Organization of high-quality sound on the computer.
A modern computer can be used in a variety of areas, from creating a mathematical model of a thermonuclear reaction to displaying all sorts of nonsense on the internet.
As they say, who is in the lot. Between these two extremes, there are many useful tasks that can be performed on a PC. Many of them are united by the presence of the soundtrack, which you want to provide in the best possible way when watching movies, while gaming, and when working in office applications. But you never know during which job you want to enjoy your favorite music! Turning your computer into a high-end audio player, home theater, home recording studio, and game center is easy. We will try to understand the aspects of various dubbing of “profiles” in this series of articles.
Taking into account the specific characteristics of the national market and the priorities of its buyers, the word “computer” will mean an X86 machine (a family PC) running under the Windows XP operating system.
The structure of the PC audio path
In terms of its internal structure, a personal computer (PC) is in many respects similar to stationary audio equipment, but a PC is a modular design, allowing us to flexibly vary the settings within a device (unit of the system). This is one of the main advantages of computer systems over pre-built audio components: Instead of buying a new device, you can change one or more units, which will be much cheaper.
In most cases, the sound generation scheme through a PC looks like this: a stream of digital audio from any medium (CD, DVD), hard drive or through a local network enters the computer. More precisely, on your system board (or, as it is also called, motherboard), on which the central processor, RAM, chipsets, controllers, etc. are installed. Thanks to the interaction of the sound subsystem and the software with the main part, the spine, the computer, the sound flow is processed or fed as is to the sound subsystem, where it is converted into analog form and sent to speakers assets, headphones or other equipment.
The main part of the computer in general remains unchanged (changing the processor or motherboard does not directly affect the sound quality, more precisely, it should not, although there are pitfalls here, which we will discuss below). Consequently, possible directions for improving sound quality are the selection of an appropriate sound card and speaker systems. Apart from the acoustic treatment of the room and the correct placement of both the listeners and the speakers in the room (in the case of using headphones, points about the acoustics of the room can be excluded).
Sound cards
How to choose a sound card? The first step is to decide: for what purpose to buy this PC component and if it is necessary to buy it. After all, if your goal is to listen to background music through cheap plastic speakers, then there is no point in purchasing an audio card separately; a sound chip built into the motherboard of a computer or laptop is sufficient. Yes, the sound quality will not be high, but in cheap acoustics, these defects are unlikely to manifest themselves, as the sound as a whole will be drowned out by distortions due to poor-quality speakers, cabinet resonances, and the amplifier. said speakers. In all other cases, the implementation of a high-quality audio path on a PC is impossible without a good sound subsystem, which the user purchases according to her own preferences.
