Sound card vs onboard 'blu ray audio'

[olivierhacking]

Hello,

I currently own a MSI P55-CD53 motherboard which has 'True Bluray Audio' on it. On the manufacturer website, it says the audio chip is 24 bit, 192 Khz. Is it worth buying this sound card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 24bit? Will the sound be better than the onboard sound? Specifically for music playback in iTunes, NOT from a CD.
Thank you for your help!

 

[sportsfanboy]

What speakers are you going to be running? Anything around 200 dollars or less stick with onboard sound. modern motherboards typically have decent or should I say pretty good audio built in. Unless you going with audio file speakers I wouldn't waste your money.

 

[olivierhacking]

I have +-50 dollar Logitech speakers- not too amazing but definitely not horrible 😀. I guess I will stick to the onboard sound. Thanks for the reply

 

[thefivetheory]

Also, if do ever decide to upgrade your computer's audio, at least buy a good, somewhat current sound card, IMHO. The current Xonar cards by Asus are generally considered to be excellent, as are Auzentech's.

 

[gamerk316]

The Audigy line isn't even supported anymore, and onboard offers just as good quality as the old Audigy line.

Current soundcard brands that I recommend are ASUS, Auzentech, and HT Omega.

 

[olivierhacking]

Ok, thanks for the advice

 

[MEgamer]

thing with onboard and other osundcards is that they cant stream 192khz 24bit audio from blu ray becuase of the digital protection, the only that can do so, is the asus xonar HDAV1.3

and most mid end and up amplifiers can also stream the protected data.

anyway almost everytihg in vista and 7 is re-sampled to 44.1khz.

 

[compulsivebuilder]

thing with onboard and other osundcards is that they cant stream 192khz 24bit audio from blu ray becuase of the digital protection, the only that can do so, is the asus xonar HDAV1.3

and most mid end and up amplifiers can also stream the protected data.

anyway almost everytihg in vista and 7 is re-sampled to 44.1khz.

Do you have a reference to support that? It was my understanding that that was not the case in Windows 7, at least.

 

[sportsfanboy]

He won't notice a difference with a 50 dollar set of computer speakers. Were not talking about Bower and Wilkins 801's here.

 

[MEgamer]

well i only heard this from many forums... plus they have said, windows 7 has UAA and kmixer...esetially nothing has changed from windows vista to 7 in audio part.

 

[gamerk316]

thing with onboard and other osundcards is that they cant stream 192khz 24bit audio from blu ray becuase of the digital protection, the only that can do so, is the asus xonar HDAV1.3

and most mid end and up amplifiers can also stream the protected data.

anyway almost everytihg in vista and 7 is re-sampled to 44.1khz.

Kinda false information here:

1: Most audio is sampled at 44.1, so using anything higher doesn't achieve better quality. The soundcard will convert to whatever you select, but if the audio is sampled at 44.1...

ASUS, HT Omega, and newer Auzentech cards are capable of 192 over the Stereo output, but the surround analogs are usually limited to just 96 [or even 48?].

2: The Auzentech HTHD, ASUS HDAV 1.3, and Creative Titanium HD are all capable of streaming BD audio formats over HDMI, and should be capable of converting to multichannel analog without needing an outside program to handle the decoding.*

Any soundcard can stream BD audio over analog if its decoded by another program [Windows Media Player, etc] first, and basic Dolby/DTS formats can always be sent over SPDIF connections.

*I still need comfirmation on this point.


To the OP, based on your current speakers, the ASUS Xonar D1/DX or HT Omega Striker should be plenty. Should offer a good upgrade without breaking the bank.

 

[MEgamer]

thing with onboard and other osundcards is that they cant stream 192khz 24bit audio from blu ray becuase of the digital protection, the only that can do so, is the asus xonar HDAV1.3

and most mid end and up amplifiers can also stream the protected data.

anyway almost everytihg in vista and 7 is re-sampled to 44.1khz.

Kinda false information here:

1: Most audio is sampled at 44.1, so using anything higher doesn't achieve better quality. The soundcard will convert to whatever you select, but if the audio is sampled at 44.1...

ASUS, HT Omega, and newer Auzentech cards are capable of 192 over the Stereo output, but the surround analogs are usually limited to just 96 [or even 48?].

2: The Auzentech HTHD, ASUS HDAV 1.3, and Creative Titanium HD are all capable of streaming BD audio formats over HDMI, and should be capable of converting to multichannel analog without needing an outside program to handle the decoding.*

Any soundcard can stream BD audio over analog if its decoded by another program [Windows Media Player, etc] first, and basic Dolby/DTS formats can always be sent over SPDIF connections.

*I still need comfirmation on this point.


To the OP, based on your current speakers, the ASUS Xonar D1/DX or HT Omega Striker should be plenty. Should offer a good upgrade without breaking the bank.

yes most audio is sampled at 44.1 eg CD music, ripped MP3.

however with the windows vista/7 audio architecture, everything is resampled to 48khz - no matter what. That is what the kmixer do... now it provides the flexibility by allowing mutiple sources to be played at once, with the sacrifice of bit-perfect output, and hardware acceleration. (xp and older OS works differently)

selecting a different output will make the sound quality worse, because the kmixer will carry out additional resampling...


...in order to overcome this, you will need asio4all (adio) or WASAPI, and using a media player that can use these output techniques you can bypass the kernal mixer and achieve bit perfect audio. (this is easier on XP with the additional plus of harware accelerated audio)


"ASUS, HT Omega, and newer Auzentech cards are capable of 192 over the Stereo output, but the surround analogs are usually limited to just 96 [or even 48?]."

yes it can, however not if it has HDCP. but again as i have said before, the crappy audio architecture will resample it back down to 48khz... the soundcard is nothing more then a DAC. processing is ALWAYS done on the CPU now.

"Any soundcard can stream BD audio over analog if its decoded by another program [Windows Media Player, etc] first, and basic Dolby/DTS formats can always be sent over SPDIF connections.

*I still need comfirmation on this point."

it can, if you are talking about DTS-HD (MA) and DD true HD, however it is limited to 2.0 anything higher will use the core files built in the audio file. this is because no software player out currently cannot stream the audio through the secure path which MA and true HD needs to go through.... unless of course you have HDAV 1.3.... yeah... HDCP is a b*tch.

 

[olivierhacking]

Hi guys, I hope you are still around.
I just got myself a Logitech Z906 system Very happy with it.
I saw you said it was not worth getting a sound card with my previous speakers.. is it now? I am interested in using optical connection for the audio, not the 6 channel analogue!

 

[MEgamer]

if u think ur onboard is poor, then try optiacl and see how it sounds.

 

[olivierhacking]

yes, but for that I need a sound card, which is what I need help with choosing I rad recently lots of new ones are coming out soon, guess Ill wait a bit

 

[MEgamer]

well if ur going to buy a soundcard then dont go with digitla connection

 

[blackhawk1928]

Hello,

I currently own a MSI P55-CD53 motherboard which has 'True Bluray Audio' on it. On the manufacturer website, it says the audio chip is 24 bit, 192 Khz. Is it worth buying this sound card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 24bit? Will the sound be better than the onboard sound? Specifically for music playback in iTunes, NOT from a CD.
Thank you for your help!

No, for regular stereo playback, onboard digital-out sound will not make any difference.

Focus on your speakers/amplifier first before worrying about a SC.

 

[olivierhacking]

No, for regular stereo playback, onboard digital-out sound will not make any difference.

Focus on your speakers/amplifier first before worrying about a SC.

Yes, but I just got the Logitech Z906 speakers!

 

[MEgamer]

Yes, but I just got the Logitech Z906 speakers!

those speakers dont need a soundcard...

 

[blackhawk1928]

yeah...those speakers do not need a sound-card at all.