Do I even need my old soundcard in Win 7?

[osiris]

My Audiophile soundcard is still on the old computer because I was finishing a song before I migrate everything over.
So, for a temporary fix, I downloaded the 64 bit ASIO4ALL to use with FL Studio on the new computer.
Thing is, I've got the latency down to 4 ms - something I've never been able to do with ASIO4ALL before, and it sounds pretty good.
Would installing the soundcard with its proper ASIO make things sound better?
I just remember ASIO4ALL crashing quite a bit. Haven't played around with it long enough to know if this is still the case.
Any thoughts?

[UltraJv]

My Audiophile soundcard is still on the old computer because I was finishing a song before I migrate everything over.
So, for a temporary fix, I downloaded the 64 bit ASIO4ALL to use with FL Studio on the new computer.
Thing is, I've got the latency down to 4 ms - something I've never been able to do with ASIO4ALL before, and it sounds pretty good.
Would installing the soundcard with its proper ASIO make things sound better?
I just remember ASIO4ALL crashing quite a bit. Haven't played around with it long enough to know if this is still the case.
Any thoughts?

Low latency is only good if it performs well at high CPU hit. Try ASIO4ALL on a heavy project with lots of vsti/FX. If it dosnt choke then youre ok. Maudio ASIO should be better in that respect.

[DevonB]

It won't render better (assuming you're all ITB for recording and mixing?), since it's digital to digital. What will make a difference is the quality of the DAC's and what you hear coming OUT of your computer. I'd absolutely switch it over.

Devon

[eidenk]

I don't have a very recent system but I doubt that current onboard audio chips match the output quality of a 24/96.

The fact you need to ask if sound of your new system would be improved by using the audiophile lets me believe you've got extremely poor amp/speakers plugged to it.

[osiris]

No. I have good monitors and good headphones. I just know that when I was doing presets in my SE synths, SE was not on ASIO. It was DirectSound. The presets sounded much clearer on ASIO. Not a big difference, but enough to notice.
Sound + usage. Like someone said before, you won't know how A4A will act until you put in on a full mix.

[BertKoor]

I just know that when I was doing presets in my SE synths, SE was not on ASIO. It was DirectSound. The presets sounded much clearer on ASIO. Not a big difference, but enough to notice.

The only thing I can think of is a sample rate conversion.

Say your audio device is used in 48kHz mode by DirectSound, and your DAW accesses it as 44.1kHz. Then DirectSound will do a SRC for you, which results in some filtering in the upmost octave. That might be noticable.

However a decent ASIO driver will change the sampling rate of the audio device to the rate the DAW wants, so SRC is avoided. Using Asio4All might have the same effect as using DirectSound, since it plugs into the data stream to the audio device at a simular point.

So if you can figure out what sampling rate is used by DirectSound & Asio4All, then if you set the same sampling rate in your DAW then at least at that level any SRC is avoided. Then you're back at the mercy of DAC quality. Because there should be no difference in audio quality between the different driver protocols, provided sampling rate conversion is not applied.

Oh, and ofcourse there could be some effects applied by DirectSound for "enhanced" listening. Those usually can be switched off.

[mclane]

I don't have a very recent system but I doubt that current onboard audio chips match the output quality of a 24/96.

The fact you need to ask if sound of your new system would be improved by using the audiophile lets me believe you've got extremely poor amp/speakers plugged to it.

+1
Most onboard souncard codecs are extremely poor. Get some good headphones and you'll clearly notice the enormous difference.

[bduffy]

Yeah. Always favour a dedicated audio interface over an on-board sound chip.

[osiris]

Yeah, it's still Realtek. That's why I say the MAudio just sounds better. Plus dedicated ASIO.

[ford442]

my laptop sounds quite funky compared to my Profire 610.. even my 2496 sounds limited in comparison to the 610.. i notice the difference on my new ADAM A7X..

[osiris]

I've noticed a lot of things here are coming with that 'Beats Audio' enhancement feature. I really don't understand what that is.

[ford442]

http://tunelab.com/2012/01/09/what-exac ... an-answer/

i did just read that Intel and Creative are both spending big on R&D to get some new integrated platforms ready..