Improving A/D conversion through better drivers?

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werewolf831

New member
How do drivers affect a soundcards converters? Can an improvent in sound quality be heard if a soundcard has better drivers, like WDM over MME?

I've been researching this but haven't been able to make much sense of what I've found

Thanks in advance.
 
Good question

AFAIK...the drivers only tell the card what to do,and although different drivers give different commands,the card still performs "the same" regardless of who,or what,is giving the commands.

Please correct me if I'm wrong :)
 
i've heard of people liking ASIO based applications sound over MME...how much of that is biased or truth can't tell for sure but ASIO/WDM provide a shorter route when the driver/program/ and h/w communicate with each other then MME....even if there was a difference its EXTREMELY subtle
 
The reason I'm wodering, I read recently that a driver's converters won't perform (performance meaning sound, or just how it operates, that I don't know) best without high quality drivers. That said, I'm stuck with the MME (lowest quality from what I gather) drivers since that's all that is available for my soundcard under Win98SE. Under Win Xp, more current drivers are available. I plan to upgrade to XP soon enough, just wondering if I would somehow notice a difference using better drivers. If so, That would give me the impetus to upgrade my OS sooner.

Thanks for chiming in guys
 
Converters digitize the incoming analog signal. They are what they are. The data is what it is. The drivers just handle the computer's OS getting hold of that data and moving it around as fast and flawlessly as possible.

Now, the soundcard's firmware -- the board-level software that tells the chips how to do what they do to incoming signals -- that would have an effect. I suppose poor firmware would give you lower-quality results... but it's a board-level thing and nothing the drivers can address can do much about that.
 
Codecs do play a role in quality.

A codec works with compression/decompression and can most certainly make a difference. Could make same comparison to good/bad soundcards <converters>
 
CODEC is not a compressor/decompressor, it's a coder/decoder... CODEC's do not compress an audio signal, this is one of the biggest mistakes that people make. A CODEC does data reduction, it takes certain bits of computer data and displaces it. And yes a CODEC is a big deal with audio quality, there is lossless and lossy CODEC's, guess which one is better :)

I see a lot of people get this wrong, and once people understand what a certain piece of equipment is doing to their signal, they will understand how to avoid certain processes that aren't helping them in the long run.

Later,
musik
 
musikman316 said:
CODEC is not a compressor/decompressor, it's a coder/decoder... CODEC's do not compress an audio signal, this is one of the biggest mistakes that people make. A CODEC does data reduction, it takes certain bits of computer data and displaces it. And yes a CODEC is a big deal with audio quality, there is lossless and lossy CODEC's, guess which one is better :)

I see a lot of people get this wrong, and once people understand what a certain piece of equipment is doing to their signal, they will understand how to avoid certain processes that aren't helping them in the long run.

Later,
musik
Click to expand...

Not to argue the point but Microsoft uses the terms "compression" and "encode" rather loosely when talking about codecs. After spending a few minutes wandering thru the maze of information there, it would appear that codecs involve both compression and encoding:

"Codecs 101
The Internet is a mammoth data network. The end user asks for data by clicking a link, and the data is then delivered and displayed. Files that contain text and images are small enough to travel quickly across the limited bandwidth of the Internet. Content providers who want to send audio or video face a different problem: file size. Uncompressed, broadcast-quality video requires 160 megabits per second (Mbps) of network bandwidth. Uncompressed, CD-quality audio requires approximately 2.8 Mbps. Most Internet users connect at speeds of only 28.8 kilobits per second (Kbps), a speed that is at least 1,000 times slower than audio and video require. This is where codecs come into the picture.

Content developers use codecs to compress or encode audio and video for real-time or local playback over the Internet and corporate intranets. End users dont need to know anything about codecs to play digital media content with the Windows Media Player; they just click a link to the content and it plays.

- from
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/format/codecs.aspx

More found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwmt/html/codecs.asp

"What Is a Codec?
A codec is a list of "instructions," known as an algorithm, which programs such as encoders and players use to compress and decompress data. In the case of digital media content, codecs are used to decrease the content's file size and bit rate, or the amount of data in kilobits per second that are required to render audio and video content. With smaller file sizes and lower bit rates, digital media content can be stored and streamed over a network more easily."
 
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Teacher said:
i've heard of people liking ASIO based applications sound over MME...how much of that is biased or truth can't tell for sure but ASIO/WDM provide a shorter route when the driver/program/ and h/w communicate with each other then MME....even if there was a difference its EXTREMELY subtle
Click to expand...

The main benefit of ASIO is the very short latency times it allows. I doubt that it improves sound quality though, but definitely helps to improve performance when playing VSTi-s :D
 
....and the reason that some cards state that high quality drivers are needed for "full" performance is because most consumer audio drivers (like Directsound) are 16 bit max.........hence the 24 bit converters on your card wont be working to "full spec" if these drivers are used.
 
Eddie -

Microsoft still seems to have it a little off, in the music world compression means, simply "bringing the loud sounds down and the soft sounds up".

A CODEC will not do this... this is the signal path for a CODEC:

Paw LPCM is incoded into smaller streams, transmitted as encoded data, recieved as encoded data, decoded into raw LPCM.

At no time does the audio signal get compressed. These are the two typed of CODECs.

Lossy: always a loss in audio quality. A lossy CODEC will try and fool your ear by using the laws of Psychoacoustics. These are some of the ways that it narrows down the bits to allow streaming.

1) Frequency Coding: splits audio into multiple frequency bands, then analyzes the activity at each band, spends it bits on the "important" bands.

2) Masking: based on the idea that some sounds are buried under other sounds. Essentially gets rid of audio it deems not necessary because it is softer than other data. Usually comes into play with the loss of hi hats, and other smaller high frequency noises.

3) Stereo Localization: Our perception of stereo occurs mostly at midrange frequencies, saves bits by summing high frequencies to mono.

4) Predictive Analysis: An algorithm predicts the next sample by analyzing previous behavior. This allows the computer to pass the audio through as Binary data, a 1 if the analysis needs to be corrected and a 0 if the analysis was correct.

Now for the good CODEC: Lossless. The Lossless CODEC takes advantage of the periodic nature of waveforms by encoding redundent data into smaller words. This is known as Entropy Encoding, different types of EE are Meridian Lossless Packing (DVD-A), Monkeys Audio, and Perfect Clarity Audio.

So what all this is saying is that in an audio world the use of the words compress and decompress should never be used in referring to a CODEC. It simply reduces data to allow streaming and downloading through the internet, or to be able to fit an hour of audio onto a CD or DVD.

Later,
musik
 
The main problem with computer recording- regardless of the soundcard- is that the inside of a computer is an extremely electrically noisy environment for AC signal. Thus, regardless of the quality of the soundcard and driver, it is a bad idea to convert Analog to Digital inside your computer, because the waveform will be disrupted whenever neerbye wires induce current in the audio frequency. This happens a whole lot.

Therefore, the best solution is to have conversion done outside the computer in a much less electricaly noisy environment.

There is this new product from Lavry Engineering called the Mini Personal Recording Studio that just hit the market.

It's an external USB device that has stereo XLR connectors and does all preamp and A to D conversion before it writes to the computer's hard drive. It completely bypasses use of the computer's sound card.

I have one, and it is amazingly good. Its user friendly. Gain, balance slides, and metering are controled from a virtual console on screen through the USB.

It's very small and light, and it's powered through the USB but uses less 0.5% of a laptop's battery power.

I really like it because It records full CD quality or mp3 while also being portable. It comes with software for Windows, but the device itself also works on MacOS9 and OS10 if you have working recording software.

It showcased at the AES Convention in NY last month but it isn't listed on the company website yet. However, they are taking orders. The price is $250 US per unit.
 
musikman316 said:
-snip-

So what all this is saying is that in an audio world the use of the words compress and decompress should never be used in referring to a CODEC. It simply reduces data to allow streaming and downloading through the internet, or to be able to fit an hour of audio onto a CD or DVD.

Later,
musik
Click to expand...
Yes, I do understand that MS is referring to file compression rather than audio compression. But I had no idea what was going on to accomplish it. Thanks for those details!
 
CarlArmyV,

What you say about the "Mini Personal Recording Studio" is true of any USB audio interface like those that have been out on the market for three years. You also completely overstate the effect of the "electrically noisy insides" of the computer case. Many of us here use cards like the Delta or Audiophile or Mia, and the sound achieved by these cards is rather pristine. External converters are doubtless a notch less noisy but... the difference is essentially negligible in my experience.

You also neglected to mention USB's bandwidth limitations.

At this point if you're going to go with an external audio interface it makes far better sense to get a Firewire box
 
AlChuck said:
Converters digitize the incoming analog signal. They are what they are. The data is what it is. The drivers just handle the computer's OS getting hold of that data and moving it around as fast and flawlessly as possible.

Now, the soundcard's firmware -- the board-level software that tells the chips how to do what they do to incoming signals -- that would have an effect. I suppose poor firmware would give you lower-quality results... but it's a board-level thing and nothing the drivers can address can do much about that
Click to expand...

Agreeing here 100%.

AlChuck said:


What you say about the "Mini Personal Recording Studio" is true of any USB audio interface like those that have been out on the market for three years.... etc. etc. etc
Click to expand...

Right again.
 
CarlArmyV said:
The main problem with computer recording- regardless of the soundcard- is that the inside of a computer is an extremely electrically noisy environment for AC signal. Thus, regardless of the quality of the soundcard and driver, it is a bad idea to convert Analog to Digital inside your computer, because the waveform will be disrupted whenever neerbye wires induce current in the audio frequency. This happens a whole lot.

Therefore, the best solution is to have conversion done outside the computer in a much less electricaly noisy environment.

There is this new product from Lavry Engineering called the Mini Personal Recording Studio that just hit the market.

It's an external USB device that has stereo XLR connectors and does all preamp and A to D conversion before it writes to the computer's hard drive. It completely bypasses use of the computer's sound card.

I have one, and it is amazingly good. Its user friendly. Gain, balance slides, and metering are controled from a virtual console on screen through the USB.

It's very small and light, and it's powered through the USB but uses less 0.5% of a laptop's battery power.

I really like it because It records full CD quality or mp3 while also being portable. It comes with software for Windows, but the device itself also works on MacOS9 and OS10 if you have working recording software.

It showcased at the AES Convention in NY last month but it isn't listed on the company website yet. However, they are taking orders. The price is $250 US per unit.
Click to expand...

I smell SPAM.

http://www.lavryengineering.com/

Click the "contact us" link............

The piece isn't listed on their site but you have one???

Be gone, shithead!
 
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quote:
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Originally posted by c7sus
"I smell SPAM."
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I smell the same, and quite obviously so. It's a shame anytime we have to sift through it. And all I ake was asking was a simple question, lol, mainly because I wondered if it was worth upgrading to a Lynx One with Windows XP over an M-audio 2496 with Win98SE...................:D
 
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