Soundcard Real World Noise floor

  • Thread starter Thread starter JayneDoe
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JayneDoe

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Can someone tell me what sort of noise floor I should get with either my soundcard's line input grounded or my preamp gain turned to 0? My meters seem to sit at 60 to 70 DB below clipping in these situations. I have tried several recording applications and they all agree.

My sound card is a Turtle Beach Monterey which was considered quite good in its day. Should I expect better from this card? I may try to rearrange and/or remove other cards from the computer to see if that helps. Any suggestions? Yeah, I will upgrade at some point but probably not right away unless I really have to.

Thanks,
JayneDoe
 
I assume you're testing at 16 bits and not 24 bits. -70dB is a decent noise floor for 16 bit audio.
 
Thanks

Thanks for the reality check. I just wanted to make sure things were right before I continued. I had started with a noise floor of around -35dB until I remembered to run the converter calibration software with my external preamp gain turned to 0. I think this soundcard takes a 16 significant bit range from an 18 or 20 bit converter. Pretty standard for its time, I guess.

Thanks Again,
JayneDoe
 
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