Reading Hardware

I have both my PC and a two hundred years old CD player plugged into my amp. Can someone provide some insight into why my Elizabethan era CD player produce so much better sound than my PC setup? The signal is twice as loud and sounds so much more clean and crispy. Is this a problem with my hardware or does PC audio always sound like shit because it gets routed through a dozen crappy software preprocessors?

Some details about my setup: CD player and amp are connected with vanilla RCA plugs. PC and amp also has RCA jacks on the amp side, but my soundcard only has a small headphone jack so I'm using an adapter cable. Is the small headphone jack a problem? Are there cards with RCA jacks?

As for the sound card, I'm using an older SoundBlaster Live with gold-plated jacks. How much does the sound card influence audio quality anyway? I thought that the expensive cards came with lots of memory for MIDI instruments, which is irrelevant when all you do is listening to music. "All" I need is a card that outputs a cleanly converted analogue signal in CD player like strength, with the least possible amount of preprocessing.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

Is the audio cable plugged into the green stereo jack on the back of your PC? If yes, you might be experiencing the same difficulties as a lot of other PC users - namely, most sound cards have a Speaker out plug, but no Line out. (While the latter provides the audio signal in a form the amplifier expects, the former is designed to drive speakers directly.) You either need

• a sound card with a plug labeled Line out,

• A voltage divider (cheap solution) or an impedance converter (expensive solution) to make your amp's 'line in' and your sound card's 'speaker out' best friends, or

• if your sound card is equipped with an SPDIF output, a device which an SPDIF input and an analog output (expensive).

If you're extremely lucky, your sound card might be equipped with a jumper which lets you switch the type of output signals. On-board sound chips usually don't come with those tho.

If you feel like picking up the soldering iron yourself (or have a buddy who does), this this easy voltage divider might work for you. (Note that, unlike a simple voltage divider with 2 resistors, this one will not cause your sound card or amp to go up in smoke if there's a problem with different ground potentials.) You need:
2 resistors 4.7kΩ 0.25W
1 potentiometer 5kΩ 0.25W (2k or even 1k should do too)
1 stereo jack ("Klinkenstecker") 3.5mm male
2 cinch (RCA) jacks male, pref. red (right) & white (left)
some audio cable.

Of course it all depends on the quality of your sound card. There's no easy way to turn shitty sound into quality music. As a rule of thumb, try attaching a good pair of speakers and if they produce decent sound, the card is okay.

Consider yourself hugged.

As mentioned in the reply to Martin, the card does not have its own amp, so my guess is that the output cames as line-out signal.

I switched back and forth between playback on the PC and the CD player for a couple of minutes, so here's the difference:

• The sound from the CD player is about 25% louder

• Very high and low frequency ranges from the PC seem to blend into each other, somewhat like the effect of a dynamic compressor. On the CD player the tones are much more nicely seperated in these ranges.

You see it's not like the PC signal was completely fucked up. I guess many people wouldn't care, but I do. Yesterday I talked to someone who does some semi-professional audio production on the side and he said that I could expect at least the same fidelity from my PC as from the CD player.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

Very high and low frequency ranges from the PC seem to blend into each other, somewhat like the effect of a dynamic compressor.

Now this is very strange.

In order to suggest something that's both cheap and easy to do, have you tried clicking Options --> Properties in that Windows volume control thinggie, and then checking every item in the list to see if you get an additional button or know that does something useful?

A sound card with two line outs but no speaker out sounds weird to me. But I guess it's technically feasible. (Unless it's a card made for (semi-)professional sound stuff - but then the sound quality should be much much better)

Edit - which input on your amp do you connect your PC to? And have you tried swapping the RCA plugs of the CD player and the PC on the amp?

Consider yourself hugged.

This post was edited by null on Oct 11, 2005.

In order to suggest something that's both cheap and easy to do, have you tried clicking Options --> Properties in that Windows volume control thinggie, and then checking every item in the list to see if you get an additional button or know that does something useful?

I've got all volume sliders on maximum, input lines all muted, treble and bass on +/- 0. The only card-specific menu is an interface to configure sound effects on the card output (which are all disabled).

Edit - which input on your amp do you connect your PC to? And have you tried swapping the RCA plugs of the CD player and the PC on the amp?

They go in "AUX" and "Tuner" (it's a really old Technics amp, built like a tank). I tried switching those yesterday, but the differences remain unfortunately.

I couldn't care less about the different signal strength actually. But I'd really like my high and low tones as crisp as on the CD player.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

I got the same setup, even worse I guess (PC most times envies todays Casio pocket calculators, "Sound Blaster Live Value", which is the light version of "Live" actually). Still I got quite nice sound, in fact I did almost all my recordings over the years with it. After both my external CD players decided to quit spinning and recover from years of dizziness, I have my CDs played only through the PC. And the sound quality is absolutely acceptable, not better or worse than through the external players.

So it must be something about your setup (likely) or hardware (unlikely).

Null's ideas are fascinating and worth a try, if you got time and fun with electronics and money for new devices, if everything else fails. Nonetheless I guess you should simply use the lineout jack, instead of the headphones out!

The SB-Live got 5 jacks on the back: green, red, blue, something and black. While the black one is a 2.5 mm headphone jack plug, the other ones are 3.5 mm ones of the same type. Use the green one, thats line-out. Red is line-in (for recording), blue is the microphone (I guess), and the last one is the SPDIF signal. Use a Jack plug/RCA adapter in the green jack to split the stereo signal into two mono signals and connect it to the aux input of your amp. There you go...

After decades of construction my website is finally up an running: www.kkds.de

Null's ideas are fascinating and worth a try, if you got time and fun with electronics and money for new devices, if everything else fails.

Thanks, and you know, I only suggested these because I suspected his card doesnt have a line out. :-)

Consider yourself hugged.

This post was edited by null on Oct 11, 2005.

Are you sure the green jack is the one for line out? I'm asking because headphone jacks are often labelled with green color on computers. The green and black one have the same line-out-esque symbol, only that one is labelled "1" and the other "2". I'm not getting a signal on the black jack.

I also ripped open my PC in search for any available jumper settings on the card, but couldn't see something fitting. I read on the Creative website that the SoundBlaster Live doesn't have an integrated amp. Doesn't that mean that whatever comes out must be line out because without amplification the signal would be too weak for headphones?

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

Mmmh... thats strange... does your card look similar to this (the one in the middle of course with the midi port on the left)?

If so (and it should be!), its definitely the green jack. Also note that all coloured ones are 3.5 mm, while the black one is only 2.5 mm, so the plug cannot fit both. If your card DOESN'T look like this, its not a "SB Live" since SB cards look like this ever since the very first 8-bit models. And may be that is the reason for it all! Could it be, that you've just installed the wrong drivers?

Headphone output might not get amplified by the card itself, but the volume control of the PC is amplifier enough for headphones, cause they only need minimal power.

After decades of construction my website is finally up an running: www.kkds.de

If so (and it should be!), its definitely the green jack. Also note that all coloured ones are 3.5 mm, while the black one is only 2.5 mm, so the plug cannot fit both. If your card DOESN'T look like this, its not a "SB Live" since SB cards look like this ever since the very first 8-bit models. And may be that is the reason for it all! Could it be, that you've just installed the wrong drivers?

It looks like in your photo and it's definitely a SB Live because it says so on the card. But the jack fits perfectly into the black jacket. "To fit" as not in "can be made to fit" :)

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion