The shape of things to come - is there life after CD and DVD?

[drogulus]

     It could be the sample rate conversion, or some other difference like volume. If its the resampling then Turtle Beach has designed a USB device that screws up every CD ever made and most of the audio files on the worlds PCs derived originally from CDs, which means almost all mp3s made from CD rips or sold commercially. Now I won't say this isn't possible because it is possible. From the point of view of a sound card company, though, why would such an easily preventable defect be released to the public?

     Yes, there were many complaints about Windows resampling back in the '90s, and how this produced bad sound. I'm not convinced that this has been established and that the explanation for bad PC sound isn't what I said, the horrible environment for audio inside the PC. PC sound didn't become good because Windows stopped resampling. It's still being done, and yet the sound has improved greatly. While it provides some peace of mind to know that the digital signal hasn't been tampered with, which is why I bother to check it, I would rank resampling as a source of audio problems as not very likely. Maybe 10 years ago, maybe, but not now.

[drogulus]

     Here's a test:

     Play a 48 kHz music source on the DVD player and the PC. Do they sound different in the same way as the CDs do?

[Scarpia]

     It could be the sample rate conversion, or some other difference like volume. If its the resampling then Turtle Beach has designed a USB device that screws up every CD ever made and most of the audio files on the worlds PCs derived originally from CDs, which means almost all mp3s made from CD rips or sold commercially. Now I won't say this isn't possible because it is possible. From the point of view of a sound card company, though, why would such an easily preventable defect be released to the public?

     Yes, there were many complaints about Windows resampling back in the '90s, and how this produced bad sound. I'm not convinced that this has been established and that the explanation for bad PC sound isn't what I said, the horrible environment for audio inside the PC. PC sound didn't become good because Windows stopped resampling. It's still being done, and yet the sound has improved greatly. While it provides some peace of mind to know that the digital signal hasn't been tampered with, which is why I bother to check it, I would rank resampling as a source of audio problems as not very likely. Maybe 10 years ago, maybe, but not now.

There was no difference in apparent volume.  The difference was not obvious, but I did notice it when I thought the data being sent was identical.  Maybe the resampled sound is really no worse, but for my own peace of mind I want the PC to simply send the data without tampering, if only to remove that worry.   Unfortunately, I can'd do the test I really want to do, record the bit stream from the PC on my cd burner, then see if the data on the CD made this way is the same as the original.  My cd burner refuses to record data from the PC because the protection bit is set.  In any case, with the thousands of dollars invested in this audio equipment, an extra $80 for a sound card I trust seems like a good investment.

[Valentino]

Get a card that doesn't use the native Windows drivers. Suggestion:

http://www.lynxstudio.com/product_detail.asp?i=11

[Scarpia]

Get a card that doesn't use the native Windows drivers. Suggestion:

http://www.lynxstudio.com/product_detail.asp?i=11

Thanks for the suggestion.  The computer I would prefer to use for this task is a notebook, so a USB or firewire device is needed.

[Scarpia]

I don't know the answer to this. Probably a card that resamples everything to 48 kHz does it reasonably well. The main benefit of a USB card like this is that the D/A conversion is done outside the computer case. If you want a USB card with the ability to set bit/sample rates where you want the M-Audio Transit will do it for about $79:

     

Having wasted my money on this thing, I can say it is the most worthless piece of shit that I have ever tried to connect to a computer.   After installing the driver on Windows 7, if you boot without the device you get cryptic error messages poping up on the console, if you boot with it, it is inoperative.  Even an attempt to self-test immediately upon boot results in a message saying it can't be tested because it is already in use.  The only way to get it to respond is to click through various control panel dialog boxes to reset the driver each and every time the computer boots.  All of the hours I've spent on the thing are wasted, since in the end it does not work, and it is doubtful that I will be able to get a full refund for it.

[Lethevich]

If my squinting is correct and that is an M-Audio product, I have had a similar problem with one of their keyboards before, which only half responded and was a pain in the ass on the drivers side of things.

[Scarpia]

If my squinting is correct and that is an M-Audio product, I have had a similar problem with one of their keyboards before, which only half responded and was a pain in the ass on the drivers side of things.

Yes, it is an M-audio.  If I had had the sense to read the Amazon reviews before buying I would have thought twice.  Numerous reviewers cite the same problem.  Annoying enough that the advertised 24-bit mode doesn't worth, even more annoying that it automatically resets itself to the inoperable mode on reboot.  The problem is probably related to the fact that it tries to use its own configuration tool which conflicts with the audio configuration tool that is built into Windows 7.

[RJR]

Having wasted my money on this thing, I can say it is the most worthless piece of shit that I have ever tried to connect to a computer.   After installing the driver on Windows 7, if you boot without the device you get cryptic error messages poping up on the console, if you boot with it, it is inoperative.  Even an attempt to self-test immediately upon boot results in a message saying it can't be tested because it is already in use.  The only way to get it to respond is to click through various control panel dialog boxes to reset the driver each and every time the computer boots.  All of the hours I've spent on the thing are wasted, since in the end it does not work, and it is doubtful that I will be able to get a full refund for it.

Maybe it doesn't pass Windows Digital Signature Driver Hardware baloney. I sometimes have problems with my Delta Audiophile 24/96. It appears that Windows and M-Audio don't see eye to eye on something, thus the conflict. Call it revenge. I do.