I've used a variety of external and internal sound cards over the years but I generally went with whatever looked like a bargain (and usually from ebay) that was available. But I never really knew what I should be looking for - I just went with whatever was better than the stock sound cards that most computers came with.
What kind of soundcard/interface (if any) do you prefer use for your station?
Me, just what is in the computer. But I don't know if an external one would be any better or would I even notice, and the automated broadcast software like Salamandra, Zara, Play It Live and others work with the computer sound card. Audio quality also depends on the transmitter and other processing.
Were talking about what's being fed to the transmitter here, I definitely noticed the difference with older pc and laptops - a clearly noticable difference (my stations always used old computers). But the general consensus now is that most computers manufactured within the last ten years have much improved internal audio components, so adding an external (DAC) or a premium internal soundcard isnt as popular as it use to be (my laptop is older than 10 years though). However it's still beneficial because particularly the external DACs not only are much less prone to interference from the motherboard but they also provide a wider variety of inputs and outputs. - That's the general consensus anyway...
A further glimpse at the general consensus....
"The bottom line is that discrete sound cards do for audio what a high-end graphics card can do for graphical quality." - https://www.newegg.com/insider/what-can-a-sound-card-do-for-your-pc-build/
"Sound cards can be beneficial for a few reasons. They allow for better audio clarity and more audio interfaces when compared to onboard audio from the motherboard. For the average consumer, you may not require a sound card, but if you’re an audiophile and want to take full advantage of sound experiences, then it can be worth adding one to your system. " - https://www.fiercepc.co.uk/blog/hardware/do-i-need-a-sound-card?
"Internal soundcards are becoming obsolete for the average user. For those who need a more professional solution, external soundcards (read: external DACs) are preferable as they minimize electromagnetic interference by being external to the case.. ...Get an external DAC if you’re an audiophile. Honestly, even if you’re not, you’ll be one after getting better sound quality." -
https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/331033-are-sound-cards-still-needed
"Sound cards should offer better bass and crisper highs, so you can enjoy a wider range of sounds and music. While this may seem a bit much for the standard user, audiophiles will swear by it and won't settle for less."
- https://www.xda-developers.com/5-reasons-you-might-need-sound-card/
. the automated broadcast software like Salamandra, Zara, Play It Live and others work with the computer sound card.
Just to clarify the automation software's work with any sound cards, regardless if it's onboard, internal card or an external DAC - they are all sound cards.
The guys making these kinds of recommendations must own stock in external sound card manufacturers.
The sound card is a tool, and it depends on what you are using it for. For broadcasting on AM and FM, you don't need more than what is provided with your computer.
For listening with headphones directly from the computer, perhaps you could do with an external one, but the differences in apparent sound quality are minimal. Just make sure you have a decent pair of headphones, which matters much more.
The thing to look for in a sound card is sampling rate. Most cards do 48Khz, which is just fine.
The higher the sampling rate, theoretically the higher the quality of output. 192Khz (16 or 24 bit, the latter again theoretically 'better') is about the best you'll do on consumer grade equipment, is called studio quality, and is far better than what most would need for broadcasting.
I needed 192Khz sampling to generate RDS data for FM. Otherwise, there would be little point. And to get it, I spent all of C$15 for an external Moshi headphone DAC.
Audiophiles spend orders of magnitude more money for all their equipment (and it has to be all - no weak links) to get miniscule levels of better quality. It tends to be a snobbish type of thing, rather than much in the way of reality.
The guys making these kinds of recommendations must own stock in external sound card manufacturers.
It appears to me from looking around; the most common groups concerned about sound cards are the "gaming" groups (pc games), home media setups (movies and such), and audiophiles and DJ's and such. It used to be part 15 broadcasters too back when I first got into the hobby, but apparently not so much anymore.
The sound card is a tool, and it depends on what you are using it for. For broadcasting on AM and FM, you don't need more than what is provided with your computer.For listening with headphones directly from the computer, perhaps you could do with an external one, but the differences in apparent sound quality are minimal.
Audiophiles spend orders of magnitude more money for all their equipment (and it has to be all - no weak links) to get miniscule levels of better quality. It tends to be a snobbish type of thing, rather than much in the way of reality.
I dont get it... you hear what your sayng? For 20+ years I've been listening to part 15 discussions about what's the best bitrates for audio files, advantages of wav or ogg over mp3s, etc., but the quality of the sound card itself is basically a non-issue? All the purchases of $$$ Ivonics processors to achieve 125%, peaks and orher compressors, expanders, excites, and more recently the highly praised and also pricey Schlockwoods, tearing up lawns fol hundreds of feet of ground plane, top hats, barix boxes, the list goes on, all this to squeeze out every little bit towards the spndcquapity and range.. But when it comes to the actual actual quality of the source audio before processing - which is dependent on the quality of the sound card itself, well that's taking it to far - that's just being snobbish...
I just don't get where your coming from.
For years now I have used Behringer UCA202 sound cards. They are a USB card with RCA in and outs. I found using the pc's jack plug ins & outs were not reliable in the long run. I have had no problem with these cards and some have been working for over 10 years plus. When I did start using them they did sound better than the pc sound cards. Now I probably would not hear any difference (old ears).
I know what Rich is saying. But here's my opinion. The sound cards in the computers now, are decent and we are mostly on AM which makes audiophile quality external sound cards redundant. Even for FM the Realtek sound cards in computers are fine. I am on AM now, and was on FM with an entry level, Hebestore, not brand name 10" laptop that most likely has the same Realtek sound card that all entry to mid level computers have, brand name or not. The only reason we use this other processing is not for audiophile hi fi sound but for compression, limiting, AGC, and EQ which we need to sound "good" on the air and not be overmodulating when we try to get to the volume of the other stations. Salamandra has this on board in the software also. And some of the arguments for an external sound card is if in the motherboard there can be some electrical interference which I have not found to be the case even with the basic laptop I use.
Here's something that was not thought of, even with an external sound card that would be a bit better than the computer's, even it is only as good as the source.....where your audio tracks originated that you have in the computer. Were they downloaded?, made from your record collection from 45s like half my playlist is?, what is in your computer is the real audio source. Not the sound card. And the quality of each song varies from track to track. All the OTR shows are not hi fi and audio quality varies greatly from show to show, series to series. The best external sound card is going to sound like what is fed to it from the computer. It would be like playing The Twist by Chubby Checker on a 45 from 1962 on a $10,000 turntable. It won't sound any better than the audio on that record.
That said, for me personally to get a separate sound card, thinking that would be sounding better than the ones in the computer....for what we do unnecessary and would make no difference. And remember, audio also sounds as good as what you are listening on.
Rich, no matter what you have in the way of sound cards, processing gear quality, wav, org or mp3, Schlockwoods, transmitter, then you are going to listen on a $15 radio with a little tinny sounding 2 inch speaker?
I get what you are saying but any external sound card, for what we do, is redundant. The audio quality of any computer's sound card is more than enough for us. As for other "lossless" formats like wav, org, whatever won't sound any better on an AM radio than mp3s at 128 or higher.
Comparing sound file bit rate quality and sound card quality is like comparing apples and oranges.
What I was saying is that internal sound cards are good enough for broadcasting quality. 16/24 bit and 48Khz sampling - I doubt that (as Jonny aludes to) most here and elsewhere can tell the difference between that and even great external sound cards. You'd have to be pretty young and have undamaged ears to do so, even with good headphones and/or speakers. And given that even FM broadcasting is pretty low quality (about equivalent to 64kpbs mono mp3, maybe double that stereo - anything more is just wasting bits. I have a pretty good ear for my age, and it was difficult to tell the difference between 40kpbs and 64kpbs mp3 mono when I was streaming).
That's with undistorted sound. Now, if you're going to fight the loudness wars and effectively distort your audio from the original, that's a bit different, and really doesn't have anything to do with the sound card. You're not going to get better sound quality, just different. And some would say that the quality is far worse.
I have done a lot of experimenting with Opus and have some opinions on the best bitrates using it. Nothing to do with sound cards, so maybe another post.
@johny-c When I saw the picture at first I thought I use to have myself because it looked so familiar, but I never did. The reason it looked so familiar was because I had almost bought one years ago after reading numerous reviews, one of which was this one - which was the one that ultimately made me decide to get one.. only at the last minute I had opted for a really good deal on a M-audio box or something. But as of now, I think that may very well be what I'm going to get now!
Here is a very long detailed in depth inspection and reveiw of that $29 DAC, which surprisingly, now 15 years later is aparently still manufactured and available on Amazon for the exact same price! Wow.
https://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/behringer-uca202-review.html?m=1
Here's a few key snippets from the very long review...
HOW CAN BEHRINGER DO IT? Behringer’s large size and high volume gives them a big advantage. The DAC chip in the UCA202 sells for about $6 just by itself—and that’s if you buy 2000 at a time. That’s what some little boutique audiophile USB DAC manufacture would have to pay. But Behringer likely buys a zillion of them and pays much less. .... ... So their total costs are a fraction of what a specialty audiophile manufacture would pay to make the exact same thing.
IS THE UCA202 JUNK? I’m sure some of the more esoteric forums that discuss DACs (with some costing thousands of dollars) would largely dismiss the UCA202 as “junk”--just like those who dismissed the Behringer A500 amp above. It might be cheaper than two 3D movie tickets, but is it really junk? It’s USB powered, features an optical output, RCA Line inputs/outputs, a 3.5mm headphone jack and even a headphone volume control. ...
THE UCA202 AND WINDOWS: I’ve plugged my UCA202 into several PC’s of various vintages and configurations. They include an ancient laptop running XP, my Core 2 Duo lab system, a Vista machine, and a 64 bit Win 7 Core i7 system. It always auto-installed without so much as a single mouse click. No buggy drivers required. It shows up in Windows as a generic “USB Audio CODEC”. If you run Linux or OS X, your results may vary.
SUBJECTIVE LISTENING: First I hooked it into my “big rig” via the line outputs .... listened over my reference speakers and assorted headphones on my Benchmark DAC1 Pre. The UCA202 sounded good. In fact, the line outputs sounded rather similar to the DAC1 Pre doing the D/A work. The UCA202 was quiet and never had any obvious distortion or sonic flaws. ....
MEASUREMENT SUMMARY: In most ways, especially via the line outputs, the UCA202 performs respectably well. The headphone output, however, has a 50 ohm output impedance. Behringer likely intended using professional large headphones of the sort often used for studio and monitoring work (they are, after all, a pro-sound company). ..... But with typical 16 to 32 ohm portable headphones, it’s a different story. Here the UCA202 struggles. ....
BOTTOM LINE: If you your PC has marginal line outputs to feed an outboard sound system, amp, use for measurements, etc., the UCA202 is a bargain and offers significantly better performance than most built-in sound hardware. It also makes a good second interface (Windows 7 lets you assign different software/sounds to different interfaces). It’s especially useful for laptops that often have inferior sound hardware and often no line inputs or outputs at all. So if you’re not looking for a high-end solution, the UCA202 might fill the need and save you some serious money. ... ...
TECHNICAL STUFF (non-geeks might want to skip this section): ...
.....Nobody will think the plastic case is “high-end” but as long as it doesn’t fall apart, what matters most is how it performs and how it sounds. And here, so far, things look OK. ... ...
● [Note this:]
FREQUENCY RESPONSE: Built-in sound hardware and low-end PC sound interfaces often suffer from audible frequency response problems. Some use coupling capacitors that roll off low frequencies, and some have rather severe high frequency performance from poor D/A output filtering or other problems. Here’s how the UCA202 does with both channels shown in 2 colors and divisions of just 0.5 dB into 150 ohms:
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Note it’s dead flat all the way down to 10 hz, the channels are very closely matched, and the response is about –0.25 dB even at 20 Khz. Again, this is very good performance but in this case it’s helped out by the relatively easy 150 ohm load. There is some low frequency roll off into lower impedances. ...
... This is a fairly impressive result—especially via USB. ... Overall, this is a good result for any USB dac and an amazing result for a $29 one. ... and the DAC1, as expected, has a significantly lower noise floor as well. ...
MEASUREMENT SUMMARY: As stated in the Bottom Line section earlier, the Behringer UCA202 line outputs measure very well even for a more expensive DAC. So if you need line outputs, or want to use them to drive a headphone amp, the UCA202 might be a great deal.
The headphone output, on the other hand, works best with fairly efficient high impedance professional or studio-type headphones (with an impedance in the 80 – 600 ohm range). For typical 16 – 32 ohm headphones you probably won’t be that happy unless they’re really efficient or you like to listen at low levels. ...
UCA202 MODIFICATIONS: (revised 3/15/11) The only thing keeping the UCA202 from being a respectable headphone DAC is the ~50 ohm output impedance and limited level into low impedances. By replacing a few parts the UCA202 can be upgraded to a much higher quality headphone output for less than $5 worth of parts. See how that experiment turned out in the Modified DAC article.
I guess I always presumed the soundcard was a significant concern to part 15 hobbiest, particularly those who have spent significant amounts on their proccessing gear. I guess it became a conviction for me after switching out the internal stock soundcard in an old Pentium 1 desktop, a Gateway I think, maybe a Dell, I can still see it in my mind, I liked it because it was kind of compact, rectangular and it laid flat, it had a floppy drive and a cd, it was white... anyway I had switched out the card with some SoundBlaster card and I remember being absolutely awed. It felt like a major station upgrade, the difference was night and day. Ever since then I've always made certain to utilize an upgraded card and eventually transitioned to DACs because it's more compatible with laptops and I kind of liked the idea of having a dedicated unit to producing the source audio output.
Maybe it's not so important now but like I said, my laptop is old anyway, so it does need a improved audio output.
.. we are mostly on AM which makes audiophile quality external sound cards redundant.
Does it?
. most likely has the same Realtek sound card that all entry to mid level computers have, brand name or not.The only reason we use this other processing is not for audiophile hi fi sound but for compression, limiting, AGC, and EQ which we need to sound "good" on the air and not be overmodulating when we try to get to the volume of the other stations.
Interesting point about all modern laptops proubly have the soundcards, that of course raises the question what is their quality? It's already been estabished that they're better than they used to be, but is using a DAC still provide a noticeable improvement to your source audio delivery today? - I don't know. But what I do know is that your source audio is just that - it is the signal all your other proccessing gear working with, so it stands to reason you want the source audio to be as clean and pure as possible before the external proccessing even begins.
Here's something that was not thought of, even with an external sound card that would be a bit better than the computer's, even it is only as good as the source.....where your audio tracks originated that you have in the computer. Were they downloaded?, made from your record collection from 45s..... from 1962 on a $10,000 turntable. It won't sound any better than the audio on that record..... .m , then you are going to listen on a $15 radio with a little tinny sounding 2 inch speaker?I get what you are saying but any external sound card, for what we do, is redundant. .
I get it, back 8n the Napster days I had all kinds of different bitrate mp3s, different volumes, qualities.. in fact that's what my aproximently 4,000 song library had consisted of for year - and yes, you could hear the difference when played on air (although the compressor/limiters took care of the volume differences), but anyway you look a ot
. I'm running out of battery gotvtonpost beorecIblose it
My point is that the quality of the mp3 itself is irrelevant, the best of sound cards job is not to improve it. Its job is to represent whatever is there in there within the mp3 regardless of it quality in its truest form.
Right??
If you got bad audio going in, the same comes out. Bad audio going in is usually the result of how it was recorded and if any post production modifications were done. Any sound card can only put out what's going into it.
An interesting comment found on Reddit where some users were saying the internal Realtec sound cards in laptops are crap and is best bypassed using an external DAC.. but this guy disagreed"
"depending on which realtek it is, not every one is bad, alc1200, 1220 and 4080 are not bad, otherwise get $30 FiiO KA11"