Is your computer the center of your home entertainment world? Do you love to listen to music on your computer, watch DVDs and other videos and perhaps play some games on your computer? The audio quality of your computer can make a significant difference in your entertainment experience, so make sure your computer is putting out the best sound it can with a great sound card. If you're not sure where to start looking, this sound card buying guide will help you figure out how to buy the right sound card for your computer.
Many computers nowadays have some sort of built-in audio support, usually as an integrated audio card on the motherboard. Many computer users are quite happy with the on-board audio, as it normally does a good job with normal audio tasks like playing music. However, on-board audio cards have a few drawbacks. They often require your computer's processor to do most of the audio handling, which means gamers get lower frame rates, and if your processor isn't up to the task of processing audio and reading a DVD or Blu-ray disc at the same time, you may get some hiccups in your movies. Also, these on-board audio devices may not have the dynamic range of a dedicated sound card, meaning audio just won't sound as good as it could; also, these cards rarely have the breadth of features that a good dedicated sound card will offer.
If you want to use your computer as your home theater system, then you'll want the audio quality to be as good as the video quality. Of course, when it comes to home theater audio, one of the first things that comes to mind is surround sound, so you'll want to make sure your new sound card is capable of driving a surround sound speaker system. Fortunately, nearly any new sound card now available will support at least a 5.1 surround sound speaker setup, and some sound cards can support up to 7.1 surround sound speaker systems.
Having five or more speakers plus a subwoofer is nice, but it doesn't mean much if you don't actually get the surround sound experience from them. DVDs and Blu-ray discs contain encoded surround sound tracks in formats such as Dolby Digital and DTS, and if your sound card has a decoder for one (or more) of these surround sound formats, then you'll be able to enjoy your movie's surround sound audio track in all its glory. In fact, you can find devices that connect to your computer that act only as a surround sound decoder, letting your computer's on-board audio do most of the work. This can be a great choice when you don't want to pay for a full-featured sound card but you still want an authentic surround sound experience.
If you've already invested in a home theater receiver and speakers that you'd like to connect to your computer, you'll want to look for a sound card with a TOSLINK or other similar connector that can send the audio to your external receiver. This will probably mean that your sound card will have an external box with a variety of extra connectors beyond the basic computer speaker connectors.
Another small benefit to a good sound card is that many of them come with a remote control. After all, who wants to get up from watching their movie just to turn the volume up or down? Sound cards with an external box or a unit that installs in one of your computer's 5.25-inch drive bays will often come with a remote control, giving you the freedom that you just can't get without a remote.
Having great audio can go a long ways towards creating an immersive gaming experience. Surround sound is a good start, but today's high-end sound cards are capable of much more: A top-of-the-line sound card can do effects such as 3D audio positioning for astonishing realism. Of course, all this won't mean much if it bogs down your computer, so you'll want a powerful sound card that performs its processing on the sound card instead of on the processor. Making your processor do some of the work is inevitable, but a good sound card will keep it to a minimum.
Some manufacturers of high-end sound cards will offer a variety of similar models of sound card, with one or more of them being specifically tailored to gaming. These specialized cards will include features that emphasize real-time effects, in particular positional effects and environmental effects. Of course, you'll want to have a 5.1 or better speaker system to go with that because you can't get the feel for positional audio from just two speakers. When it comes to positional audio, having more speakers translates to having more accuracy in how sounds are placed, so you may want to invest in a 7.1 speaker system for the most immersive experience.
Sound cards for home music studios used to be highly specialized pieces of equipment. Nowadays, the same sound card that is excellent for gaming can also be an ideal choice for the home musician. When it comes to making your own music, you'll want to look for a sound card with low noise and distortion, support for lots of channels and ASIO driver support if your music software of choice supports it. The best sound cards will be able to reconfigure themselves to specialize to the task at hand; that is, when you're making music, you can put the sound card into a mode that enables the features important to recording music while de-emphasizing the features unique to gaming or home entertainment.
Sound cards with an external box are often your best choice for home recording because those external boxes will provide a variety of connections to microphones and other audio devices. Of course, if you've already invested in an external mixer and other music studio equipment, then you can probably get away with having fewer connections to your sound card. However, newer home musicians who want to make their computer the center of their music studio will likely want their sound card to handle everything it can, especially since the high-end sound cards can mix and do effects with so little noise and with such a wide dynamic range.
Can I use my new sound card in either a PC or a Mac?
Not necessarily. You'll definitely want to make sure that your new sound card supports the system that you want to install it in. Specifically, this means that you can get drivers for your sound card to work with the operating system on your computer.
If you're interested in an audio device that you can move easily between a PC and Mac as needed, you might consider an external audio device with a USB or Firewire connection. These devices often support both PCs and Macs, and they offer the convenience of plug-and-play operation, making them a good choice for people who want to upgrade their audio without having to open their computer case and install new hardware.
What about all these technical specifications I see with sound cards?
Many of the specifications you see with sound cards are engineering terms or have to do with the mechanics of reproducing audio. Fortunately, you don't need to know anything about them to get a fantastic new sound card for your computer. Of course, if you're interested, you can always learn more about terms like signal-to-noise ratio, sampling rate and total harmonic distortion to understand why one sound card is better than another.
How should the audio quality of a new sound card compare to, say, an audio CD?
Two of the specifications you see with sound cards are bit depth and sampling rate. A sound card, for example, may say that it can sample 24-bit sound at 96 KHz, meaning it can make a very precise sample of the sound and do it 96,000 times per second. By comparison, audio CDs are recoded with 16-bit sound at 44.1 KHz, so they sample the sound with a less precise sample and do it only 44,100 times per second. Of course, few will argue that CDs can make a very good-sounding reproduction of an audio recording, but higher bit depths and frequencies mean an even more accurate reproduction of the sound. Audiophiles in particular appreciate these higher numbers; however, your average listener may not think they hear any significant difference, but they may still notice subtleties in a high-depth, high-frequency recording that would have been lost on an audio CD. (Of course, it depends heavily on the original audio source: Some music, for example, just isn't very subtle, so there are few subtleties to lose!)
A great sound card calls for great speakers
Overstock.com has a wide selection of speakers for your computer, your home theater and your car or truck. Of course, if you're looking for new speakers to match your new sound card, make sure you get computer speakers so that they can connect.
Thinking about a complete overhaul of your computer system?
Overstock.com has the hardware you need to put together a great system for gaming, for work, or for whatever else you're into. You can find processors, video cards, motherboards, cases, power supplies, memory, hard drives and more, all at prices you'll love.
Put together a fantastic home theater
If you love your computer but you'd still rather cozy up in front of a TV to enjoy a movie, then why not put together that home theater you've been dreaming of? Start with an LCD TV or Plasma TV; add a Blu-ray player, a home theater receiver and a surround sound speaker system and you'll be ready for an incredible movie experience in the comfort of your home.
