![]() | This page is not a forum for general discussion about sound cards. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about sound cards at the Reference desk. |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||
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![]() | The contents of the List of sound card standards page were merged into Sound card. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. (11 August 2017) |
![]() | This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later. |
I added some stuff whose lack really showed, but the article really needs a lot of work and IMHO it's little more than a stub at its present state. EpiVictor 13:10, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This article definitely needs work, right from the git-go. Definitions may legitimately vary from person to person but "sound card" pretty explicitly refers to a *card* -- a circuit board (card) inserted into the expansion buss. More later. Dogmo1001 ( talk) 17:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
"Contrary to the name, most of these boxes make no sound at all. The sound is produced in software within the PC."
While this is true, it is also true for nearly all modern soundcards! And since the USB soundcards *do* contain digital to analog converters that produce the actual audio output, I'd say they very much *do* make sound at all. 192.211.31.184 ( talk) 19:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
The SBLive Value is described as "Outdated". I have that card on a high-end Vista gaming rig and it works perfectly. To me it is not outdated, but to a gamer who uses only the latest hardware it would be. What I'm trying to say is if a card can be described as "outdated" or not relies solely on opinion and feelings, wikipedia must avoid "facts" based solely on opinions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.230.79.56 ( talk) 18:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I wonder what the best solution to play two music channels might be? I've got two rooms and I'd like to play two different songs in each room, both receiving their audio from the computer. I would be greatful for some good advice.
There are probably more effective ways to do this but this is probably easiest and cheapest.
I would use some editing software (audacity would probably do it) to mix down a stereo song into a mono one and pan that hard left. Do the same with the right channel. Keep them in the same project in your software and align as appropriate.
I assume you're using a consumer-grade soundcard, in which case you will have a single stereo output - what you'll need to do is a get a "Y-splitter"; this is an adaptor cable that turns one male stereo jack into 2 female mono-jacks (these are quite widely available). On one end you'll want a 1/8" TRS jack (the kind that plugs into your computer) and what you have on the other end depends on the inputs for your sound systems in the two rooms.
Connect it all up and press play.
(Alternatively you can use a mixing desk - which you can get fairly cheaply [Behringer Xanyx 502 or a Tapco 50 for example] - if you do this then you'll have more control over levels.)
A (much) more expensive (stereo) solution would be to get an audio interface with 4 channels or more. You could then put the left of one song, into channel one; the right into channel 2; left of the second song in 3; and right of it in 4 - link up as apropriate and press play.
- Sebbi
Are the colors of the different jacks standardized or does each company do it differently? It looks like all of them have green, pink, and blue. — Omegatron 15:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Could someone add description for grey jack to the list?
My sound card doesn't work. Why and how is that possible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.217.6.166 ( talk) 02:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Pls I want to know comprehensively how a sound card works and I will also like to see the circuit diagram of the different components of the sound card . Thank you.
can a computer produce a good quality sound without sound card but with 5.1 channel home theatre.
Hi.
Say you've got a surround sound soundcard in your PC, that has sockets for both front and rear speakers. Also say that you've only got a pair of stereo speakers for it, and some headphones. Does anyone know if it would be possible to get the socket for the rear speakers to output the same sound as the front ones, so that you could plug some headphones into the rear speakers socket? I have this kind of setup, and it's kind of annoying to have to keep switching the plugs around every time I want to use the headphones- it would be much easier if you could plug both in and then just mute the one you're not using.
Cheers! Doom jester 11:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I saw this comment in the edit history: "Reverted edits by 211.26.36.181 (talk) to last version by Trixter". Just for the record, that wasn't me :-) All edits I make are with the Trixter id, and are not vandalism. -- Trixter 16:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
If the onboard sound is disabled in the motherboard's bios, how can you tell if the new soundcard has been enabled, and actually get it to output to a 2.1 speaker setup?
What would you guys say is the worst sound card? Something we could add, and something I need, because I have no idea what all these random letters and numbers mean.
Do you want it for just listening to music and gaming or for Music Production?
If you want the former, it probably doesn't have to be anything extensive; just a Soundblaster will do (presuming you're a PC user, if you're a Mac user then the built in one will be best).
If you want to do music production I'd recommend you use a USB or Firewire (Mac) audio or midi interface, depending on what medium you'd work with most.
The kind of interface you want would depend a lot on it's application (e.g. if you're a drummer you'd want one with lots of inputs, if you're just a guitarist/singer then a more basic one would do).
Sebbi 21:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Why do some sound cards cost so much more than others?
Why isn't there any mentioning of professional sound cards targeted towards music production? These are very different from cards like Sound Blasters etc. both in functionality and price range with break-out boxes with up to 16 channels in and out and four digit prices in US$. I can help, but I can't do it properly alone.
And also, this talk page is starting to look like a forum. Zondran 20:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that audio interfaces (whether internal or external) get split from this Sound Card article. First, the Sound Card terminology is fast becoming antiquated, and second because Sound Cards such as Soundblasters have typically included sound-creation capabilities (i.e. synthesis of some form). Professional Sound Cards are basically Audio Interfaces (or Digital Audio Interfaces), which perform the same function whether being card-based or external USB or Firewire units. Synthfiend ( talk) 04:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
I took the liberty and heavily edited the professional soundcard section. First of all ASIO != professional soundcard, even an AC'97 can have an ASIO driver. Secondly, these devices have a very different role and purpose than "traditional" soundcards, which was essentially adding life-like sound to games and multimedia applications, so their relation to soundcards is that they can both playback and play sound, but I doubt anyone would use an external audio rack or even the cheapest "pro" audio card to play games (and in that respect, it would probably sound worse or perform worse than an e.g. Soundblaster Audigy 2). They are essentially huge DACS/ADS with more channels and some architectural optimizations compared to the typical sound card mixer. Perhaps they should have a separate article and be placed in the same category as audio engineering and professional midi sampler racks. EpiVictor 20:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I do not know the answer to this, but I think a qualitative overview would be of use to a lot of people, including myself. I may have missed something but I don't notice much evaluation of sound cards as say, vs an amplifier for a hi-fi system, or more interestingly to me, onboard sound in 2007. Any comparisons state what features but don't compare them. I know myself that onboard sound may require more CPU power and RAM space, as would cheaper cards that don't have any, or much memory of their own. The most useful thing to me would be someone definitively stating if a sound card is going to improve the sound in a PC that has onboard sound. It is quite hard to describe my request, I may just do the research myself and propose what to add.
Is it possible to map the input of one sound card to the output of another sound card? Please e-mail me at edo@edwaa.com if you have any ideas on this!
I'm not sure of the protocol of asking about personal problems on Wiki, but I can't find info on this anywhere: I think my sound card has no mic/line in capability. The 'Speech Recognition' tab is missing in my audio options in control panel. I can't get my mic to work no matter where I plug it in. How do I find out if I am right or wrong, or how do I fix this? I have XP home basic. I have never had any problems with playing music or other sounds, streaming etc.
Thank you very much, 74.15.31.143 01:59, 23 July 2007 (UTC) moke.
Its a new PC. I have SigmaTel Audio 5.10. The SigmaTel Audio dialouge box shows the 5 jacks (two front, three back) and lables them as mic & phones at the front, mic, phones & line in at the back. But no matter what mic I use it can't hear my voice on the test. 74.15.80.218 00:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC) moke
Well I read in the article that it says new sound cards no longer has a stereo mix this is not quite true as the stereo mix is still installed on a new computer but is is just disabled in the recording tab if you want to able it you can just click show disabled devices and able the stereo mix Totalaero ( talk) 23:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm confused as to why the article states "Confusingly, the term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware inside the PC." What source says that people are confused by this? USB sound cards do virtually the same thing as internal cards. They are cards, just in a different form and connected with a cable instead of PCI. It just seems unnecessary, POV and unsourced. -- Kraftlos ( Talk | Contrib) 05:28, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
"... with units providing separated outputs usually allow both playback and monitoring from one system." There is something fishy with this sentence. -- Mortense ( talk) 21:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
There are some uncited statements about supported sound card sample rates at Sampling_rate#Audio. I came here hoping to borrow something but I find no discussion of sample rates in this article. Seems like it should be here. -- Kvng ( talk) 16:28, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I see no real reason why this page needs to be standalone. It would be better merged into the Sound card page Skamecrazy123 ( talk) 20:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
what does the caption there even mean? could someone with information about the card improve the grammar because the caption is garbage the way it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.214.167.39 ( talk) 17:06, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
On ebay I found a "Vintage Intechnica Sound Card" (ISA 8-bit) for sale, but after doing some research it was discovered that the card is a VoxCard, part of the VoxBox hardware/software product designed specifically to teach English through voice recognition and synthesis in electronic libraries in the late 1980s. The article about it is https://www.questia.com/newspaper/1P2-5431659/intechnica-marketing-new-voice-technology (Newspapers » U.S. Newspapers » THE JOURNAL RECORD » Article details, "Intechnica Marketing New Voice Technology") and the item on ebay is/was http://www.ubbcentral.com/store/item/VINTAGE-INTECHNICA-ISA-SOUND-AUDIO-CARD-WITH-VOLUME-CONTROL-AT--ATX_221318873377.html 108.39.227.211 ( talk) 20:14, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
What is currently used, and what could be dropped from the list, in the infobox:
What form should be adopted in the article "sound card" with a space or "soundcard" as a single word?
I made several changes today changing "soundcard(s)" to "sound card(s)" to achieve consistency with the existing page title and within the page.
Peter H Sampson ( talk) 21:29, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
It would be nice if the article would state typical input and output levels in mV, dBV or dBU. I can't find typical PC input level for the mic input. Stefanhanoi ( talk) 09:09, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This page is not a forum for general discussion about sound cards. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about sound cards at the Reference desk. |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | The contents of the List of sound card standards page were merged into Sound card. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. (11 August 2017) |
![]() | This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later. |
I added some stuff whose lack really showed, but the article really needs a lot of work and IMHO it's little more than a stub at its present state. EpiVictor 13:10, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This article definitely needs work, right from the git-go. Definitions may legitimately vary from person to person but "sound card" pretty explicitly refers to a *card* -- a circuit board (card) inserted into the expansion buss. More later. Dogmo1001 ( talk) 17:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
"Contrary to the name, most of these boxes make no sound at all. The sound is produced in software within the PC."
While this is true, it is also true for nearly all modern soundcards! And since the USB soundcards *do* contain digital to analog converters that produce the actual audio output, I'd say they very much *do* make sound at all. 192.211.31.184 ( talk) 19:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
The SBLive Value is described as "Outdated". I have that card on a high-end Vista gaming rig and it works perfectly. To me it is not outdated, but to a gamer who uses only the latest hardware it would be. What I'm trying to say is if a card can be described as "outdated" or not relies solely on opinion and feelings, wikipedia must avoid "facts" based solely on opinions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.230.79.56 ( talk) 18:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I wonder what the best solution to play two music channels might be? I've got two rooms and I'd like to play two different songs in each room, both receiving their audio from the computer. I would be greatful for some good advice.
There are probably more effective ways to do this but this is probably easiest and cheapest.
I would use some editing software (audacity would probably do it) to mix down a stereo song into a mono one and pan that hard left. Do the same with the right channel. Keep them in the same project in your software and align as appropriate.
I assume you're using a consumer-grade soundcard, in which case you will have a single stereo output - what you'll need to do is a get a "Y-splitter"; this is an adaptor cable that turns one male stereo jack into 2 female mono-jacks (these are quite widely available). On one end you'll want a 1/8" TRS jack (the kind that plugs into your computer) and what you have on the other end depends on the inputs for your sound systems in the two rooms.
Connect it all up and press play.
(Alternatively you can use a mixing desk - which you can get fairly cheaply [Behringer Xanyx 502 or a Tapco 50 for example] - if you do this then you'll have more control over levels.)
A (much) more expensive (stereo) solution would be to get an audio interface with 4 channels or more. You could then put the left of one song, into channel one; the right into channel 2; left of the second song in 3; and right of it in 4 - link up as apropriate and press play.
- Sebbi
Are the colors of the different jacks standardized or does each company do it differently? It looks like all of them have green, pink, and blue. — Omegatron 15:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Could someone add description for grey jack to the list?
My sound card doesn't work. Why and how is that possible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.217.6.166 ( talk) 02:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Pls I want to know comprehensively how a sound card works and I will also like to see the circuit diagram of the different components of the sound card . Thank you.
can a computer produce a good quality sound without sound card but with 5.1 channel home theatre.
Hi.
Say you've got a surround sound soundcard in your PC, that has sockets for both front and rear speakers. Also say that you've only got a pair of stereo speakers for it, and some headphones. Does anyone know if it would be possible to get the socket for the rear speakers to output the same sound as the front ones, so that you could plug some headphones into the rear speakers socket? I have this kind of setup, and it's kind of annoying to have to keep switching the plugs around every time I want to use the headphones- it would be much easier if you could plug both in and then just mute the one you're not using.
Cheers! Doom jester 11:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I saw this comment in the edit history: "Reverted edits by 211.26.36.181 (talk) to last version by Trixter". Just for the record, that wasn't me :-) All edits I make are with the Trixter id, and are not vandalism. -- Trixter 16:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
If the onboard sound is disabled in the motherboard's bios, how can you tell if the new soundcard has been enabled, and actually get it to output to a 2.1 speaker setup?
What would you guys say is the worst sound card? Something we could add, and something I need, because I have no idea what all these random letters and numbers mean.
Do you want it for just listening to music and gaming or for Music Production?
If you want the former, it probably doesn't have to be anything extensive; just a Soundblaster will do (presuming you're a PC user, if you're a Mac user then the built in one will be best).
If you want to do music production I'd recommend you use a USB or Firewire (Mac) audio or midi interface, depending on what medium you'd work with most.
The kind of interface you want would depend a lot on it's application (e.g. if you're a drummer you'd want one with lots of inputs, if you're just a guitarist/singer then a more basic one would do).
Sebbi 21:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Why do some sound cards cost so much more than others?
Why isn't there any mentioning of professional sound cards targeted towards music production? These are very different from cards like Sound Blasters etc. both in functionality and price range with break-out boxes with up to 16 channels in and out and four digit prices in US$. I can help, but I can't do it properly alone.
And also, this talk page is starting to look like a forum. Zondran 20:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that audio interfaces (whether internal or external) get split from this Sound Card article. First, the Sound Card terminology is fast becoming antiquated, and second because Sound Cards such as Soundblasters have typically included sound-creation capabilities (i.e. synthesis of some form). Professional Sound Cards are basically Audio Interfaces (or Digital Audio Interfaces), which perform the same function whether being card-based or external USB or Firewire units. Synthfiend ( talk) 04:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
I took the liberty and heavily edited the professional soundcard section. First of all ASIO != professional soundcard, even an AC'97 can have an ASIO driver. Secondly, these devices have a very different role and purpose than "traditional" soundcards, which was essentially adding life-like sound to games and multimedia applications, so their relation to soundcards is that they can both playback and play sound, but I doubt anyone would use an external audio rack or even the cheapest "pro" audio card to play games (and in that respect, it would probably sound worse or perform worse than an e.g. Soundblaster Audigy 2). They are essentially huge DACS/ADS with more channels and some architectural optimizations compared to the typical sound card mixer. Perhaps they should have a separate article and be placed in the same category as audio engineering and professional midi sampler racks. EpiVictor 20:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I do not know the answer to this, but I think a qualitative overview would be of use to a lot of people, including myself. I may have missed something but I don't notice much evaluation of sound cards as say, vs an amplifier for a hi-fi system, or more interestingly to me, onboard sound in 2007. Any comparisons state what features but don't compare them. I know myself that onboard sound may require more CPU power and RAM space, as would cheaper cards that don't have any, or much memory of their own. The most useful thing to me would be someone definitively stating if a sound card is going to improve the sound in a PC that has onboard sound. It is quite hard to describe my request, I may just do the research myself and propose what to add.
Is it possible to map the input of one sound card to the output of another sound card? Please e-mail me at edo@edwaa.com if you have any ideas on this!
I'm not sure of the protocol of asking about personal problems on Wiki, but I can't find info on this anywhere: I think my sound card has no mic/line in capability. The 'Speech Recognition' tab is missing in my audio options in control panel. I can't get my mic to work no matter where I plug it in. How do I find out if I am right or wrong, or how do I fix this? I have XP home basic. I have never had any problems with playing music or other sounds, streaming etc.
Thank you very much, 74.15.31.143 01:59, 23 July 2007 (UTC) moke.
Its a new PC. I have SigmaTel Audio 5.10. The SigmaTel Audio dialouge box shows the 5 jacks (two front, three back) and lables them as mic & phones at the front, mic, phones & line in at the back. But no matter what mic I use it can't hear my voice on the test. 74.15.80.218 00:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC) moke
Well I read in the article that it says new sound cards no longer has a stereo mix this is not quite true as the stereo mix is still installed on a new computer but is is just disabled in the recording tab if you want to able it you can just click show disabled devices and able the stereo mix Totalaero ( talk) 23:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm confused as to why the article states "Confusingly, the term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware inside the PC." What source says that people are confused by this? USB sound cards do virtually the same thing as internal cards. They are cards, just in a different form and connected with a cable instead of PCI. It just seems unnecessary, POV and unsourced. -- Kraftlos ( Talk | Contrib) 05:28, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
"... with units providing separated outputs usually allow both playback and monitoring from one system." There is something fishy with this sentence. -- Mortense ( talk) 21:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
There are some uncited statements about supported sound card sample rates at Sampling_rate#Audio. I came here hoping to borrow something but I find no discussion of sample rates in this article. Seems like it should be here. -- Kvng ( talk) 16:28, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I see no real reason why this page needs to be standalone. It would be better merged into the Sound card page Skamecrazy123 ( talk) 20:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
what does the caption there even mean? could someone with information about the card improve the grammar because the caption is garbage the way it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.214.167.39 ( talk) 17:06, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
On ebay I found a "Vintage Intechnica Sound Card" (ISA 8-bit) for sale, but after doing some research it was discovered that the card is a VoxCard, part of the VoxBox hardware/software product designed specifically to teach English through voice recognition and synthesis in electronic libraries in the late 1980s. The article about it is https://www.questia.com/newspaper/1P2-5431659/intechnica-marketing-new-voice-technology (Newspapers » U.S. Newspapers » THE JOURNAL RECORD » Article details, "Intechnica Marketing New Voice Technology") and the item on ebay is/was http://www.ubbcentral.com/store/item/VINTAGE-INTECHNICA-ISA-SOUND-AUDIO-CARD-WITH-VOLUME-CONTROL-AT--ATX_221318873377.html 108.39.227.211 ( talk) 20:14, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
What is currently used, and what could be dropped from the list, in the infobox:
What form should be adopted in the article "sound card" with a space or "soundcard" as a single word?
I made several changes today changing "soundcard(s)" to "sound card(s)" to achieve consistency with the existing page title and within the page.
Peter H Sampson ( talk) 21:29, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
It would be nice if the article would state typical input and output levels in mV, dBV or dBU. I can't find typical PC input level for the mic input. Stefanhanoi ( talk) 09:09, 20 May 2023 (UTC)