Soundcard

From DNBWiki

A soundcard is a piece of hardware used to provide a computer input/output for MIDI and/or audio.

It may be PCI, USB or Firewire, and may be internal or come with an external breakout box. The latter reduces interference and noise from placing the ADC and DAC converters inside the computer.

[edit] Range of soundcards

At the lowest level is "onboard sound", with basic sound built into the motherboard, or cheap and basic "no-brand" soundcards fitted with consumer PCs.

There are then various cards aimed more at gamers, DVD viewers or general home users, such as Creative Labs Soundblaster and Audigy cards.

A recommended minimum for bedroom studio use are any of the cards in the "prosumer" soundcard market. These tend to give you ASIO drivers for lower latency, support for 24 bit / 96khz operation, varying numbers and types of I/O (XLR, jack, phono, balanced or unbalanced, SPDIF, etc), better converters, lower noise, etc. Manufacturers include:

• Echo,
• Emu
• M-Audio
• RME
• Terratec

Beyond this price point lies a world of more "high-end" audio interfaces with offerings from MOTU, Digidesign, Apogee and others.

[edit] Grid threads

• What do good soundcards do better?

[edit] Under 65 pound

• Emu 0404
• Emu Proteus X (emu 0404 with softsampler)
• M-Audio Audiophile 2496