Audio

Throughout this entire process, we’ve spent the extra cash to get quiet(er) computing without compromising performance or stability. Now it’s time to cash-in with the killer audio system. We went with unconventional devices: the M-Audio Audiophile USB and Swans T200a.

Since I only have room to setup a stereo audio setup as opposed to multi-channel, I went with the external M-Audio Audiophile USB. By moving all of the audio components to a line-conditioned AC source rather than bus powered circuitry, the M-Audio Audiophile USB is able to provide exceptionally clean audio, free from the EMI-rich environment of the system chassis and inherent noise of the switching power supply.

But I thought USB sound cards sucked?

Most of the time, USB speakers and USB sound cards are associated with low-end rather than high-end products. This is not because the reduction of interference is false, but because most USB speakers and sound cards end skimp on the DACs or OP-AMPs. By going to an external prosumer grade USB (or even Firewire) audio card, you do get the best audio reproduction performance possible. The Revolution 7.1 or M-Audio Sonica Theater would also have been good choices for high quality stereo audio, however the DACs used in the Audiophile USB are even better. The limited bandwidth of USB 1.1 is still adequate for high-quality 2 channel audio however it is true that system performance is lost by going with this product. With USB 1.0, you are only allowed half-duplex 24/96 or full-duplex 16/48 audio.

When looking for a pure audio fidelity in a sound card, you’ll need to get a sound card that does not resample 44.1 kHz audio to 48 kHz audio. This significantly limits the options you have – it turns out that none of the Audigy 2 products can pass an unaltered 44.1 kHz signal and to date, 44.1 kHz native-sampling sound cards do not have exceptional DirectSound acceleration.

Nice blue LEDs

Those are the ONLY options you have

The M-Audio Audiophile USB was selected instead of the consumer USB devices primarily because we wanted studio-grade audio DACs, but also because we wanted easily accessible headphone jacks and a master volume control knob.

Why you probably won’t pick out the Audiophile USB

The Audiophile USB isn’t a sound card in the traditional sense – it operates much more like a component audio device. There is no software mixer. If you don’t understand what this means, you don’t want the Audiophile USB. That is, there is no way to control the volume from any piece of software. The hardware volume knob is the only output. Essentially, at maximum volume, the M-Audio Audiophile USB is providing the true line-level output and you attenuate the signal using the knob. The line-in is not amplified and provides no gain. In other words, when you do a loop back from the maximum output of the Audiophile USB to the input of the Audiophile USB, you’re recording at a +0 dB.