I have an ASUS P4G8X m/b with integrated Realtek ALC-650 sound chip that I use at work. I use foobar2000 0.7 RC11 (sometimes Winamp 2.91), both with resampling plugins. Both players are using DirectSound output and hardware acceleration/mixing enabled.

The music is mostly MP3 (varying quality), with new files encoded with Ogg Vorbis (using Garf's excellent GT3b1 encoder) at q5. I have some Musepack q7 files as well.

I checked the documentation on the ALC-650... I assume it is a 48KHz sound card, although I can't find it in their spec sheet. Only meaningful spec was DAC which is 20-bit (18-bit for ADC).

Finally... my question is this, should I use a resampler set to 48KHz or not? Obviously, I do have to use 16-bit output.

At home, my HTPC uses a SB Audigy1 with kX drivers (with front and rear channels swapped) and resampling at 48KHz due to the card's own resampling problems. Output goes to a Logitech Z-560 4.1 system.

My work speakers are pretty good (for computer speakers, not saying much... I know), Altec Lansing ACS-55 2.1's. CPU/memory usage is not a concern, as it's a 3.06GHz P4 with HT and a gig of RAM.

Another option is to install my old ESS-1371 PCI soundcard, which has always been a good solid card.

Any suggestions? I'm just looking for optimum sound quality without having to buy any new hardware.

You can test it yourself:

1. using udial.wav sample; details in this thread.

2. using high pitched sine sweeps created by some wave editor, e.g. CoolEdit, e.g. a 12050Hz -> 22050Hz sweep with a duration of 20 seconds. If you can't hear anything after e.g. 10 seconds anymore (=16050Hz) but after e.g. 15 seconds you start to hear some tone (with decreasing pitch) again this aliasing is probably caused by poor resampling. Don't use too loud test signals BTW - this could cause similar problems due to clipping or distortion.

I didn't hear anything wrong with this udial sample, but now my ears started ringing a little more than usual.... Used Foobar2k 0.67 with all all DSPs removed, DirectSound, hardware mixing is not enabled. Onboard Realtek ALC-650 MSI KT3 Ultra.

Excellent test sample. Here are my results with fb2k on the ALC-650:

- all DSP's removed: sample has an oscillating frequency that starts about 25% into the playback

- added resampler @ 48khz; sample sounds fine

- windows volume slider can be maxed out to 100% without any apparent distortion or clipping

- adding soft clipping limiter (after resampler DSP) introduces another similar but slightly different artifact

- results are the same with DS (w or wo hardware mixing) and wave out

At least on the ALC-650, it appears that resampling to 48k is a good idea. I will further test on my Audigy1 at home and see what the results are.

I don't have a Monkey's input plugin for Winamp, is there one available?

THX

Here.

FYI: Changing Windows audio settings e.g. "Hardware acceleration" could cause differences with udial.wav too.