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Date:	Wed, 3 Oct 2001 13:17:27 PDT
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Sound Card Suggestions

Content Type: text/plain

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Gary Granat wrote:
>
> Should I look for a card containing Crystal
> chips? Is something else better? What
> kind of driver issues will I encounter?

Hi Gary,

I was just looking for a high-quality sound card myself. If you just
want to play back then any of them should be satisfactory. If you want
to record then you need to consider the noise and distortion specs --
that's what I've found out in the past couple of weeks.

My main machine has an older TidalWave 128 card with a crystal chip and
works fine. Crystal makes good chips. I think they're now owned by
Cirrus but still have independent development (it was that way a year or
two ago). The chip data sheets used to be on the Cirrus site but I just
checked and the urls I have for my chip aren't there any more:

http://www.crystal.com/
http://www.crystalcomputer.com/
http://www.cirrus.com/
http://www.cirrus.com/design/products/index.cfm?DivisionID=2

For noise testing, you have to test with the input shorted, with it
typically loaded (with a resistor), and with it open, and test each
input setup at minimum gain and maximum gain. If you record a .wav file
for these six tests you can look at it with a hex editor and see what
your noise is.

Distortion testing is more difficult because you need a signal
generator. I'd rely on the chip's spec sheet for the distortion rating,
the value given is probably reliable.

Of the two, noise is usually a bigger problem than distortion if you're
doing recording and studio work. These are 16-bit chips which don't
give you much leeway for any subsequent processing (level shifting, eq,
effects). If you truly need studio quality sound recording then you
need more bits -- 24 bits is adequate. As for distortion, your speakers
contribute more distortion than the chip ever will.

If you're just listening to music and your current card works fine,
there's no reason to change. The technology hasn't improved.

There's usually a few sound card driver discussions on
comp.os.os2.multimedia. Good for lurking.

- Peter

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