Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio? (Read 9071 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

I'm not exactly an audiophile so usually I consider the on-board sound of my computer to be ok for listening to music (usually through full size headphones).

The sound is ok to me, but I do notice that when I turn the in-line volume control on the phones all the way up to maximum that I can hear some high ptiched screeching noise, not very loud but pretty noticable. This is with no audio playing because otherwise it would be too loud to listen to.

Now I set the Windows mixer sliders to maximum (this does *not* effect the noise volume) and then adjust the headphones in-line volume down to the point where music playback is right for me. At this point the objectional noise is just about below my audible threshold so I guess it's not doing too much harm. Actually it depends on the volume of the material I'm listening to. For loud stuff (especially for loud non replay gained stuff) the noise is definitely below my audible threshold when the music volume is set to my taste, for 89dB replay gained stuff it's just about at the audible threshold.

I was just wondering if anyone else is listening through onboard audio that is perhaps just a little noisey? Maybe I should just get a decent PCI soundcard?

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #1 –
The general quality (noise level) of integrated audio depends on the design of your speficic motherboard – what components are near the codec, and perhaps power quality.

I've experienced unbearable noise with some of the integrated solutions. However, another problem was more prominent – lack of configuration options. Integrated cards usually come with very fat control panels and drivers with the size of a good MIDI wavetable bank. With all that you still can't setup the interface to your liking.

In past I have extensively tried to use a Realtek on Intel 965G, in the end I gave up. The graphics heavy Realtek control panel wouldn't allow me to set the input to line level, even on the first notch of the crude volume knob there was some gain. This resulted in excessive noise. This stupid input also appeared to vary in sensitivity depending on what was connected to it. S/PDIF was not bitperfect. I couldn't utilize all the outputs independently.

IMHO, integrated audio is not a good choice if you care about quality.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: uart on
The sound is ok to me,

Seems a good reason not to spend money.

Quote from: uart on
but I do notice that when I turn the in-line volume control on the phones all the way up to maximum that I can hear some high ptiched screeching noise, not very loud but pretty noticable. This is with no audio playing because otherwise it would be too loud to listen to.

Noise is not screechy and so it indicates something is not as good as it could be and so at this setting you do not have the full dynamic range.

Quote from: uart on
Maybe I should just get a decent PCI soundcard?

I am not sure you have made much of a case for this.

Generally it is the analogue circuitry in a PC that is potentially a problem. The computer environment is hostile for low noise levels and typical "power" amplifiers to drive headphones are normally not audibly neutral driving headphones that have high and significantly varying with frequency impedances.

A good PCI card may be an improvement particularly with regard to the noise but I would check the headphone amplifier first.

Another alternative might be something like:

http://www.behringer.com/MS20/index.cfm?lang=eng

at around $100 which contains a D/A allowing a direct connection if your sound card has a digital output. They  have a headphone socket using a decent power supply from a power amplifier. Setting the digital volume to maximum and adjusting the volume control on the amplifier will give you the best signal to noise performance. And they are quite decent speakers as well compared to most computer speakers.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #3 –
I happen to own a pair of MS-20. The (pre-)amplifier is very noisy. The hiss from it is audible even next to a computer cooled by a generic full speed 80 mm case fan (very loud). These speakers may sound quite acceptable but should not be the choice if noise is a concern to you.

While regular computer speakers can be made silent by turning the volume all the way down, the hiss from Behringer MS-20 is constant.

This might be a problem in these exact speakers I own – rather than the model as such. But the digital input does not work properly @ 44100 Hz. At low signal levels it will produce clicking noise as if it lost the SPDIF signal briefly.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #4 –
Well, if you can adjust the volume of your various devices to hide the noise, I see no reason to upgrade.

On the technical side of things, those screeching noises (do they seem to change when you interact with your computer - send windows to the taskbar and call them back up, for example) are the result of a poorly-designed motherboard or possibly power supply. When I had Dell trash, I would always get lots of noise, even with a PCI sound card. But on my new PC with a quality motherboard and very clean PSU, noise hasn't been an issue at all with the onboard audio.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: j7n on
I happen to own a pair of MS-20. The (pre-)amplifier is very noisy. The hiss from it is audible even next to a computer cooled by a generic full speed 80 mm case fan (very loud). These speakers may sound quite acceptable but should not be the choice if noise is a concern to you.

While regular computer speakers can be made silent by turning the volume all the way down, the hiss from Behringer MS-20 is constant.

This might be a problem in these exact speakers I own – rather than the model as such. But the digital input does not work properly @ 44100 Hz. At low signal levels it will produce clicking noise as if it lost the SPDIF signal briefly.

Interesting. We do not have any MS-20s but I have just had a quick play with a pair of MS-40s which I presume are going to be similar but with bigger drive units and power amplifiers. I only used an analogue input and so cannot comment on the digital input. Perhaps after the weekend.

Observations:
* noise through the speakers is higher than in normal (more expensive) audio equipment.
* noise did not go to zero at zero volume but it did increase after about a quarter of a turn.
* noise was only audible close to the speakers (< 1m.). At a normal listening distance of >1.5m. it could not be heard.
* noise at a low level was audible using the headphone socket at zero gain and started to increase after about half a turn.

I was in a quiet room (no other audible electrical equipment) but I am currently a bit clogged up with a cold.

Noise is not going to be audible through the speakers I played with unless they are on the desk next to the keyboard, the room is quiet and the music is playing very quietly. Similarly for the headphones, the music would have to be very quiet for the noise to be audible. In normal use the noise is not going to be audible but the point that there is background level of noise is a good one given the OPs interests.

In your setup, how far away from the speakers are your ears? Did you try to return the speakers since hearing them hiss in the presence of the noise from a computer would seem to be defective unless you are wearing them as headphones? The problem with the digital input also suggests your hardware may be defective. This is not uncommon with seriously cheap electrical goods manufactured in China.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #6 –
I may have overemphasized the noise level. The presence of hiss drives me nuts, others may be more tolerant to it. The MS-20 are connected to my computer at 80 cm distance from the listening position. I've mentioned noise level because the OP told he uses mostly headphones.

Behringer technical support suggested to return these speakers to the dealer after I described the problem with SPDIF at 44100. I had ordered the product from another country and it would cost too much to ship it back.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #7 –
Thanks for the interesting replies everyone. Yes I’ve experienced some really bad onboard sound systems in the past, especially that situation where the sound changes when you interact with the computer as slks mentions. But  I’d never noticed any issues like this with my current setup (a Gigabyte GA-M55S-S3) until now. Like I said the noise is not too bad (close to threshold of hearing with headphone in-line volume adjust for normal listening) and it is *not* changing as I interact with the computer. Probably I wouldn’t really notice it if it was “white” but it’s kind of screechy which is the bad part.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #8 –
Try properly grounding the PC and see if the problem goes away...
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #9 –
Hearing a screeching sound when the volume is turned up I think justifies the cost of buying a PCI sound card.  I say do it.  Personally I think there is a difference.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: odyssey on
Try properly grounding the PC and see if the problem goes away...


The PC is properly grounded and in addition I am listening through headphones so there can be no ground loop issues.

Quote
Hearing a screeching sound when the volume is turned up I think justifies the cost of buying a PCI sound card. I say do it. Personally I think there is a difference.


Yeah in loopback tests PCI cards usually measure several dB quieter than onboard sound.

Anyway here's a development in the situation. I noticed in the realtek control applet for the onboard sound that the output type can be selected as either "headphones" or "line-out". On previous sound devices where I've had this option it did precisely nothing, but on this motherboard it actually "works"and boosts the gain a few dB when you select headphones for the output type. I've had it selected as "headphones" (becasue that's what I mostly listen through) but just now I set it back to "line-out" and it seems to have made the noise less noticable (even after I re-adjust the volume to compensate for the reduced gain). I'm still not 100% certain that I'm not just imagining that it's better becasue I cant make it as loud (so can never really hear it at an annoying level anymore) or if it's a genuine improvement after re-adjusting the volume for the loss of gain. I'll have to do some more serious listening tests but I think it's improved.

So currently I can still get plenty of volume out of my headphones with the new settings and even when I push the in-line volume control to maximum the noise is only a fairly faint hiss and I don't think I can hear it at all when I'm at normal listening volumes. I'm pretty happy with the situation now (not that it was actually that terrible before).

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #11 –
Onboard sound is perfectly fine these days I have an old Audigy 1 card in my old computer and my new PC has onboard Realtek sound which sounds perfectly fine to me, although I did put my Audigy in as I think it sounds better for games.
:Foobar 2000:
:MPC --standard:
:iRiver H320 Rockboxed:

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #12 –
I frequently listen to the onboard audio on my work's HP DC7700 workstations. They have some variant of Realtek HD Audio, and it's surprisingly good. The headphone jacks are very powerful, and supply more than enough to my HD-580s at even moderate volume settings. With a bit of equalization, they deliver a lot of bass, and are overall very pleasing.

The noise level varies from workstation to workstation - which isn't very surprising. Some are VERY noisy with a lot of EMI, others are dead quiet. The best news is that ASIO and Kernel Streaming through foobar work perfectly fine, as does resampling to 176400 Hz. Honestly pretty impressive.

Now, if you're looking for a good budget PCI card - you can't go wrong with a Chaintech AV-710. Via Envy24 chipset, and solid DACs for under $40 USD. If you have a headphone amp it gets even better, as you can get a true line level out, and "real" 44.1 KHz output if you play with the jumpers. I have one (replaced my Audigy2 due to its TERRIBLE vista drivers), and it was a very nice improvement over my motherboard's AC97 (ALC850), which was just dreadful - but actually better than the Audigy2 under Vista.

Sound cards are crazy 

~MiSfit

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #13 –
Yes they are..

My laptop has integrated sound, sounds nasty but that's due to the ubercrappy inbuilt speakers which have next to no bass.

Listening with my nice Alessandro MS-1 (aka Grado SR-180) headphones it sounds comparable to my M-Audio card (when the laptop isn't overheating, anyway). The funny thing is I originally bought the laptop for a recording solution


Anyway, is it really easy to ground your PC? I'm sure I have grounding issues, but I always assuemd it was complicated and convoluted (i.e. requiring a good understanding of electronics) to properly ground a setup.

Please correct me I'm wrong, I'd love to do it.

Regards,
- Spike

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #14 –
I must add that I've been using Realtek HD onboard audio for about 1,5 years. I've been totally satisfied with it, although I never expected much from it... Now after noticing the internal resample of the alc 880 and alc 888 codecs (have two computers), I enabled the resampling (Foobar2000<3) and it made some little clipping go away, well at least my placebo effect says so.  (artifacts of bad resampling, maybe). Noice level has always been really low for my taste, never heard it under normal conditions, neither does it change (when volume levels all @ max) when HDD acts nor when moving mouse. Perfectly satisfied.^^ Couple of times I've had them both (not simultaneously) hooked up to a AV amp with analog connection, and only then I've had serious humming and noise under normal listening conditions, and even then it was only 'cause of the ground loop effect. Stupid me.

EDIT: Oh yeah, driving the sound with fb2k resampling to 24-bit 48kHz (alc880) and 24-bit 96kHz.
Hevay is The Way!

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Spikey on
Anyway, is it really easy to ground your PC? I'm sure I have grounding issues, but I always assuemd it was complicated and convoluted (i.e. requiring a good understanding of electronics) to properly ground a setup.


Good grounding design for something like a motherboard with onboard audio is complicated indeed (for the person doing the circuit-board layout), but you've got no control over that.

As far as the end user is concerned good grounding of a computer is very simple, avoid ground loops by grounding everything (electrically) connected to your computer at one common point. For example if you listen through unamplified headphones there's not much that can go wrong. If you connect analog audio-out (or audio-in for that matter) to an amplifier or stereo system then you should ground the stereo (all components) and the PC at a common point. In my country (Australia) our power outlets are all grounded so for me it's just a matter of making sure that I plug all components of both the stereo and the PC into a common power outlet, using a large power-board is the easiest way to ensure this.

As for the possible determent of not grounding both the PC and the amplifier at a common point it varies greatly from one installation to the next. Ground loops by nature are highly variable and depend on the particular routing of the wires around the building as well as interaction with other electrical loads in the system. I’ve seen the determent vary from absolutely nothing (no ill effect) through to sever humming noise and in one case a ground noise so sever that it drove the sound card input into overload and it stopped working (not fatally, fortunately it recovered after the ground loop was removed and the PC restarted, but it was repeatably caused by the ground issue).

Quote from: blue_misfit on
Now, if you're looking for a good budget PCI card - you can't go wrong with a Chaintech AV-710. Via Envy24 chipset, and solid DACs for under $40 USD. If you have a headphone amp it gets even better, as you can get a true line level out, and "real" 44.1 KHz output if you play with the jumpers.


Hang on I'm confused there, what's the story with headphones amplifiers. Doesn't the soundcard have enough grunt to drive a set of headphones? Even my onboard sound can manage that.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #16 –
Quote from: uart on
Hang on I'm confused there, what's the story with headphones amplifiers. Doesn't the soundcard have enough grunt to drive a set of headphones? Even my onboard sound can manage that.

It is not the grunt but the size of the output impedance and, sometimes, noise if sound quality is considered an issue. For example, blue_misfit with his HD-580s will almost certainly hear a noticeable improvement in bass by listening via a headphone socket of an amplifier compared to his sound card. This follows from his headphones having a large variation in impedance at bass frequencies compared to treble frequencies. Not all headphones are like this but the more expensive hi-fi ones usually are. I often listen via HD-600s (basically the same as the HD-580s but with more marketing guff) and the difference between a computer socket and an amplifier socket is fairly obvious when changing.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #17 –
Just an update on this thread. Some important new information has come to light which has resolved the noise issue.

I can remember that when I first tested this gigabyte motherboard I thought that the onboard audio sounded pretty darn good (best onboard audio I've ever had) and I ran an RMAA (rightmark audio analyser) loopback test and everything looked pretty good there too. That's why I was a bit surprised when I suddenly noticed this faint but quite noticable screeching noise through the headphones.

Well I've tracked down the noise and now got it sorted. The key point is that the noise is only on the front headphone jack! When I plug into the rear jack, which comes straight from the motherboard without wiring, the noise is not there. So it's probably just the front audio jack poorly wired and picking up some noise on the way. I notice that the front audio is just wired with ribbon cable inside my case, so it's not properly shielded. It also runs in very close proximity to the front USB wiring (also ribbon cable) so I'm guessing that's the source.

Well one day I might take the effort and rewire the front audio/usb of this cheapo case with some decent sheilded cables, but for now I'm just jacking in at the rear instead and everything is sweet.

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #18 –
I found a big sound improvement by deleting the 1/8" stereo phono jacks (Line In & Line Out) on the SBLive card (running with the kX drivers) and replacing with coax and full blown RCA jacks.
No one can be told what Ogg Vorbis is...you have to hear it for yourself
- Morpheus

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #19 –
I use the on-board sound on my laptop which I believe uses a SoundMax chip (Analog devices also make the op-amps which you will find in many DIY amps). Specification wise, it is pants; slight hiss like you mentioned and clicks when you start at stop songs sometimes. However, musically I find it plenty good enough for my application (Grado SR225 Headphones with mini jack end).

I found the creative x-fi really thick and harsh/boosted sounding. Don't forget with a laptop the AC-DC converter is external so less interference from that, and besides the CPU in laptops clocks alot lower so I'm not surprised by my experiences here.

All in all - I don't think on-board sound (Specifically on laptops) is as bad as some make out.
Audio Engineer from the UK

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #20 –
Quote from: slenpree on
I found the creative x-fi really thick and harsh/boosted sounding.
Have you read the Terms of Service, particularly number 8. Of course, double blind testing sound cards is difficult, but the x-fi performs sufficiently well that you should consider whether your perceptions could be related to what you expected.

Quote from: slenpree on
Don't forget with a laptop the AC-DC converter is external so less interference from that, and besides the CPU in laptops clocks alot lower so I'm not surprised by my experiences here.
Less intereference from the power brick, but laptops still have DC-DC converters in them, so there is still a decent amount of power supply noise. It's still a valid comment, though. The CPU clock issue mystifies me, though. Both 1.8GHz and 3.0GHz are so far above the audio band that the difference shouldn't matter. Most audible effects are from things that are clocked much slower (the USB packet clock, the screen horizontal and vertical refresh, etc.)

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #21 –
Yeah, I have been looking through these forums for a long time now and aware of point 8 in the Terms of Service and also noticed how often people remind each other about it. I don't know why I slipped that statement in - I should ABX this (like you suggested) as its always been on my mind.

The CPU clock thing makes more sense now. Do you think there would be an effect on sound quality if no monitor is plugged into the VGA port of a laptop and the lid is closed so the screen is off ? - Maybe that should be ABX tested too!
Audio Engineer from the UK

Does anyone else listen with PC and onboard audio?

Reply #22 –
slenpree >> ... and aware of point 8 in the Terms of Service and also noticed how often people remind each other about it

yes ... running afoul of the dreaded TOS natzi's? Even statements that are obviously opinions catch their eagle eyes. Believe it or not, there was a time when this place was both informative AND fun.
No one can be told what Ogg Vorbis is...you have to hear it for yourself
- Morpheus