"De-noising" Sound Blaster cards \ VOGONS

"De-noising" Sound Blaster cards

Topic actions

First post, by mattrock1988

Posted on 2019-05-06, 19:48

mattrock1988 Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 142
Joined: 2011-10-19, 18:25

I'm wondering if there is a way to fix the noise floor and and general noisiness of pre DSP 4.05 Sound Blaster 16 boards. Can certain components be desoldered off the board and then replaced with higher quality ones to enhance output? I'm not terrible experienced here but was wondering if this was a possibility.

Retro PC: Intel Celeron Mendocino @ 500 MHz, TYAN Tomahawk BX, 6 GB IDE Quantum Bigfoot, 256 MB SDRAM, DVD-ROM, 1.44 MB floppy, Nvidia GeForce MX 440 AGP, ESS AudioDrive 1868F ISA

Reply 1 of 4, by Cloudschatze

Posted on 2019-05-06, 20:43

Cloudschatze Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1441
Joined: 2005-06-16, 14:32

mattrock1988 wrote:
I'm wondering if there is a way to fix the noise floor and and general noisiness of pre DSP 4.05 Sound Blaster 16 boards.

What have you tried? Disabling the internal amplifier and configuring the mixer appropriately should mitigate much of that noise.

Reply 2 of 4, by Jo22

Posted on 2019-05-07, 09:49

Jo22 Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 11627
Joined: 2009-12-13, 07:06
Location: Europe

I wonder if there are comparison types of the SB16 DAC. So far, I haven't found much information in this regard.
When searching for the AK4501-VS, for example, basically all that showed up was a PDF file for an old (but top of the line) radio transceiver (see p.148).
https://www.qsl.net/ok1mkq/technika/rig_manua … -supplement.pdf

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 3 of 4, by jesolo

Posted on 2019-05-07, 10:47

jesolo Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2111
Joined: 2014-06-24, 19:04
Location: South Africa

Cloudschatze wrote:
Disabling the internal amplifier and configuring the mixer appropriately should mitigate much of that noise.

Just to refresh my memory (it's been a while since I've played around with my Creative sound cards), is that done via a jumper on the board or via the mixer utility?

Reply 4 of 4, by Cloudschatze

Posted on 2019-05-08, 03:20

Cloudschatze Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1441
Joined: 2005-06-16, 14:32

jesolo wrote:
Just to refresh my memory (it's been a while since I've played around with my Creative sound cards), is that done via a jumper on the board or via the mixer utility?

You've probably already found the answer by now, but if not:

OPSL/R pins 2-3 shunted (toward the ISA connector) = amplified output
OPSL/R pins 1-2 shunted = line-level output

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to Sound