Hi.

I'm planning to buy a soundcard. At the moment I want to use it with my 'regular' PC but later it will become part of a 'DVD-player-replacement-PC" for my living room I'm planning to build.

The following features are 'must haves':

- 5.1 output (or more) (for connecting to a hifi amp)
- 24/96 DAC or better
- good analog output quality

'Would be nice'-features (importance ranking: 10 = high, 1 = low):

- (9) Headphone output capable of powering Headphones with 300 ohms impedance (Sennheiser HD 540, later maybe HD 580/600).
- (7) Solid connectors (3.5 mm minijacks aren't that reliable in my experience)
- (6) Digital in capable of real 16/44.1 (with clock controlled by external device, no resampling - for copy protected CD rips using standalone player)
- (3) Decent quality analog in (capable of full duplex for loopback at 24/96)
- (1) Digital out

'Not needed at all'-features:

- Gaming support

So far the Terratec DMX 6fire 24/96, available ~ 170 € here, seems to have all I want (and a little bit more). Only issue: RMAA results (e.g. here) seem to show that stereo crosstalk is not very good at 10 kHz and higher (~-65dB) compared to audigy 2, revolution 7.1 and similar cards (~-90dB).
So my 1st question: Can this cause audible phenomenons at all when listening to music/ movie audio or can I just relax when I see only "excellent" and "very good" rankings in the RMAA's "Summary" table?

2. The DMX 6fire has a headphone output but I'm still not totally sure that it can power high impedance Headphones properly. Does anyone here have experiences?

3. Any other (cheaper) soundcard (at least with 'must' features) that can power these kind of headphones without headphone amp? (Terratec DMX 6fire LT (~120 €), Aureon Sky (~70 €)/Space (~80 €), M-Audio Revolution 7.1 (~110 €), Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS (~70 €), ... )

4. An alternative would be to get a headphone amp and an Aureon or an Audigy 2 ZS. The DVD-Audio playback feature of Audigy 2 is a nice goodie ... does anyone know if we can expect the same for other (non-Creative) cards?

5. Does the Audigy 2 ZS still have 'creativity-issues' (internal resampling to 48kHz on playback, ...), and what about the digital in - capable of 44.1 without resampling?

Thanks in advance.
Cheers tigre

Now that I've (re)searched for ~ 2 weeks and finally decided to start a new topic, I found some answers just after posting.

Here's a test of the Aureon Sky (www.digit-life.com).



So my questions 2 and 3 are answered.

At the end of another review at digit-life (Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1) I found an interview with technical expert Nikki Kang from ESI/Audiotrak containing some interesting information:


To me this sounds like we can expect DVD-A playback for other high-res soundcards. No need to consider buying an Audigy 2 for me then. Question 4 and 5 answered too.

______________________________________________

The only question that keeps me from ordering a Aureon Space (besides the interpretation of RMAA results):

Does the digital in give bit-perfect results when ripping from a standalone CD player or is there resampling involved? The results from the review aren't very helpful here:


Thanks for any comments.

As for multichannel support, do you really need 5.1 analog outputs for your amp?. I mean most HomeTheater receivers do Dolby Digital decoding nowadays, so digital AC3 stream support should do well, then you only need a good quality soundcard with digital out and analog stereo outs for headphones. Audiophile 96/24 perhaps?.

Well, some comments from my part:

The Terratec DMX 6Fire has good quality, but IIRC some people complained about audible interference noise cause by the external box cable, on the model that has this external box. Look at the RMAA forums, it's where I read it. Some people here have one of these cards.

The Aureon Sky/Space seems to be the same card as the Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1. Some people here have complained about poor drivers of these cards. Look also at the RMAA forums.

Crosstalk is a very non-critical parameter, we are not very sensitive to crosstalk. 65 dB stereo separation is more than enough fom an audibility point of view.

Digital in should produce perfect results on a card that implements it adequately. The M-Audio Audiophile does, for example.

High impedance headphones should not be more difficult to drive in the sense of requiring more output power. They can need a higher output voltage, but IIRC I've not found any device that can't drive at acceptable levels my HD580.

I think the Revo can drive high impedance headphones without problems, but may have some small distortion at low frequencies if using low impedance headphones, due to its limited output current. I don't know if these would be really audible, however.

It seems that, currently, DVD-A is only possible with devices including special hardware that "authorizes" playback of DVD-A read data. I could be wrong, though.

Audigy 2 ZS seems to still resample 44.1 KHz data, I think I read it at the AVS forums, home theater section.

As I don't have any surround/Home Theater system right now I didn't think so far. Thanks - probably you're right. It just feels more secure to have all digital processing and D/A conversion done by a card I know. And I don't want to spend more money on a receiver than necessary (no need to pay for another good D/A convertor).

Anyway, I'll have a look at some hires 2 channel cards.


Also - thanks to KikeG for the helpful information.

Update: I don't know if I really need 5.1 analog output. Anyway, the hires 2 channel cards I found (audiophile 24/96, Terratec EWX 24/96, Hoontech DSP24) don't have a headphone output - and are more expensive than an aureon space (starting at ~ 120 € for an EWX 24/96 here). Besides the solid connectors I don't see any advantages, so no reason to pay 40 € extra ... or have I missed something?

If you don't mind small 3.5 mm connectors, the Revo is a good card. Maybe Audiotrak Prodigy/Aureon Space/Sky could do too, but I'd look first at those reported driver problems.

Another vote for M-Audio Revolution. I use it for headphone listening @work. Absolute bliss

If you want high quality recording aswell, make the choice between 6fire, EWX2496 and Audiophile 2496. Those "main-stream cards" (Revolution, Aureon, etc) do have quite good outputs, but their inputs are not as high quality.

Well, according to my tests, the input quality at the Revolution is very similar to the one at the Audiophile.

I'll extend over this:

According to 44.1 KHz 24-bit RMAA 4.3 loopback tests, noise floor, dynamic range and distortion are quite similar.

Noise & dynamic range: My AP is 1 dB noisier at the right channel, measuring just 96 dB dynamic range and 98 dB noise floor. Revo measures the same at both channels: at left channel both cards measure nearly identical, having both 97 dB dynamic range and 99 dB noise floor.

But, according to my measurements, in loopback tests in these kind of cards, noise floor and dynamic range are set by noise at the input, so that actual dynamic range at the output is quite higher than measured in a loopback test. In my AP I could measure a dynamic range at the ouput of almost 106 dB in both channels, similar to given by specs. I think Revo must have quite similar behaviour.

THD: both cards measure 0.001 % THD, however distortion spectrum is a little bit different. Revo shows harmonic distortion up to higher harmonics, however the first harmonics are lower amplitude, and noise between harmonic is also lower amplitude.

Distortion harmonics amplitude, in dB:

Revo(L)/Revo®// AP(L)/AP®

2nd -125 / -120 // -111 / -116
3rd -110 / -108 // -103 / -102
4th -120 / -118 // -113 / -113
5th -112 / -111 // n/a / n/a
6th -120 / -120 // n/a / n/a
7th -124 / -124
8th -125 / -123
9th -124 / -124
10th n/a / -124
11th -124 / -122
12th n/a / n/a

IMD at high frequencies is slightly better at the AP. Although both give same 0.004% measurement, AP doesn't show any IMD product at 1 KHz, whilst Revo shows a product at -115 dB. IMD products around 19 & 20 KHz are -117 dB in both cases.

I don't think these distortion figures are audible in any case.

Also, some of these noise & distortion figures can vary slightly from card to card. For example, I've seen other RMAA measurements of the AP than don't show any difference in noise between both channels, as opposed to mine.

Frequency response: Revo has a slight boost and ripple at high frequencies. The boost is 0.1 dB at 10 KHz, and max. boost is 0.16 dB at 17 KHz. At 20 KHz it's 0.14 dB. The ripple is around 0.04 dB. On the other side, the Audiophile doesn't show any ripple, and attenuates high frequencies instead. At 10 KHz attenuation is just 0 dB, at 16 KHz it's 0.1 dB, and max. attenuation is 0.24 dB at 20 KHz. In any case, I don't think this will lead to any audible differences.

But, this is a loopback test, and these frequency responses are the sum of frecuency response both at the output and at the input. I would have to perform additional tests to try to separate both responses at each card. Distortion measurements are too the sum of both input and output, but in this case it's not possible to separate both easily.

My comment was based on measurments made by digit-life:
Revolution review, There the line-in measurments are nowhere near excellent. But apparently digit-life is doing something quite differently...

Thanks again to all people who answered. Because of the higher prices for comparable M-Audio products, I'm 90% sure that I'll get some Terratec card

One last question/concern remains about digital input:

Given the fact that copy protection of audio CDs keeps developing I might be forced some day to rip a CD using a standalone CD player -> digital out connected with soundcard's digital in. I've searched and read quite a bit about this and there seem to be to things to consider:

1. Resampling - To give good results a soundcard should be able to synchronize its clock to the digital input. Found here (by Pio2001):

2. Copy protection bit (=Copy protection flag = SCMS (?)): I found [http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=1911&hl=scms&st=23&]this[/url] (by JeanLuc):
Here (by markusk) is a report about Terratec DMX 6fire:

The only thing I didn't find is information about aureon sky/space cards and 1. (Resampling) and 2. (Ignore SCMS bit). If anyone here knows more please tell me.

Terratec Aureon Sky/Space cards don't resample.

I (think I) know that they don't resample 44.1kHz PC based sources internally to 48kHz like Creative cards do, but as Pio2001 said (can't find the link right now) - some cards aren't able to synchronize their clocks to digital input resample 44.1 -> 44.1kHz when an external CD player is connected.

So could you be more specific, please - are you talking about internal (PC) playback or external sources connected digitally (=optical in) - and may I ask where you got this information from? - Thanks.

Aureon Space:
I know for sure it ignores SCMS bit - tried with damn Sony microtower which always sets it on.
It also has an option to set the bit on the output, but who would have use for that.

It has an option to sync with external clock, which does work (at least with that microtower).

Headphone amplifier adds audible noise.
I'll redo the tests with all samplerates, then post the results on my 'server'.

G-REAT! Thanks alot! That's exactly the information I needed (both!).


What headphone amplifier? Do you mean if you connect lineout to a headphone amplifyer - or if you use lineout in headphone mode and connect some cans directly - or are you talking about DMX 6fire 24/96 (break-out box with headphone amplifier/ adjustable output) - or ...?

Here they go (RMAA 5.1):

'High' playback volume means slightly above 50%, just to match ~-1dB
I couldn't go higher with amp, as the card started clipping because output voltage was too high.
'Low' volume means as low as I could to match ~1dB

Grab the results: http://astralstorm.servebeer.com/aureonrmaa/

I was talking about headphone output option.

It adds audible noise on my low-resistance (32ohm) headphones.
The noise gets more audible as I turn the volume up.
Or maybe it makes signal on cable more susceptible to outside noise, I don't know.

I have the Prodigy 7.1. It has been a nightmare for me. Some of that may be due to the VIA chipset on my MB. Either way, I just ordered an M-Audio 2496. The Prodigy is soon to be removed from my PC forever.

If anybody wants to take a chance on it, I'll sell it real cheap.

Edit: spelling

I've also had problems with my Aureon 7.1 converted to Prodigy (flashed rom)
and on Prodigy drivers.

It works good when only one sound is playing,
but when more kick in, there start to get problems.
The best is ASIO, but some broken apps crash when they can't get audio.
(*ekhm* Psi 0.9)