[Mplayer-cvslog] CVS: main/DOCS sound.html,1.68,1.69

[D Richard Felker III]

On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 04:44:36PM +0800, Anders Johansson wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > > > while the MASTER is an analog control. This means that when lowering the PCM
> > > > sound level the SNR is lowered. If one then compensates by increasing the
> > > > MASTER level the result is a output signal with poor dynamic range combined
> > > > with the noise created by the crappy amplifier on the sound card.
> > > Then why some cards have distortion when PCM is maxed out?
> > > BTW I'm not an audiophil at all, as you may have guessed :)
> > 
> > My guess is that on some soundcards, PCM is a digital control with
> > some default value (75?) being no change, and greater values
> > amplifying the samples digitally (=horrible distortion). However, I
> > imagine all of this varies from card to card... I don't see any reason
> > that PCM should be digital on all cards....
> > 
> 
> I think you are right. It seems that some (older and cheaper) cards
> have an analog mixer for the PCM data after the D/A followed by a
> analog master mixer. More expensive and newer cards have a digital
> premixer where even the sound from the mic and CD is digitized before
> it is mixed. On these cards the master volume control is often an

Hmm, how amusing. So old cheap soundcards are nice, and new expensive
ones suck. That's *really* good engineering for ya... I'm glad I still
have ISA slots for my pre-pnp SB AWE32...

Rich