too much". He was comparing the music from his home speaker system, that is: a DVD player -----> 1990'ies AKAI amplifier ----> 2X 60 W Sony speakers.

I was kinda annoyed, but "swallowed" the truth. I knew a PC based system could never top a real audio system. Obviously what i can do is to find a dedicated audio card, that can reproduce the music fro the DVD like it's meant to be. I don't want any schity Creative BS meant for gaming.


So, musicians, audio experts, what would you recommend me that would fit into a PC? Max budget is 150 EU. I am from east Europe, don't point any US marketing.

PS: system impedance is 8 Ohms, 5X60 W satelite + 180 W bass.

[jagabo]

Your speakers are the problem. Not the sound card.

[El Heggunte]

jagabo is right. "Modern" speakers cannot rival the old-school 3-driver HUGE enclosures.

[Artas1984]

My father's Sony speakers are indeed 3 driver based. So that's it then? Z 5500 are for gaming and movies, not for music no mater what audio card i toss in?

[Hoser Rob]

First thing that comes to mind: the wattage rating of the speaker has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with how good they sound.

You may want to install a wasapi or asio audio driver to get best music playback if you're running windows. Windows just loves to resample your audio and those drivers will prevent that.

Here's a link to a very good guide to computer music playback:

http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/

However, I agree it's probably the speakers. 5.1 home theater systems aren't usually designed to play music well, even the home systems, let alone the computer ones.

I'm not surprised your dad thought the bass was too much. Those subs (on most a/v receiver based systems as well as computer systems) are designed to make all those explosions in action movies as loud as possible. They're not designed to sound good with music. Most of those dedicated <$500 subs are like this.

You definitely can't assume that 90's speakers aren't as good as newer ones. Speaker technology is actually pretty mature. They improved a lot in the late 70's but if a speaker was good in the 90s it's still good. Same with amps.

I'm getting very good sound with my laptop running linux plugged into my 25 year old NAD amp and small paradigm speakers. Through the headphone jack. I'll get a usb d/a converter one of these days but I'm actually pretty happy the way it is now. It definitely sounds better than my cd player ...

[jagabo]

I don't know if this source is reliable:

http://www.thinkdigit.com/Audio-Devices/Digit-April-2010-Speaker-comparison-test_4318.html
http://www.thinkdigit.com/FCKeditor/uploads/avg-surr.jpg

But that big dip in frequency response around 4500 KHz would definitely explain your father's observations. It recovers a bit around 8 KHz but even there it's down about 10 dB. You might be able to mitigate the boomy bass by moving the sub further away from a wall or corner.

[El Heggunte]

My father's Sony speakers are indeed 3 driver based. So that's it then?
Z 5500 are for gaming and movies, not for music no mater what audio card i toss in?

So to speak =^.^= The small/tiny enclosures of today are not the only "sucking factor" , speaking in general the analog audio amplifiers of today also are designed/produced carelessly, unless you pay big bucks for a (semi-)professional device. You could also build your own "non-powered" speakers and your personal multichannel audio amplifier, but of course not everybody has the motivation / time / patience to go this way.

[Cornucopia]

Speakers are the #1 reason for crappy sound in a normally "quality" sound chain. Output wattage does relate, but really only if your intend to deliver LOUD sound that can fill a room (then you also should worry about how cleanly an amp can put out that level). A speaker "system" in the box usually includes both tuned/engineered boxes matched with specific drivers (aka cones) and if they specialize their bands, you would also have an optimized crossover EQ built-in. And most good setups use PASSIVE speakers, fed by a separate Amplifier.

On a scale of 1 to 10, most PC-based systems are a 2 or 3. Most "home entertainment system" setups are a 3-6. I say most because it's very possible to use the output of a PC to feed an external amplifier & home/studio speakers.

One thing about that last setup: if you choose to go that way, seriously think about using an EXTERNAL or a Shielded/ProStudio-quality D/A converter. Most times, D/As are built into the soundcard chip. With this kind of situation, it is extremely difficult to avoid RMI/EFI "hum/buzz" in the chain, and once the signal goes to an amp & hi-qual speaker, what once was hidden now becomes very evident and annoying. Use of the external removes the D/A from the general PC enclosure which diminishes the RMI/EFI influencing strength, and a Shielded/ProStudio-quality setup has the wiring built to avoid that even if it is INTERNAL.

Scott

[deadrats]

another suggestion, while i agree 100% that the source of the relatively poor audio quality i recently was presented with a similar problem and i was seriously considering buying a nice high end set of bose speakers and hooking those up to my pc; since i'm not made of money i looked for a cheaper alternative and i found a surprisingly good solution at microcenter (this is a U.S. based store but what i'm about to say should be accessible in most countries. they had a set of headphones that can plug directly into the soundcard and much to my surprise these no name brand headphones that cost just $8 deliver some pretty good sound quality, especially with high quality audio sources like uncompressed audio or dvd-audio.

may be something to consider...