ASUS P5P800 with Creative SoundBlaster Live! mobo

[cheepgeek]

i just recently got my ASUS P5P800 mobo. i was hesitant to use the onboard sound, but i figured i would give it a shot before i shelled out any more for a new card.

it came with SoundMax digital audio, and that pretty much sucked. using winamp there would be skips in songs when i accessed other programs and such, but i played a little and that went away. but the music had static to it. i had the same files on another pc and they play crystal clear on a Creative SoundBlaster value card i got at walmart... nothing special.

i just bit the bullet and paid $20 to upgrade to a Sound Blaster Live! ADVANCED mobo. the features are nice, but the sound still sucks.

is there any way to remedy this? i have the latest driver for it and creative shows nothing for driver support.
does onboard audio have to suck? it would be nice if i didn't have to go buy yet another piece of new equipment to make this all work...

ASUS P5P800 - P4 530 3.0GHz
2x256MB PC3200 2-2-2-5 - WD 74GB Raptor
PNY FX5200 128MB/256bit

 

[fullmetaljester]

check the cables going to your speakers. if you are getting static it is interference in the cables not your soundcard. also are you using some cheapo speakers? they might no be properly shielded

 

[cheepgeek]

i have 2 computers standing literally on top of each other using a KVM switch to go between the 2. the problem only exists in 1 of the 2 computers, using the same set of everything with the same E/M noise. all i do is simply unplug my speakers from one computer and plug it into the other.

and the speakers are Creative Inspire 2.1 speakers. they sound amazing and i know of lots of people that have the same set. they sound great when i plug into my old computer, my discman, my walkman, my zen... the only time there is any noise is when i plug into my brand new motherboard

ASUS P5P800 - P4 530 3.0GHz
2x256MB PC3200 2-2-2-5 - WD 74GB Raptor
PNY FX5200 128MB/256bit

 

[fullmetaljester]

i have heard the shielding on the mobo for the jacks os not very good; infact its one of the bigger complaints about OB sound

 

[Codesmith]

It doesn't sound like a driver problem.

Integrated sound cards tend to get more interference, but there are fine for most people since they have cheap speakers anyway.

You can get an SB Live 5.1 Sound card for $30. It has all the features I need/want except EAX 4 support.

If you want EAX you can get an Audigy 2 Value OEM (with driver CD) from newegg for $49 and it has everthing the Audigy 2 ZS has execpt DD and DTS hardware decoding and firewire.

 

[Crashman]

I have good speakers and my onboard sound still sounds good compared to many soundcards, unless I do something stupid like turn the output up too high. I can keep the output at a moderate level and turn the volume up on the speakers instead!

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Codesmith]

People have different standards when it comes to audio.

I have a friend has a old integrated soundcard and when no sound is playing you can actually hear noise from the speakers when the mouse moves. He is a real music lover but it doesn't bother him a bit as the noise only happens when he moves his mouse.

Other people seem to get very upset about defects that don't even apply to the actual use, like people complaining that you can hear a hiss when no sound is playing on the SoundStorm APU's analog output if you turn the volume all the way up.

I myself think that 128 kbps is good enough for my old non-digitally mastered CDs. I honestly can't tell the difference between that and the original.

I have a friend who insisted that mp3 in general and 128 kbps in particular was horrible.

So we set up a double blind test where I had two version of each track, one converted to a 128 kbps mp3 then back to wav. We both renamed the tracks with random numbers so neigher of us could tell which was which without comparing notes.

Turned out that with very good headphones my friend could tell the difference between the two tracks maybe 75% of the time but each time he thought the converted track was the better sounding original.

He still insists of ripping his CDs at 320 kps.

 

[Crashman]

My hearing is good enough to know that that my SQ2500 sounded superior to my SB Live Platinum. But I'm not always so fussy. The thing with most onboard audio is that it can be overdriven, pushed to far, which results in terrible clipping. The solution is to turn the output volume down.

Many players have a built-in equalizer feature which can also be responsible for pushing volume levels beyond what the codec is capable of, I've found another workaround, move the sliders down on the equalizer, equally, to get the same setting at lower total amplification.

If you rely on the speakers rather than the computer volume controls for amplification, you can usually find a setting with relatively low noise using modern codecs.

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