Best sound card 2010

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Hello,
best sound card 2010
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You probably won't benefit much if any from getting a separate sound card as onboard sound is typically pretty good these days. There are really only three groups that would benefit from having an add-in sound card:

1. People who are using a motherboad without onboard sound. This is extremely uncommon these days as new boards without onboard sound today are almost all multi-socket workstation/server motherboards. Standard desktop boards old enough to lack onboard sound are seriously old (as in >10 years old) and you'd very likely do better to replace it with a less-ancient used board or a cheap new one rather than put a sound card in such an old board.

2. People whose board's onboard sound does not not work with their OS of choice. This is also pretty uncommon.

3. People who need some super-special high-end features because they are doing high-end audio work. These guys generally know exactly what cards they need to buy and pay large sums of money for them.

However, if you really want to see what's out there for not-super-high-end modern sound cards, Bit-Tech has such a review.
 
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The asus card you mentioned is not an audiophile grade.. Its more of a movie buff genre.. Audiophiles mostly listen to stereo so the best cards available for them would be the Asus Xonar essence STX or the M-Audio 2496.. Same way the best general purpose sound card (which includes gaming and movies) would be the Asus Xonar DX.. The studio grade soundcards also exist but they are mostly for audio creation and testing (and i mean serious audio creation and testing)..
 
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Audiophiles listen to stereo due to the lack of multichannel music. The highest fidelty tracks are multichannel DVD-A and blu ray...and hdmi has uncompressed lpcm...again, sorry, nothing has the bandwdith of hdmi.

The HDAV 1.3 also has four daisy chained Burr Brown PCM1796s...again...better than anything you listed other than the essence STX, which has a single 1792 DAC...Denon's flagship processors actually does the same thing...4x1796s...you get better performance than a single 1792...sorry...nice try.

The only chip better than 1792 is the ESS Sabre Reference, which has yet to make its way into any commercial product...see you later "audiophile"
 
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Audiophiles listen to stereo because all audio is recorded in stereo.. Multi channel formats induce color in the audio.. Its basically two channel audio remixed for multi channel effects.. This is termed as positional audio which is now finding its extensive use in gaming setups also.. That's the reason any audio studio will have only stereo setups coz there the clarity matters more than the fidelity..
 
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LOL. I'm sorry, I can't take that seriously. You think they record scores with 2 mics? Or live performances? Let me guess, you have never seen the inside of a control room in a live performance venue...

Most home music recordings early on were done with 3 mics.
 
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The number of microphones used to record a piece of music has little to do with the amount of sound channels it's intended to play back with.
When they record a band in a studio, they use different microphones for the different instruments and singers. They record each instrument into a separate sound channel on their recording/mixing console. This is not to get "multichannel audio", but to be able to do post-processing. They can adjust the levels of each instrument/performer, they can add effects that apply to only one of the instruments, and they can make the final product sound like a "hit album" rather than "the local rock band". The final mix is then normally converted to 16bits, 44.1kHz, 2 channels, for distribution on CD. The playback is hence, what we all know as "stereo" sound.
Multichannel sound such as DVD-A and SACD, is normally, as Emperus mentions, normally used for positional effects and reverb. It gives you more of a sound of being in a concert hall. The only common use of independant multi-channel sound for consumers today, is surround sound for computer games and TV/films.

I'm not however, disputing the fact that the HDAV's use of multiple DAC's, causes it to have very high quality music playback. It's highly unusual for consumer level soundcards to go to such lengths to offer good sound in stereo and multi-channel.
 
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You said, "They can adjust the levels of each instrument/performer, they can add effects that apply to only one of the instruments, and they can make the final product sound like a "hit album" rather than "the local rock band".


Ok, well being a songwriter, record producer and musician, I can tell you that today's methods of recording and making music sound like a "hit album" includes some crazed engineers driving digital signals to clipping levels and distortion (just draw a "hit song" up on your wav editing screen and watch the high and low end hit the limits.) They are trying to make Garbage sound hit-like. Unfortunately, this is the norm today .. the feeling of LOUD compressed music as opposed to lower levels and clear, low distortion recordings. Louder is commercially better, but is annoying as hell. A GOOD amplifer, and I mean very high end, handles the lower levels beautifully and enhances clear reproductive performances and mixes. A good engineer stays away from "hot" levels whenever possible. I could go on, but you catch my drift. BTW, I would prefer a high end Marantz, Quad Pioneer or McIntosh 70's vintage amplifier with floor standers housing 15" woofers anytime against the crap they make today ... I rebuilt my older system and it sounds awesome, reaching all of the frequencies flawlessly at almost any level, and without siginificant distortion. Playing digital tracks trough these old monsters is an awesome experience. I use a Pioneer 7 sound for rear speakers and the McIntosh Tube amp for the front stereo on movies. You won't need a high end sound card either, and the sound will blow you away.
 
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