Will External Sound Card Improve Playback From Itunes And Other Online Music?, Wondering if an external sound card for the iMac Intel will improve so Options

[Sadhu]

See very little on sound cards for the iMac. While I know that many users purchase sound cards for MacPro desktops, I am wondering if an external sound peripheral will improve the playback sound off my iMac Intel unit ... for sound OTHER THAN the tracks that I record or input INTO such a peripheral. In other words will I hear any improved audio quality if I purchase a good quality external sound card when listing back through my computer ... say through iTunes or through a high quality stream? I'm not concerned about the "value" of $ spent to the amount to improvement. I am simply interested to know if there will be an improvement in over all quality (say more defined bass, or tighther bass, or a more natural sounding midrange and high end?

Anyone have any comments on external sound cards and whether they improve the sound? If so, anyone have any suggestions on what products to look at? I eventually plan to buy a Mac Pro, so I don't mind spending more on good external card if they can be had as an external device for the mac.

Would appreciate any and all comments. Thanks in advance.

- Sadhu

[JonRaven]

Hello there,

Now it all depends on what level of recording or shall I say perfection level you are shooting for I guess... but from my experience...

Recently I have witnessed on several occasions where a drastic sound quality difference was created whenever the engineer of whatever studio I was in... kicked in some piece of D/A conversion gear and cancelled out the standard mac soundcard feed from the chain.

I was intrigued so I started asking how the quality could increase at such a high rate but when I found out that they all introduced some sort of adat optical out (still digital) to a much better D/A converter (the actual conversion of the analog) into their computer to speakers world.

Such as top level types like the ones offered by apogee or similar level, but a close step down if you want to spend your budget on "ins" and worrying about "outs" later... would be a motu HD or something of similar build. Motu offers a pretty high end D/A for the more budget minded in their HD interfaces.

Just my thoughts but if you are a studio these days who has as much care about what is going "in" the computer as at what is coming "out" of it... I would invest in a good D/A converter. Yeah so you have the best conversion going "in"... but if you can't hear what went in... then ..well... you get my drift.

Anyways... my 2 cents as the general public can not hear any real difference in a lot of D/A conversion let alone A/D.

Now if you are talking about general priced ok listening and not so much recording perfection... then there are many cheaper options there as well.

Hope that helps a little?

Cheers.


Ce message a été modifié par JonRaven - sam. 29 sept. 2007, 22:30.

[Sadhu]

Thanks for the reply. Actually, my question (or questions) relate to playback. I do not doubt that high quality sound card will be worth the investment for me for recording music.

I would rather draw attention away from concerns about input, and purely discuss the output from this Intel iMac (the white one ... the last version before the new aluminum and glass model that just appeard a few weeks ago - - and for my purposes, I am happy not to have the new reflective screen ... God bless everyone who is happy with them).

Yes, my interest is with PLAYBACK, and ... of course, I don't doubt that better sound card will improve the quality of sound when listening to high quality recordings. I've already encountered this on the Windows PC. I have very little knowledge of the ins and out (excuse the pun) of the design of the iMac and the interaction of the digital sound card in it, and am curious to know that if I plug in a high quality sound card, will, for example, I improve the quality of playback on a commercial audiophile store bought recording that I'm listening to on the Mac ...out of iTunes or Logic or say even a higher quality stream. My Creative Labs Audigy card is external to my Windows PC (and of course, there are better brands of both internal and external cards that do a better job), but even with my Creative Labs card, I do experience higher quality sound through high quality headphones than I do when listening to the iMac. Of course, again, I don't know if what I am hearing is just a better headphone preamp, or a better impedance match with the headphones, or a lesser than ideal situation of such a match on the mac. On the pc, I would suspect it's the internal card. However with the iMac, the external card route is all one has.

So I am wondering, friends, since I can't introduce an internal sound card into the iMac, if using an external sound card will produce similar types of improvement to the sound that I'm hearing on the pc side, specifically with iTunes, or commerical disc playback or high quality streams ... such as sometimes come out of France or Germany, or in some cases, some of the newer HD radio stations in the USA. Will the EXTERNAL sound card help that ... in any way?

Again, I'm not concerned with VALUE for the dollar discussions, or and not concerned with whether such investments are really worth undertaking for the for the type of improvement one receives. Obviously there are differences between cards, and obviously they cost a lot (so do good headphones), and so I'd like to table that aspect of the conversation, and JUST ASK if any of you know that it WILL or WON'T be a factor to improving the quality of the sound. Does it? And if so, do any of you have an experience with any specific card manufacturers?

That's really the area that I hope some of you will comment on. Thanks in advance for reading this thread!