Least the Audigy2 series cards don't have nothing wrong in fequency response @ 96kHz (compared to some other cards):

Audigy 2 (16/96):



ECHO MIA (24/96):



ECHO GINA (24/96):



EDIROL UA101 (16/96)


EDIROL FA66 (16/96)


M-AUDIO 1010 (16/96) (!! not LT but the better one):




Junski

ORIGINAL: deiseldave

Maybe your ears suck...

Very possible. However, since you are so confident in yours, perhaps I could post an A/B/X using all identical sources, leveled to exact volumes, and you would be able to tell the cheezy Delta apart from a pristine Lynx II.
I'm sure your golden ears will have no problem, however, it may be embarrassing to make a derogatory comment about someone elses ears, only to have your own proven to be made of tin.
Shall we play ?

Keep your shirt on fabio...it was a joke based on your broad generalization of a/d converters. Did you notice the smiley guy ???

I don't claim to have golden ears. What I do have is my degree in electrical and electronic engineering so I can converse on that subject quite freely. I know design and I know bad gear and good gear.

I was the first to pipe in that there are other avenues to take before A/D converters. Just don't generalize that nobody can tell the difference. People can...maybe with not my or your signal chain...but they can.

ORIGINAL: deiseldave

What I do have is my degree in electrical and electronic engineering so I can converse on that subject quite freely. I know design and I know bad gear and good gear.

So do I, Liberace. I'll show you my degree if you show me yours. P.S. I never really took my shirt off, and don't look at all like Fabio (curious how you conjured a shirtless Fabio image...Freudian ?). Just thought your comment was a tad condescending, and wanted you to have a chance to prove your superiority.
It's all cool.

No issues Dave. It was just a joke...

! You propably don't get it record 24-bit data.

Also, if you need ASIO support --> Asio4All or USB-ASIO is needed.

Junski

Thanks for the response to my question. I appreciate that. But note: I am not a KID..... I also have 30 plus years of experience as a Live sound reinforcement sound engineer and countless years as a recording engineer. KID just rubbed me the wrong way. I know,,, how could you have known. anyway.... I was not impressed with your samples due to the fact that there were different styles of music... Acoustic / vs Electric... Next time you should use the SAME target Sound file. Maybe I should be saying" Thanks for the Compliment on my age" har har..... Have a Great Day... Really! I do appreciate your help.

Mark ..... The Seasoned Old Man. ;)

Hello there,

can anyone support or deny the following claim? I found this on Cakewalk's website...

Please keep in mind that while many consumer cards such as the Creative Labs Audigy advertise 24-bit capabilities, their drivers only support 16-bit recording/playback.

Now... on to the new tests.

I had time to play around with a couple of quickie recordings tonight. This first batch were solo electric guitar stereo waves w/ some chorus and reverb from my 335 through a Vamp2. All samples were normalized and dithered to 16/44.1 via Adobe Audition. Nothing fancy here, just some simple clean chords.

Electric Guitar - Echo Card - 16/48

Electric Guitar - Echo Card - 24/48

Electric Guitar - SB Live Card - 16/48


These are spoken word recordings. I'm just reading from a children's book into a mic and straight into a mixer. No effects. These could have been done better. You can hear my computer running in the background. I have a way of blocking it out but didn't bother tonight cause its late. I'll make better samples tomorrow. But these aren't bad.

Spoken Word - Echo Card - 16/48

Spoken Word - Echo Card - 24/48

Spoken Word - SB Live - 16/48

I can hear no difference between these cards.

ORIGINAL: Joe Bravo

Sonic,

That was written when the first Audigy card came out. People got angry about it because it had 24-bit plastered all over the box but they later found out that this meant the card would play back at 24 bit. It still recorded at 16/48 just like the SB Live though. But from the second edition of Audigy onward they really could record 24 bit.
...

Actually, by the Digi-Life article, "24-bit support is unclear for Audigy 2 Zs" - http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/creative-audigy2-zs/index.html
Though, this is said to be driver related but ...

I suppose, all Audigy 2 and 4 (excl. Audigy 4 PRO) cards suffers this too (I have Audigy 2 installed on this surfing/demoing PC and the RMAA results are equal w/ Zs (used on Digi-Life's test)) because of using same drivers, DAC/ADC and 'bout the same DSP). I've not seen any tests using ASIO driver mode (RMAA has only DS/MME and WDM modes available) which might give different results.

Another Audigy 2 test - http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/creative-audigy2-platinum-ex/index.html


Junski

...KID just rubbed me the wrong way.

(...yeah, me too.)

ORIGINAL: Sonic the Hedgehog

Thanks for clearing that up Joe. I'd like to test one out for myself - which one would you recommend(there's a few of them here with 5. 1, 7.1, etc...)?

Thanks!

Do you mean from Live! serie cards?
Joe used an External (USB) model and AFAIK, there are no other Live! USB devices available. Audigy NX and Audigy ZS VideoEditor are the other USB models ATM (there were some other models, but I suppose you can't find those anymore (Extigy. LX, ...). Many of audiophiles uses Live 24-bit External for to feed their external DACs or receicvers through digital path (both coaxial and optical connectors available) ... because of it's possible to get the signal transferred as bit-perfect from PC into these devices.

The PCI version of Live! 24-bit is much better than those other Live! models available.
All Audigy 2 and 4 models are also ASIO capable if you're looking this feature.

Junski

"Joe, you should post a few without telling us which is the SB card."

Well the thing is that, if I did that then someone might accuse me of lying about which was which. Tell you what I'll do though is to post the other samples on a web page that will just list them as Sample A, Sample B, etc., and then leave a link to another web page that gives the results. That way nobody will have any preconcieved notion about how they "should" sound in their mind.

Sonic,

I don't know which models do what anymore. I just know for sure that the first Audigy wouldn't record at 24-bit. Its always been my understanding that every model since the first one could though. And it looks as though this new SB Live USB unit I've got can actually record at 24-bit also (I've never seen one before that would). The help files say, "24-bit Analog-to-Digitial conversion during recording in 16- or 24-bit with sampling rates up to 96 kHz. Audio monitoring must be disabled for 24-bit/96 kHz." The entire specifications are listed as:

General Specifications

High Definition Audio Quality

: High Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) exceeding 100 dB using high linearity, low distortion 24-bit converters with resolutions of up to 96 kHz
: 24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion during playback in 16- or 24-bit with sampling rate of up to 48 kHz in 5.1 mode and up to 96 kHz in stereo mode. Audio monitoring must be disabled for 24-bit/48 kHz sampling in 5.1 mode.
: 24-bit Analog-to-Digitial conversion during recording in 16- or 24-bit with sampling rates up to 96 kHz. Audio monitoring must be disabled for 24-bit/96 kHz.
: Sony/Philips Digital Interface (SPDIF) output up to 24-bit at 96 kHz quality.

Creative Multi Speaker Surround (CMSS)

: Multispeaker technology
: Upmixes stereo sources to 5.1 channels
: Professional-quality panning and mixing algorithm
: Front and rear balance control
: Muting and panning control for mixer sources

EAX ADVANCED HD, Advanced Audio and 3D Audio Technology

: Optimized user-selectable settings for headphones, two, four, or five speakers and external A/V amplifiers
: Improved Creative Multi Speaker Surround (CMSS) technology accurately places mono or stereo sources in a 360° audio space
: Realistic EAX reverb, panning and elevation effect brings life to your music and games
: Advanced time-scaling feature allows variable playback duration without altering pitch of original content
: Powerful Audio Clean-up feature removes noise and 'clicks' from playback of vinyl disk or cassette tape recordings

Junski,

I think the difference in the left/right channels is simply because the guitar file was in stereo w/ chorus and reverb. Try putting the mic test track through your graph and see how that looks. That one was recorded dry.

Resounded,

When I said, "If there's some kind of 'night and day' difference between soundcards and converters nowadays then this test should be incredibly easy for you kids with the amazing ears", I wasn't aiming that at anybody in particular. I should expect that if anyone could actually hear any difference in sound it would be kids, and not somebody with 47-year old ears like me. Your hearing is the first thing to go. Only people under the age of 12 can actually still hear from 20 to 20k in sound. By the time you're out of college most people can only hear high end at 18k tops unless they're a medical anomally. I actully respect young people's hearing. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't think they were often full of themselves and are easily mislead. That's just the nature of youth. We were all there once.

Joe: Thanks for posting the samples. After listening to the electric guitar samples I thought that the Echo 24/48 sounded smoother. I detected a slightly brighter sound to the SB Live. Actually both Echo samples sounded smoother to me. However, the difference was not "day and night". I think that the average person could not detect a difference. I also think it's possible that the difference between the the SB and Echo samples could be due to variance in your picking style. The Echo 24/48 sounds a bit muted in the beginning with a chunky low end. The SB sounds like it was picked more openly with sustain. Then again, my ears were damaged way back during the 70's and I have a permanent loud ringing noise in my left ear. So I'm not the best person to judge. Honestly, I was hoping for a dramatic difference in sound quality. I would run right out a buy a new sound card if I heard a huge difference. I guess I need to hear more to convince me. I could not tell any difference in the spoken word samples.

ORIGINAL: Joe Bravo

If there's some kind of "night and day" difference between soundcards and converters nowadays then this test should be incredibly easy for you kids with the amazing ears. Four of these samples were done with a SB Live (not a fancy new Audigy mind you) at 16-bit. The other four were done with my Echo Card, some at 16-bit and some even at 24 or 32. To make matters even easier for you, I've run similar tests here before so some of you should be able to remember a couple of these that were done with the SB card. And to top it off, one of the samples from the SB card comes from a 128k mp3 file that I up-converted to a 16/44.1 wave like the others. Have at it.

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 3

Sample 4

Sample 5

Sample 6

Sample 7

Sample 8

Amazing ears I haven't got. Wish I did. And I agree with those who say the test isn't valid. The source material is just too different. Just how you mike an accoustic can make such a huge difference in clarity and such.

Still, I'll take a crack at it and probably end up dead wrong. But hey, I'm willing to try. Down the tubes goes any claim I will ever have to golden ears.

1. Echo
2. Soundblaster
3. Soundblaster
4. Soundblaster
5. Echo
6. Soundblaster
7. Echo
8. Echo

Any way, if the point is that other things in the recording process make a bigger difference than the quality of the sound card (after crossing some quality threshold) I'll buy that idea.

Remember that there is a cumulative effect in mixing.

A small difference in 1 track starts to add up when layering a song with 20 or 30 of 'em.

This is a really good point that seems to have been ignored thus far.

Also, as I posted yesterday, these tests aren't the best since they are all different performances. Above, GPM said:

I also think it's possible that the difference between the the SB and Echo samples could be due to variance in your picking style.

Again, you would need to split the same exact audio and test by recording identical signals and playing them back completely dry. Otherwise, how can we make a comparison??

meanwhile, I don't know why I keep posting... I have a MiaMidi and I am more than happy with it. Plus, I'll never buy a creative labs product... Maybe I just want to feel important... Who knows??....


(edited for grammar)

Here's a link to a new synth test sample. There's a link on the page that will take you to another page that gives you the test answers. I used a split keyboard with a synth sound on the left hand and a piano sound on the right.

GPM,

I'm just like you when it comes to the guitar and voice tests. I could tell no difference at all on the voice, and I wondered about that SB recorded guitar wave too until I realized that I simply had played it a tad faster on the intro and dug into the strings just a tiny bit more. From about the middle of the file onwards it sounds the same as the others though I think.