How get the best sound out of your

SoundBlaster AWE 32

with or without an external DAC

Now with Win 95 specific comments!

Written by Mathias C. Hjelt
V2.0 - 16 Sep 95


There's a reason for everything. The reason for the AWE being so cheap is that it is built up of cheap components. The reason for the AWE not being professional is the same. Most AWE users (and obviously most GUS fanatics, too) are aware of the somewhat noisy and cheapish sound of this card, but few seem to know how to improve it.

The best way of making the AWE's synth sound as pro as possible and get rid of all background hiss is to connect its digitial S/PDIF output to an external, pro-quality D/A converter. However, doing this won't take you all the way to heaven, but if you're interested in this stuff, check out my page called "To go S/PDIF or not".

But there are cheaper (in fact, free of charge) ways towards a cleaner and better AWE sound, and that's what most of this page is all about. It's mainly about setting up the card correctly in terms of software, but there are also some hardware factors that shouldn't be forgotten. The two first paragraphs also affect the digital S/PDIF output. These are the topics that are discussed here:
Most of this is stuff that I've figured out all by myself. If you know any other cool tricks that enhance the sound quality of the AWE, and would like to get them added to this page, mail me and let me know.



Digital noise - OPL-3 blues



Frequency response - how to fix it

Freq. response graph


SNR in relation to the mixer volume and gain settings



The input channels (mic, line, CD, PC-speaker)



Wave audio channel problems under Windows



Connecting the AWE to an external amplifier



Physical card placement