SOW sound

[Feuerfalke]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

TBH, unless one is a professional audio developer, today's high-end sound cards don't really offer all that much more than onboard sound. I pulled out my Creative Audigy 2 about a year ago in favor of my onboard Realtek sound hardware and have never noticed any difference in audio quality.

I always got to LOL a bit, when reading such comments.

It's the same as playing a modern game with onboard graphics and claiming there is no difference between an onboard gfx-chip and a PCIe DX11 card.

And you know what? I would believe you! Modern onboard graphics play modern games, just at lowest detail settings and crappy FPS. But of course, if you play the game on a 15" TFT with 50ms and 640x480 pixels monochrome, you won't notice a difference, if you have a DX11 PCIe card or an onboard chip.

And you know what's the only difference between both examples?
1. Soundsettings are adapted automatically. If you don't have the hardware, you can't use these features. You'll never know the difference.

2. If you'd record an IL2-track in your high-end machine and sent it to me with above machine, your track would look the same crap as always, while it's great for you. I'd never know the difference and think my above rig is top-notch.
The same way, if I send you a soundrecord from my PC with a 200$ soundcard + 120$ hifi-headphones, you'll never know the difference, because the sound is rendered on your chip and displayed on your 10$ skype-headset.

3. It's not only about the rendering, it's about the periphery. If you have a 3$ headset, a 200$ soundcard won't help you and vice versa.