Of course you know that different cards may well have different amounts of "noise" depending on the environment they're in (i.e proximity to things that generate particular frequencies of electrical noise to which they may be vulnerable), right?

I understand but I don't know exactly what "noise" is supposed to sound like to recognize it. And even if I think I hear it, I have no point of reference to determine if it truly is indeed noisy or relatively quiet.

With noisy cards you can often hear the computer "thinking".

Mau1wurf1977, do you have any good examples in your collection you could record as an example? Also, I'd imagine that if it's just outside interference then some kind of shield could be made to block it.

You need to distinguish between floor noise and those bus transfer whimpering noises when moving the mouse etc. The former I'd say is not really annoying unless you are using headphones, while the second one definitely is. I believe as a general rule physically larger, less integrated cards suffer more from this.

Honestly this topic is a bit like opening a can of worms because there are so many variables. The whole PC itself, PSU, what other cards are in there and in what slots, what cables are connected to the sound card internally/externally etc. Even if you let someone compare two cards in an identical system it doesn't necessarily mean you will have the same experience in your own PC, so in the end you have to try different cards yourself and see what works best...

I've had an attempt at using a X-Fi Titanium card in my main PC and it was horrendous. The damn thing was absolutely unusable and I'm back to using onboard which at least works without major issues for me. Some have identical problems, some swear by these cards, so YMMV really.

Vortex2 has impeccable signal quality IMO. By far the best output I've ever heard.

Kahenraz wrote:

Mau1wurf1977, do you have any good examples in your collection you could record as an example? Also, I'd imagine that if it's just outside interference then some kind of shield could be made to block it.

I got a ton of card, but ZERO time at the moment, sorry...

But it is true, Creative card are often the noisy ones. For example I have an ESS card or this Audacian and wow, these cards are quiet. The AWE64 Gold is a very quiet Creative card however. So is the Pro 2 for some reason. With the Sound Blaster 16 cards it depends on the model and I don't have enough to make a good recommendation. My favourite Creative cards are the Pro 2 and AWE64 Gold so I can only speak for those.

PCI cards are usually quieter.

For me the best Creative cards are the Sound Blaster Pro's. Less noisy than the 16's and better for gaming IMHO. The AWE64 Gold is OK too if you are not too worried about genuine FM sound.

Nothing beats Sound Blaster Pro and a OPL3-SAx card working together to have MPU-401 compatibility alongside SOFTMPU.

I have a CT1740 and 2290, good cards but noisier than the Pro and Pro 2.

A noisy card is one that isn't silent when idle. I had an SbLive! That had a bit of hiss in the background, but was totally black (silent) after replacing the power caps.

How can you do an audible comparison when your card may introduce noise as well?

Someone made a soundcards comparison

Due to it, no ISA *gaming* cards provide highest signal quality. All of highest quality cards are pro and semi-pro.

These ISA cards provide higher quality signal:

Turtle Beach Fiji
Turtle Beach Pinnacle
Crystal CS4232 based cards
Terratec EWS64L/XL/XXL
Turtle Beach Malibu

These ISA cards provide still high enough quality signal:

Opti 933-based cards
Yamaha 719B-S-based cards
SB AWE64 Value CT4500 - noted as having poor SNR
SB AWE64 Gold CT4390 - noted as having poor SNR

Strange enough that AWE64 Value beats AWE64 Gold. A question of whether AWE64 Gold CT4540 has higher quality signal over CT4390 remains unanswered.

bristlehog wrote:

Someone made a soundcards comparison

In the thread where that website came up I also added some of my own measurements using Rightmark Audio Analyzer (Re: Web site with sound card SNR stats?). Maybe we could use this program to compare ISA sound cards?

bristlehog wrote:

Someone made a soundcards comparison

A closer examination suggests that comparison was actually concerned more with recording noise levels.

Creative Lab's Recent ISA Sound Blaster cards typically have their worst performance in Full Duplex mode and far better performance in the Half Duplex modes. This means that they perform acceptably in most game and other consumer applications, but are not optimum for semi-pro or professional sound recording and editing applications, particularly those involving production of multitrack recordings.

Being a user of it for over a year now, I never thought of the EWS64 XL as having a particularly good signal - it's not a noisy card given the right settings (which can lead to other problems too, though), but the bus transfer noise issue is certainly there and it was even acknowledged back in the day...

http://www.maz-sound.com/ews64.html wrote:

About the noise to signal ratio: the card itself doesn't produce this typical noise floor know from the SB, AWE or GUS or ... But there is a permanent high frequency whimpering + noises picked up from the BUS transfers and other cards. It's pretty low and no problem with speakers. But with headphones it is annoying if you listen carefully to do serious work (creating samples or building a pre-master for a CD). For sampling analog sources I still use my DAT machine and then I transfer the recorded sound to EWS via SPDIF. The internal digital mastering is not effected by those noises of course.

Here's a couple of recordings I've done a few years ago

"The Many Sounds of:" - A look at various different sound cards and the sound they produce in DOS games

Yes, that's perfect! Now I know what to look for. Thank you! 😀

Sound Blaster 16 (CT-1750) is a loud noisy card.
Sound Blaster 16 (CT-2940) is a relatively quiet card.

Very evident in Ultima 7 (the black gate and serpent isle) or even to a lesser extent Day of the Tentacle during speech! (usually when speech commences)

my CT3900 AWE32 is pretty quiet too for a huge card
my CT2230 SB16 was very noisy