I am a little bit confused since I have to choose if connecting my amp with a cd/dvd deck or to my pc. What what should I do ?

I have a Creative SB live soundcard, is it possible to connect it to my amp ?


P.S Does a soundcard effect sound quality ? ,then would it be better using a deck ?

Yes you can! Of course not all soundcards have the same quality, BUT sufficient quality does not necessary comes with expensive soundcard... SB Live is not generally considered as good enough to replace a cd/dvd deck. I do not know since I do not own one (and of course it depends on the deck!). A soundcard like M-Audio 24/96 or even a Chaintech AV710 (correct?) are considered OK for human (I mean if you are not a measurement system...). For me the real issues are:
1) silent PC: this is a real issue, much more than -100dB noise!
2) connection to the amp: noises during start/stop and - I have had this issue - ground loops are other noises when using long connections
3) ease of use!

1) silent PC: this is a real issue, much more than -100dB noise!
2) connection to the amp: noises during start/stop and - I have had this issue - ground loops are other noises when using long connections
3) ease of use!

Can you please explain better your statements !
1) silent PC: this is a real issue, much more than -100dB noise! ????

Do really soundcards vary alot in sound quality ?
What sort of wiring will I need ?
What are the features I should look for inorder to check if all this is possible ?


To be sure of getting the best sound quality what would you suggest deck or card ?

There is no major difference in "quality" between the two options. There are good and less good options in both standalone units and soundcards. You have to choose on other merits like usability, design, noise emissions etc. A PC and a standalone CD/DVD player fills two different purposes, IMHO. A standalone is more simple to use, looks nicer and has usually quieter operation than a PC, so if you only want to play DVD/CD then it's an easy choice.

Btw, why can't you connect both the DVD/CD player and the computer to your stereo? Then choose to use whichever you feel like using when you want to play some music or film...

Most modern soundcard are fine - but 24bit cards are not that much more expensive than the traditional 16bits today, so if I was to buy soundcard today I would grab one of those. However, I'm happy with my current 16bit card, and I was happy before with my SB Live.

Did it help any, or just confuse you?

I think ErikS has clarified the statements. Regarding the "-100dB" I just wanted to point that is it not worth considering differences between souncards above insane values. But I realize this can be confusing.

To re-state in simple words: if you just want to put a cd in a drive and listen to the music, then take a cd/dvd deck. IMO, you can get a very decent one between 150$ and 300$. A PC can bring you extra functionnalities such as browsing your whole collection previously ripped on your hard-drive, format-prone, etc. BUT this comes with drawbacks: noise, power comsumption (unless you use a low-power PC, like mini-itx based ones), back-up issues, and serious headaches since it does not always work as attended. A solution for the noise is to have the PC far mon the hifi set-up. You can then have issues with long interconnect cables, such as undesired noise.

Hold on guys, my objective is to play multiple media such as MP3, wav, ogg and loads of others from my pc in to another room. This would allow me to play what ever I like without any limitations. Unlike standalones I would have to stick to 3 or some more media types and forget the others espacially the ones encoded with FLAC etc.

What difference would it make to the amp if I had a 24bit card instead of 16bit ?

You should try to clarify what your objectives are.

If you want to play mp3/wav you can find some stand alone CD players (or standalone mp3/wav players) that could play those, but I don't think their exists any that play ogg (much less flac), so your choice is to run a cable from the line out of your sound card to an aux input of your amp, or burn the oggs to CD audio (seems a waste), or transcode them to mp3/wav (also not very desireable)

I agree that they are different things, to me the stand alone is nice that you don't have to have the computer on, along with its noise to listen to any music.
But most people keep their collections on their computers so it really is up to you to determine what your requirements are. if you definitly want to play ogg,flac, etc then i see no alternative to playing them from the computer.

it would make no audible difference to the amp - the 24 bit has a higher S/N ratio which is probably negated by your music or amp or speakers or your ears, or a combination. for playback the 16bits is fine.

it would make no audible difference to the amp - the 24 bit has a higher S/N ratio which is probably negated by your music or amp or speakers or your ears, or a combination. for playback the 16bits is fine.


What do you mean by this ?
24bit cards are usally much better than 16bit ones !

What do you mean by this ?
Why would the difference be unnoticeable ?

24bit cards are usally much better than 16bit ones !

I mean that the purpose of going from 16bits (S/N~98dB (I think)) to 24bits (120dB (I Think)) is to improve the S/N ratio - there is usually the added benifit that the A/D converters get better as well but mainly it is for the S/N ratio.
Now if you hook up your 16bit soundcard to a 95 S/N ratio amp where is the limiting device? the amp! so hooking up a 120 S/N dB card will still have the amp as the limiting device. The same can be said for the music you are going to feed it - an average mp3 will not have a 98dB S/N ratio so what is the benifit of using a 24bit to play it?
Just because it is a technological improvement does not necessarily mean that you can tell there has been an improvement.

Yes. And 99% of available music is 16bits 44,1kHz. The point is that *generally* 24/96 cards are of better quality. And now we can even find 24/192 cards, but I still do not see the point.

And now that my understanding of your objective have changed, I think you should go with a PC. But it may not so easy to meet all the criteria. Something that seems not totally clear is how you intend to connect your sound card to your amp. Your question about 24/16 bits difference for the amp make me wonder if you want to have a digital connection and not an analogic one (assuming you have a ht-amp or something like this with internal converters). If so you just need to get a card that is able to give bit-perfect output on the SPD/IF output. Other members could help for this choice, I think.

The SBLive is not (or was known?) to have a very high voltage on coax output, that could destroy your amp input. You should check before. Also if possible (if the PC is not to far), prefer the optic connection since it will avoid any electrical link between your PC and the Hifi set-up.

Thanks for all your suggestions all usefull, hopefully I will consult a salesperson and tell him if its possible to try all this theory out.


What I still can't understand is the difference between 16/24 bits ?
What would be the advantages ?


Is there anything better than that ?

Since you have already found this forum, you will find people here have a knowledge about audio far exceeding that of a regular salesperson. Most will just sell you 1- the highest priced item they have (since it looks good when they sell those) 2- whatever they have in stock.

And their theory i think may not have much to do with reality, i think most salespeople that i meet would be hard pressed to know what an ogg or flac is.

- 8 bits

- The ADC (analog-digital converters use 16 or 24 bits to digitalize or produce the sound. The more bits the more accurate the digitalized sound will be to the original analog source.

There will always be something better, It is like buying a PC, you can spend hours researching the fastest components and building the 'fastest' computer, and a few weeks later there will be another component that is better or faster.

I read that for archiving audio according to US standards at present is 24bit/96Khz so if you want to get a soundblaster audigy2 (Z?) or if you really feel like spending money get the M-audio soundcard - both overkill for just using for playing mp3s and ogg but if you are into overkilling...

CD music is in 16 bit, so you are unlikely to use the 24 bit capability of any card (unless you do software resampling, which I don't expect you will). Don't base a decision on the bit depth (16/24) or sampling rate (44/96/etc) of a card. Tell us how much you want to spend and we can tell you what to get.

Can you explain this better


I don't want to spend bugs for nothing, I just want to have a highquality product in oreder mot to loose quality whilst playback. With all your great feedback I found a soundcard that would realy suit for my needs THE CREATIVE EXTIGY.

The thing I don't understand is that this external card uses USB 1 @ low bandwidth
whilst other cards use USB 2 @ high bandwidth.

What difference would it make to me a USB 1 card and a USB 2 card ?

The bandwith with USB 1 does not enable bi-directional high-quality sound (that is e.g. play 24/96 music and record analogic input with 24/96 resolution). For what I understand of your need, it is not an issue.

I found out that soon creative will upgrade their extigy card to a usb 2 connection, but I said to myself what would the difference be between usb 1 and 2 ?

Faster responce, yeah but for what, it unnoticable since we are dealing with sound.