Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners DAC: computer Soundcard vs CD Player?

>>Actually, that is not exactly correct. While you can "clock" (select the sampling rate) for the SB Live and Audigy to whatever you want, they still resample to 48 kHz to process and then resample it again to output sampling rate (if it's different than 48 kHz).

Interesting. The first information I saw on the SB series was very specific about this... of course I can't find it now and all the links I *do* find seem to agree with you.

Oh well...

I have my HTPC with Revolution 7.1 on one input vs my Musical Fidelity A3.2 CD player on another input of my integrated amp and the MF is definitely sounding much better. It has much more detail and crispness. My Revo although does sound exceptionally well but not as good as my MF CD player.
Another interesting note is that when I had the earlier audigy I could not find the zero gain position of the volume when connected to an amp. With the Revo zero gain is clearly stated as putting volume at max on the soundcard setting and based on my past observations the level is correct(using my ears).

Saturn, that extra "detail and crispness" that you hear, how can you be so sure those are the missing part of the original recording? you probably wouldn't want to hear this but perhaps you could achieve the same result by simply turning up the treble? LOL

I don't know how much you paid for that MF A3.2 cd player, but a quick search on audioreview came up with a MSRP of $1799.00, keep in mind that you're comparing it to a $89.00 soundcard, I'm sure that MF probably has a better DAC and looks great on the rack, I'm not trying to knock on your high end stuff or anything, but does your MF sound 20x better than the M-Audio 7.1?

Personally I'm not going to sink couple hundred bucks on something that I can achieve with merely $69~$89. :-)

Can someone explain something to me. I have the Audigy card running to my Denon 3805 via a optical connection. My Denon shows it as being a 96khz stream and not 48khz.

Is the 3805 upsampling it?

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keep in mind that you're comparing it to a $89.00 soundcard, I'm sure that MF probably has a better DAC

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$$ do not equate to greater quality.

chesseroo,

I agree, aheh...If I'd dropped a big chunk of money on a CD Player like that, I probably would try really hard to convince myself that it is a far superior unit too!! :-)

So what you guys are saying is Saturn is hearing things and his very nice CD player sounds the same as his computer?

It got me curious and did some more research, and here's what I found:

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=Advice&Number=9281&page=&view=&sb=&o=


I guess if it sounds better to you, then it probably does, we all have different ears, just like the Axiom speakers were being described as "harsh" by certain people, but it's musical and detail to others.

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I have the Audigy card running to my Denon 3805 via a optical connection. My Denon shows it as being a 96khz stream and not 48khz.

Is the 3805 upsampling it?

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Anybody?

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Can someone explain something to me. I have the Audigy card running to my Denon 3805 via a optical connection. My Denon shows it as being a 96khz stream and not 48khz.

Is the 3805 upsampling it?

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No. As I said earlier, output frequency can be whatever you want it to be. It (the audigy) just resamples the signal to 48 kHz internally to add effects and then resamples the signal again to output frequency. Go to your control panel --> Audio HQ --> Device Controls --> Set the sampling rate to 48 kHz to prevent further resampling.

If you set it to output at 48 kHz, you undergo no further resampling, but you get a rolled off high end (as shown here), but in my opinion, that is better than resampling it again to 44 kHz (even though at 44 kHz its roll-off is delayed to higher frequencies.)