In need of a good quality external soundcard for PC, any suggestions?

M

MusicDirector

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I’m having a lot of trouble with my internal soundcard in mydesktop as in “noise” which is of course from the surrounding components insidethe case. It’s been going on for the last 4 or 5 months. It’s a high quality soundcard, butunfortunately only proves that money does not buy quality in internalsoundcards.
So, I want to replace it with an external soundcard whichwill solve all the problems. I want a good quality one that has good sound.(Not “high-end”, it’s only a PC and notused as a source). I run a pair of KRK RP6 near-field studio monitors. I doaudio editing and re-EQuing/mastering. (The KRKs are fantastic for that purposeby the way).
Can anyone offer up some external soundcard suggestions tolook at? As for budget, I don’t know what it would take for a good external soundcard,but I’m hoping the max would be no greater than $200.
~Eric
 
Elberoth said:
Any USB DAC will do it. Try Musical Fidelity V-DAC II.
Click to expand...
Not quite. At least The Music Fidelity won't. The speakers run Balanced and unbalanced XLR cables. They do not have Toslink, 1/8 inch or SPDF jacks. I think they might also have RCA jacks and/or 1/4 inch, but I'll have to confirm that. (I'll look tonight). I know I'm running adaptors for the cables (XLR to RCA I believe). I'm a little confused, I have a SoundBlaster external sound card for my laptop, but I would not use it for my desktop as it is not really suited for my applications. (It's fine for the laptop just for better than laptop sound, not for anything serious). If I just got a external DAC wouldn't I still be running sound from the internal soundcard, thus I'd still get noise?
 
SoTM does not make a sound card.

It's a little ghetto, but it will do the job and sound decent: go snag a Meridian Explorer. Use the variable output (headphone) jack, get a simple Y out, feed the speakers, use the built-in volume control of the Explorer as your gain stage.
 
-E- - SOtM card has two distinctive advantages over the regular PCIe/USB card:

- ultra low noise regulators feeding those USB outs (+5V)
- ability to run the card from an external PSU (linear or batter one)

In my experience, both of those features greatly improve sound quality. I encourage you to try one yourself.
 
Mike said:
SOtM
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike, but there is nothing I can use on that whole page. The last two items are affordable, but of no use to me to solve the problem. The rest of the items are far too expensive and won't solve the problem anyway because they do not take the source of the noise out of the equation, they just try to filter it. (That approach has never worked).
 
-E- said:
SoTM does not make a sound card.

It's a little ghetto, but it will do the job and sound decent: go snag a Meridian Explorer. Use the variable output (headphone) jack, get a simple Y out, feed the speakers, use the built-in volume control of the Explorer as your gain stage.
Click to expand...

I'm not opposed to a little ghetto, I'll look into that.
 
Elberoth said:
-E- - SOtM card has two distinctive advantages over the regular PCIe/USB card:

- ultra low noise regulators feeding those USB outs (+5V)
- ability to run the card from an external PSU (linear or batter one)

In my experience, both of those features greatly improve sound quality. I encourage you to try one yourself.
Click to expand...

I'm even more confused now. Those things are just USB ports. How would I hook up the speakers? How are they soundcards? The KRKs are not cheap toy speakers, they are serious audio editing speakers, super flat, zero coloring (at least detectable by any human ear), individually powered, etc. Not to mention the fact that they are way over the budget and not even worth consideration for me.
 
Eric, they aren't soundcards. Un-confuse yourself. Ignore it completely; sorry for the OT discussion.

The SoundBlaster or Meridian option fits your desires.
 
-E- said:
Anyhow, back on topic.

Eric, if you want the simple and easy with no fuss no muss and RCA outputs, check out Creative 70SB124000001 Sound Card - Newegg.com - $84, 96/24, RCA outputs, volume control on the box. This is about as plug and chug as you'll get.
Click to expand...
That's basically what I got for my laptop, but I didn't think it was up to the task of driving my KRKs or producing good enough sound quality for what I need, but perhaps I could try it and see if it won't work.
 
You can't. Not sure why someone posted the info about the SOtM card. It was a bit off topic.
 
-E- said:
Eric, they aren't soundcards. Un-confuse yourself. Ignore it completely; sorry for the OT discussion.

The SoundBlaster or Meridian option fits your desires.
Click to expand...

Thank You -E- I was starting to place bets, my head was spinning like a roulette wheel.
 
MusicDirector said:
I’m having a lot of trouble with my internal soundcard in mydesktop as in “noise” which is of course from the surrounding components insidethe case. It’s been going on for the last 4 or 5 months. It’s a high quality soundcard, butunfortunately only proves that money does not buy quality in internalsoundcards.
So, I want to replace it with an external soundcard whichwill solve all the problems. I want a good quality one that has good sound.(Not “high-end”, it’s only a PC and notused as a source). I run a pair of KRK RP6 near-field studio monitors. I doaudio editing and re-EQuing/mastering. (The KRKs are fantastic for that purposeby the way).
Can anyone offer up some external soundcard suggestions tolook at? As for budget, I don’t know what it would take for a good external soundcard,but I’m hoping the max would be no greater than $200.
~Eric
Click to expand...

Eric -- lots of times the noise that comes from a sound card output is really a ground noise problem - I've had lots of experience with this issue. One way to test this is to see if your sound card has a digital optical output. Try driving something with that output and see if the noise goes away (ground is not an issue with an optical cable from a pc).

Without knowing a few things this is just a stab in the dark really. It would be nice to know the following:
1. What is your current sound card? You may find you have better results opening your case and replacing it with a better card.
2. Has this problem always existed?
3. How do you use the output from the soundcard? Do you drive speakers directly with the analog output or do you send the digital out to something else?
4. What kind of interface does your current card use (PCI, PCI-Express, etc.)

Just trying to help...

Bryan
 
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