Why Nobody Buys Sound Cards Anymore

[rdl]

My amplifier is 20 years old and only has analog inputs, so I can't comment on the digital quality. I'm no audiophile, but I heard distinctly better quality sound when I switched from the motherboard analog output to the external USB device. I would describe it as less "scratchiness". While I do tend to buy stuff that's better than average, the difference could be nothing more than less noise due to the device being outside the computer case.

The digital output works perfectly fine as it's just data.

[Jan Audio]

Volume/noise ratio is important for pro audio.
For PC speakers it dont matters as they are noisey already.

[MrMobodies]

There was one time when I brought someone a couple of those Dell Sound bars that clip under the screens. It didn't come with a power supply so I supplied some 12v 2a Asian power devices. We started to hear all sorts of noises regardless of adjust volume knob .

I read about it and it is a known issue that affects some of them.

I tried a couple of other power supplies believing it might have something to do with it. A 12v 1a transformer brick and it just was noisy. Out of my collection the only one it didn't do it on was a Li Shin LSE9802A1255 and it's 4.16a variant. No noise at all. A bit of an overkill for a 1a load that isn't used much.

[Bassman59]

Recording is a use case where it seems like USB boxes are the preferred solution nowadays. MsMadLemon says that no matter how many inputs there are on the box, there never seems to be enough. Maybe what we really need is a low cost, high SNR, and large number of inputs digitizer box?

I can think of many professional high-channel count high-quality audio interfaces, from Burl, MOTU, Apogee, UA, and more. The problem is that you won't get bottom-scraping low cost here. But, perhaps you should just buy the Behringer X-32 Rack, that gives you 32 ins, 32 outs over High Speed USB, and oh yeah, it comes with a free mixer.

Probably would be good to base it around a Pocketbeagle (take advantage of the I/O accelerator hardware in the chip) or a low cost FPGA plus a FX2 for the USB interface. The FPGA solution would be better in terms of having very low latency and implementing antialiasing filters

Sure, you can use a Cypress FX2 part with the external memory interface (or whatever they call it) talking to an FPGA, and have the FPGA manage taking that bus and splitting it out to however-many DACs and however-many ADCs you need for your design. (High Speed USB has enough bandwidth for enough 24-bit/96 kHz channels.) But, you need to work out how many registers you need to do this, it ends up being a big chip.

And I have no idea what you're going on about with anti-aliasing filters. They're all in the converters; your FPGA sends and receives I2S (or TDM or other standard converter protocol) and the converter chips (from TI, Cirrus, AKM, ESS and others) do their thing.

Or maybe use Ethernet since it's inherently isolated to prevent ground loops?

Ethernet is widely used in professional audio applications using both Dante and AVB for high channel count applications. It works. You can buy a Dante interface module from Audinate and plug it into your design, or license their IP and roll your own. You can design your AVB product around the XMOS parts and they provide a free core.

[technix]

Or maybe use Ethernet since it's inherently isolated to prevent ground loops?

Ethernet is widely used in professional audio applications using both Dante and AVB for high channel count applications. It works. You can buy a Dante interface module from Audinate and plug it into your design, or license their IP and roll your own. You can design your AVB product around the XMOS parts and they provide a free core.

Or just run some kind of open source or publicly reverse engineered protocol like PulseAudio or Apple AirPlay.

[NiHaoMike]

And I have no idea what you're going on about with anti-aliasing filters. They're all in the converters; your FPGA sends and receives I2S (or TDM or other standard converter protocol) and the converter chips (from TI, Cirrus, AKM, ESS and others) do their thing.

Run the ADCs at 192kHz and downsample to (for example) 48kHz in the FPGA in order to make it easier to work with (might be unnecessary with modern PCs), while still getting the very relaxed analog LPF requirements of an ADC running at 192kHz.

[MrMobodies]

Or maybe use Ethernet since it's inherently isolated to prevent ground loops?

Ethernet is widely used in professional audio applications using both Dante and AVB for high channel count applications. It works. You can buy a Dante interface module from Audinate and plug it into your design, or license their IP and roll your own. You can design your AVB product around the XMOS parts and they provide a free core.

Or just run some kind of open source or publicly reverse engineered protocol like PulseAudio or Apple AirPlay.

I used Shairport4w with itunes for quite some time and it was quite reliable.

It would be good to see a virtual sound card driver for it one day appear.

[technix]

Or maybe use Ethernet since it's inherently isolated to prevent ground loops?

Ethernet is widely used in professional audio applications using both Dante and AVB for high channel count applications. It works. You can buy a Dante interface module from Audinate and plug it into your design, or license their IP and roll your own. You can design your AVB product around the XMOS parts and they provide a free core.

Or just run some kind of open source or publicly reverse engineered protocol like PulseAudio or Apple AirPlay.

I used Shairport4w with itunes for quite some time and it was quite reliable.

It would be good to see a virtual sound card driver for it one day appear.

I have Shairport-Sync on one of my Raspberry Pi, coupled to the Cirrus Logic Audio Card and has a pair of speakers from my old stereo attached to it. My environment is mainly macOS so there is a virtual sound card driver built in. I also wish there would be virtual sound card drivers for other OS too.

[Bassman59]

Or maybe use Ethernet since it's inherently isolated to prevent ground loops?

Ethernet is widely used in professional audio applications using both Dante and AVB for high channel count applications. It works. You can buy a Dante interface module from Audinate and plug it into your design, or license their IP and roll your own. You can design your AVB product around the XMOS parts and they provide a free core.

Or just run some kind of open source or publicly reverse engineered protocol like PulseAudio or Apple AirPlay.

You're missing the need for sample-to-sample synchronization over hundreds of channels of audio, as well as extensive routing capabilities (multiple consoles, recording devices, etc) that Dante and AVB provide. But, like I said, this is for professional live-sound and broadcast environments, way beyond what the average home user or gamer needs.

[Bassman59]

And I have no idea what you're going on about with anti-aliasing filters. They're all in the converters; your FPGA sends and receives I2S (or TDM or other standard converter protocol) and the converter chips (from TI, Cirrus, AKM, ESS and others) do their thing.

Run the ADCs at 192kHz and downsample to (for example) 48kHz in the FPGA in order to make it easier to work with (might be unnecessary with modern PCs), while still getting the very relaxed analog LPF requirements of an ADC running at 192kHz.

But, to what benefit? Do you need to reduce CPU horsepower or are you constrained by I/O capacity? Buy a more-powerful computer, one that actually meets your needs.

[SiliconWizard]

Many reasons why they are not as big a market as they once were for home computing. (For professional uses, you're still going to buy expensive "sound cards", which are not really just cards.)

Yes most computers now have decent integrated audio. But you also have to consider another factor: desktop computers have lost a lot of market share. There are now a lot of other computing devices that people use instead, such as tablets and even mobile phones. Obviously adding an extra device to them, even if it's USB, would just be clunky and unpractical. Onboard sound on those devices is not always that great but I think people tend not to care much anymore. They just want a compact device.

Which leads to another consideration on top of those above. Until the 1990's or early 2000's, I'd say, hi-fi was a big thing. A lot of people had pretty good home hi-fi equipment. It was even a sign of social status. I'm noticing that msot people don't care about hi-fi anymore. Many people in the same social classes than those that once had nice hi-fi gear are now content with crap bluetooth speakers or the speakers in their laptops or LCD monitors. The most audio-inclined will have "sound bars" that sound like crap while putting out no more that 10W RMS at over 1% distortion. The centers of interest seem to have shifted. Only a small percentage now still seek good audio equipment (amongst which you have to distinguish the real amateurs and the audiophool'ed). Our way of "consuming" music has now changed a lot too.

[Richard Crowley]

Isn't the reason the same answer as the questions:

• Why nobody buys Network cards anymore?
• Why nobody buys HD controller cards anymore?
• Why nobody buys USB interface cards anymore?

Answer:  Because these things have all been integrated into the motherboard.

To be sure there are still PCI plugin-boards for network and all those other things.
But they tend to be specialty products for users who need something beyond/different than the mainstream stuff.

And of course there is always the issue of the very noisy envvironment inside the computer case which is hostile to audio input and output.
The last motherboard I installed had a very pronounced, separated "island" for the audio hardware to attempt to improve the Signal-to-Noise Ratio.

[tooki]

Many reasons why they are not as big a market as they once were for home computing. (For professional uses, you're still going to buy expensive "sound cards", which are not really just cards.)

Yes most computers now have decent integrated audio. But you also have to consider another factor: desktop computers have lost a lot of market share. There are now a lot of other computing devices that people use instead, such as tablets and even mobile phones. Obviously adding an extra device to them, even if it's USB, would just be clunky and unpractical. Onboard sound on those devices is not always that great but I think people tend not to care much anymore. They just want a compact device.

Which leads to another consideration on top of those above. Until the 1990's or early 2000's, I'd say, hi-fi was a big thing. A lot of people had pretty good home hi-fi equipment. It was even a sign of social status. I'm noticing that msot people don't care about hi-fi anymore. Many people in the same social classes than those that once had nice hi-fi gear are now content with crap bluetooth speakers or the speakers in their laptops or LCD monitors. The most audio-inclined will have "sound bars" that sound like crap while putting out no more that 10W RMS at over 1% distortion. The centers of interest seem to have shifted. Only a small percentage now still seek good audio equipment (amongst which you have to distinguish the real amateurs and the audiophool'ed). Our way of "consuming" music has now changed a lot too.

I agree to an extent. Big speakers are nowhere near as popular as they used to be. But at the same time, small speakers have gotten a lot better. Computer modeling and stuff lets us get surprisingly big sound out of tiny speakers.

But also, we listen to a lot more music on the go now, and our car audio systems are often pretty decent. And even more so, our earphones have gotten a lot better than they used to be. (There have always been good large headphones, but earbuds and small headphones today are far better than they used to be, especially at the lower end.) And people are also willing to spend more on earbuds than in the past.



As for laptops, by the time laptops came down to consumer-friendly prices around the turn of the millennium, built-in audio had been long established in computers. (And IIRC, laptops tended to include it onboard a bit earlier, for simple lack of any feasible way to do external audio before USB came along.) Consumers, for all intents and purposes, never saw laptops without onboard audio.

[tooki]

Isn't the reason the same answer as the questions:

• Why nobody buys Network cards anymore?
• Why nobody buys HD controller cards anymore?
• Why nobody buys USB interface cards anymore?

Answer:  Because these things have all been integrated into the motherboard.

Right?!?! Like, when YouTube suggested that video to me (before it got shared here), I saw it and was like, "uh, because it's always integrated now anyway. Duh!"

[NiHaoMike]

But, to what benefit? Do you need to reduce CPU horsepower or are you constrained by I/O capacity? Buy a more-powerful computer, one that actually meets your needs.

Some of both, although as mentioned, probably not necessary in the first place with a modern PC.

Yes most computers now have decent integrated audio. But you also have to consider another factor: desktop computers have lost a lot of market share. There are now a lot of other computing devices that people use instead, such as tablets and even mobile phones. Obviously adding an extra device to them, even if it's USB, would just be clunky and unpractical.

Modern smartphones use USB-C and the DAC is built right into the USB plug of the headphones or adapter. The SaviAudio chip LeEco uses is quite impressive sound quality wise, just barely behind a top of the line PCM1792A.

[tooki]

I dunno what chip is in it, but Apple's Lighting to earphone jack adapter apparently has incredibly good performance. It's incredible what fits inside the strain relief of a plug!!!

[technix]

Or maybe use Ethernet since it's inherently isolated to prevent ground loops?

Ethernet is widely used in professional audio applications using both Dante and AVB for high channel count applications. It works. You can buy a Dante interface module from Audinate and plug it into your design, or license their IP and roll your own. You can design your AVB product around the XMOS parts and they provide a free core.

Or just run some kind of open source or publicly reverse engineered protocol like PulseAudio or Apple AirPlay.

You're missing the need for sample-to-sample synchronization over hundreds of channels of audio, as well as extensive routing capabilities (multiple consoles, recording devices, etc) that Dante and AVB provide. But, like I said, this is for professional live-sound and broadcast environments, way beyond what the average home user or gamer needs.

For open source protocols it is doable if you can patch in those features if you know how to write it and run it over a low latency network like fiber-only 10GbE.

Sample synchronization can be done by timestamping the frames with a wall click time and NTP or GPS synchronize all nodes to the same clock source

Routing can be done using precisely controlled multicasting and single-casting of data packets. No special handling is needed in the audio layer, it is all part of betworking layer.

As of multi-channel audio, I believe most open source protocols support them natively, at least you can emulate it using a minimal FLAC codec (multiplexing the channels into one FLAC stream with or without compression)

[b_force]

Isn't the reason the same answer as the questions:

• Why nobody buys Network cards anymore?
• Why nobody buys HD controller cards anymore?
• Why nobody buys USB interface cards anymore?

Answer:  Because these things have all been integrated into the motherboard.

To be sure there are still PCI plugin-boards for network and all those other things.
But they tend to be specialty products for users who need something beyond/different than the mainstream stuff.

And of course there is always the issue of the very noisy envvironment inside the computer case which is hostile to audio input and output.
The last motherboard I installed had a very pronounced, separated "island" for the audio hardware to attempt to improve the Signal-to-Noise Ratio.

This is a simple and correct answer.
The quality of the onboard devices/sound card is (more than) good enough for the majority.
In fact THD and SNR of onboard sound cards is better than most cd players.
So only people who really need that much more buy a dedicated card.

[technix]

• Why nobody buys Network cards anymore?
• Why nobody buys HD controller cards anymore?
• Why nobody buys USB interface cards anymore?

So only people who really need that much more buy a dedicated card.

When you use server-grade stuff, a lot of things have to come on cards:

• Why nobody buys Sound cards anymore? My server motherboards don't have built-in sound, thus either it have to be mute or I have to use a sound card to get analog audio out of it.
• Why nobody buys Network cards anymore? When you need a lot of Ethernet ports (for example link aggregation) a multi-port network card like Intel I350T4 is a must-have. Or if you need faster networking (e.g. 10Gbps Ethernet or Infiniband) or (iin most of the case) native optical fiber networking you need cards too.
• Why nobody buys HD controller cards anymore? If you need real RAID you almost always need to buy a hardware expansion card - I have two MegaRAID 9271-8iCC to put 14 of my storage drives into a concrete 24TB RAID-60 array.
• Why nobody buys USB interface cards anymore? This is a downer for me: Intel Z97 chipset has a bugged USB XHCI controller with 96 endpoints instead of the standard 128, while all of the USB ports on the board goes to that single XHCI controller. Given my array of debug probes and my tendency to constant hook them (since it is fairly difficult to reach the USB ports on my rack-mounted machines) I ran out of endpoints fast, and has to use a PCIe USB 3.0 card to add a second XHCI controller that isn't bugged. My server boards also lacked USB 3.0 entirely and has to rely on those cards.

[Richard Crowley]

When you use server-grade stuff, a lot of things have to come on cards:

• Why nobody buys Sound cards anymore? My server motherboards don't have built-in sound, thus either it have to be mute or I have to use a sound card to get analog audio out of it.
• Why nobody buys Network cards anymore? When you need a lot of Ethernet ports (for example link aggregation) a multi-port network card like Intel I350T4 is a must-have. Or if you need faster networking (e.g. 10Gbps Ethernet or Infiniband) or (iin most of the case) native optical fiber networking you need cards too.
• Why nobody buys HD controller cards anymore? If you need real RAID you almost always need to buy a hardware expansion card - I have two MegaRAID 9271-8iCC to put 14 of my storage drives into a concrete 24TB RAID-60 array.
• Why nobody buys USB interface cards anymore? This is a downer for me: Intel Z97 chipset has a bugged USB XHCI controller with 96 endpoints instead of the standard 128, while all of the USB ports on the board goes to that single XHCI controller. Given my array of debug probes and my tendency to constant hook them (since it is fairly difficult to reach the USB ports on my rack-mounted machines) I ran out of endpoints fast, and has to use a PCIe USB 3.0 card to add a second XHCI controller that isn't bugged. My server boards also lacked USB 3.0 entirely and has to rely on those cards.

Yes, precisely my point:

To be sure there are still PCI plugin-boards for network and all those other things.
But they tend to be specialty products for users who need something beyond/different than the mainstream stuff.

[technix]

Yes, precisely my point:

To be sure there are still PCI plugin-boards for network and all those other things.
But they tend to be specialty products for users who need something beyond/different than the mainstream stuff.

That is only half of my point: it is either specialty (RAID card, Infiniband,) or bug fixing/upgrades (USB 3.0 cards, 10GbE cards)

I have consumer-grade PCIe cards for USB 3.0 XHCI and SATA 6Gb/s AHCI, both of which are standard motherboard features on modern motherboards, but I have to use them in order to add support (old motherboards doesn't have, or lacked enough SATA 6Gb/s or USB 3.0 ports) or fix bugs (the USB 3.0 on Z97 is bugged) on my systems.

[NiHaoMike]

This is a simple and correct answer.
The quality of the onboard devices/sound card is (more than) good enough for the majority.
In fact THD and SNR of onboard sound cards is better than most cd players.
So only people who really need that much more buy a dedicated card.

Most mid to high end consumer amplifiers are also digital input nowadays, removing the need for a high end sound card in the first place.

[Kjelt]

For normal consumers the audio or sounds cards might be dissapeared, for musicians these are called audio interfaces and are still manufactured and sold by many companies even up to thousands of $ a piece.
In the start of the 2000 era these were connected through firewire, which now is replaced by thunderbolt and usb3.1c ofcourse.
Main features are 19" rack format to take it out on tours in flightcases, and although some just offer a very good low jitter DAC , others have tons of extra features.
 

[technix]

This is a simple and correct answer.
The quality of the onboard devices/sound card is (more than) good enough for the majority.
In fact THD and SNR of onboard sound cards is better than most cd players.
So only people who really need that much more buy a dedicated card.

Most mid to high end consumer amplifiers are also digital input nowadays, removing the need for a high end sound card in the first place.

If they accept digital input in the form of HDMI or DisplayPort audio stream, or if you have a splitter that strips audio out into a separate SPDIF line, you don't even need sound cards at all with a modern enough graphics card since they can too send digital audio using that digital stream natively. Early HDMI graphics cards did require motherboard SPDIF support, but as of now graphics cards with HDMI audio or DisplayPort audio support can emulate a PCIe HDA device and capture audio stream internally.

[Richard Crowley]

For normal consumers the audio or sounds cards might be dissapeared, for musicians these are called audio interfaces and are still manufactured and sold by many companies even up to thousands of $ a piece.

In the start of the 2000 era these were connected through firewire, which now is replaced by thunderbolt and usb3.1c ofcourse.
Main features are 19" rack format to take it out on tours in flightcases, and although some just offer a very good low jitter DAC , others have tons of extra features.

Most of the popular audio interfaces are simply USB 2.0  Unless you get up to high channel counts (>16 channels, etc.) USB 2.0 is fully capable of input and output up to 48 KHz sample rate and 24-bit-depth.

The main reason for these external audio interfaces include input and output arrangements like XLR microphone inputs, frequently with 48-volt phantom power, or instrument (e-guitar) high-impedance inputs.  And balanced, line-level outputs, none of which are  comprehended in typical computer sound interfaces, whether motherboard-integrated or separate plug-in boards.

And it remains a fact that no matter how much effort they put into making motherboard audio better, even an inexpensive external audio gadget is MUCH better than the internal audio in high-end motherboards.  Exactly the same circuit in an external box is better than the same circuit inside the computer.  Simply because it is OUTSIDE from the hostile noise environment inside the computer.