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What difference does it make?


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and please, no stupid answers like " its clearer" or "it sounds better". I need technical reasons. Im very new at this and i have a budget lower than you can imagine.

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Guest Skritch

I used to have a regular Soundblaster SB16 sound card, and I recently bought an Audigy Platinum. The difference was very noticable for me.

 

For example, a simple test of my setup would be to hit Record in my audio sampling program, but make no noise with my synths. Then, I would take the "silence" it recorded and make it twice as loud using an audio editing program. With the SB16, doing that created an audio file that had quiet hiss in it. With the Audigy Platinum, I have to double the volume of the "silence" sample four times before I can hear any noise (that's making the volume 16 times as loud).

 

Another thing that proved the importance of having a good sound card to me was the vocoder test. I ran a voice sample through a vocoder set to a short pulse wave, and used a low pitch to get a robot voice. With the SB16, what I would hear in my headphones on the vocoder (actually, a Novation Supernova 2) would be "clearer" than what got recorded on my computer. Once I got the Audigy Platinum, it sounded identical. The difference is that the Audigy has a better low-end sensitivity (down to 10Hz) and a better input sampler (up to 96kHz, where most only can do 44kHz maximum). The SB16 wasn't recording the lowest parts of the sounds, and what it did record was made "muddy" by its lesser-quality Analog-to-Digital chip.

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Guest etherdesign

Pardon me.. but.. well first, why would one spend so much on a Novation Supernova 2.. and so little on a quality sound card.. second.. Audigy is not a 24/96 card, Audigy can only do 24/96 from pre-sampled sources.. the AD/DA converters run at 24/96, but the EMU 10k2 chip and the AC 97 audio codec which all analog signals on that card run through support a max of 16/48.. the resampling and interpolation is done by the EMU 10k2 chip, but it is not pro audio quality, and for the price of the Audigy Platinum one can do much better nowadays, this card is a lie, ask in any pro audio forum such as The Gas Station and you will get the same, if not a more distainful, response.. the Audigy is a gamer card and not much more.. Anything that doesn't have 1/4" TR or better TRS balanced outputs is not a good card, M-Audio Audiophile excluded (though if you have powered studio monitors, I really wouldn't suggest running them off of anything besides balanced TRS 1/4" or XLR jacks)

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Guest Skritch

The Supernova 2 was bought for live use. The Audigy was bought for gaming. The fact that upgrading from a bargain sound card is useful, and my experience in upgrading from a bargain sound card to the Audigy were the main points of my post. If I misread the specifications in the manual, I apologise.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Im getting an audiophile next week. I know you want one for audio recording, but i dont know a whole lot about that. What i do know is that the Audigy isnt true 24/96, even though some sly marketing states that it is. Both cards are around the same price, I havent had a mess around with an Audigy, but i have with the Audiophile. I am fucking impressed with it. All the audio i did came through nicely (but like i said im no expert) but what impressed me most was the latency. I dont know what the latency i was playing with was, just that playing reaktor was like playing a hardware synth. After playing reaktor with a SB Live (heh) this was absolutely incredible. The SB is getting relegated to the bin as soon as possible :) Actually gimme a shout if anyone wants it, actually dont cos its my girlfriends :)

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  • 1 month later...

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