Extremely noob sound card question

[Madengineer]

Ok, so i rarely use soundcards. I only use them when i need to troubleshoot a problem, And thats only been once before. Now i have a Creative labs SB0410 and it has a port on the internal bit that says Aux In. Am i suppose to plug something into that?

My last sound card i just plugged in and it worked.

Also, would that soundcard give me better quality sound than on board from a 990FXA-UD7?


And yes i know this is a very simple question, yes i did google, and no i couldnt find any specific reference to this, so can we please keep insults/flames to a minimum?

Cheers

[Prosthetic]

aux in is for CD/DVD roms when they used to be seperate, back in the day.

Thats a pretty shithouse soundcard, and the realtek for your onboard isnt much better.

[SLATYE]

What Prosthetic said is correct.

The CD audio cable (that plugs into the aux socket) was to take sound from the CD drive to the soundcard directly. Any reasonably modern CD drive (and I would assume all DVD drives) can and will just send the sound over the SATA/PATA interface.

Some TV capture cards also use the aux inputs for a similar function (ie taking sound from the capture card to the soundcard without going through the PCI bus).


Regarding sound quality - it'll probably be more resistant to interference simply because it's separated a bit from the mainboard. If you're not hearing any interference from the mainboard, however, the onboard sound is probably better quality than an ancient SB Live (that card was released at least seven years ago).

[Madengineer]

Originally Posted by SLATYE

What Prosthetic said is correct.

The CD audio cable (that plugs into the aux socket) was to take sound from the CD drive to the soundcard directly. Any reasonably modern CD drive (and I would assume all DVD drives) can and will just send the sound over the SATA/PATA interface.

Some TV capture cards also use the aux inputs for a similar function (ie taking sound from the capture card to the soundcard without going through the PCI bus).


Regarding sound quality - it'll probably be more resistant to interference simply because it's separated a bit from the mainboard. If you're not hearing any interference from the mainboard, however, the onboard sound is probably better quality than an ancient SB Live (that card was released at least seven years ago).

kk cool. I did originally buy it off this forum just for a troubleshooting card (Because my last died) but figured i might see if its decent enough to use as an everyday sound card.

Would the SPDIF be better quality sound onboard than the standard output?

[_zak]

Originally Posted by Madengineer

Would the SPDIF be better quality sound onboard than the standard output?

If you use the SPDIF output from your onboard audio, you'll need to pipe it into an external digital-to-analogue (D/A) converter - if the speakers/amp/receiver have SPDIF in, they'll likely have one. Since the D/A converter used in onboard sound is usually pretty cheap, using SPDIF out will likely give you better sound quality.

[Madengineer]

Originally Posted by _zak

If you use the SPDIF output from your onboard audio, you'll need to pipe it into an external digital-to-analogue (D/A) converter - if the speakers/amp/receiver have SPDIF in, they'll likely have one. Since the D/A converter used in onboard sound is usually pretty cheap, using SPDIF out will likely give you better sound quality.

Yeah my Home theatre has SPDIF, just not sure if its in or out....Is it usually 2 way?

[SLATYE]

No, it's generally single-way. But why would a home theatre system have SPDIF outputs? Isn't it meant to be where the sound ends up, rather than the sound source?

You could just cycle through the available inputs and see if one of them is "SPDIF". That would strongly suggest that it's an input.

[Madengineer]

Originally Posted by SLATYE

No, it's generally single-way. But why would a home theatre system have SPDIF outputs? Isn't it meant to be where the sound ends up, rather than the sound source?

You could just cycle through the available inputs and see if one of them is "SPDIF". That would strongly suggest that it's an input.

Yeah, i thought so, but there isnt any button on my remote to select it, as input... :S Could it be a default thing? Like, once it detects its plugged in it selects it?