Confused about my Soundcard and Monitors, sound frequency , what means what, confuzzle puzzle.

[Skullbunny]

Hey

 

I have an older set of the Mackie CR5BT , on the spec sheet it says it supports 60hz to 20khz.

Okay...

 

I got a soundcard for free about few months ago, it has options from 41khz to 192khz, 16bit and 24bit.

 

What means what? what DO I choose?

What will be the right settings for the stupidass monitors for me to enjoy the 'better' version of everything?

 

I'm confused, since, what was once expensive set of monitors , which , don't get me wrong - definitely sounds great, I thought it supported said frequencies , but obviously doesn't, but I honestly do not know what does it mean if it means anything bad or good?

 

 

Is someone knowledgeable enough to share their wisdom and try to explain to me what means what , what should I care for, and what does it mean for my 'equipment'?

 

 

Thanks

 

 

EDIT; The Soundcard is a Xonar AE.

 

[Enderman]

17 minutes ago, Skullbunny said:

I have an older set of the Mackie CR5BT , on the spec sheet it says it supports 60hz to 20khz.

This is the frequency range of the sound waves it outputs.

 

17 minutes ago, Skullbunny said:

I got a soundcard for free about few months ago, it has options from 41khz to 192khz, 16bit and 24bit.

This is the frequency of the sample rate of the digital audio.

[Skullbunny]

4 minutes ago, Enderman said:

This is the frequency range of the sound waves it outputs.

 

This is the frequency of the sample rate of the digital audio.

I'm still yet to understand what means what and what am I supposed to care for. I could tell that's what it's capable of producing , and that that's the digital content frequency, but...yeah.

[homeap5]

For playing music 44100 @16bit is all you need. Rest is good for marketing purposes mostly and can even makes your sound worse in some cases.

 

Here is very good article that explains this: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

 

And here is youtube video from this article which shows you more:

 

[Skullbunny]

1 minute ago, homeap5 said:

For playing music 44100 @16bit is all you need. Rest is good for marketing purposes mostly and can even makes your sound worse in some cases.

That's what I thought I was hearing, a downgrade, but I had no idea what the heck or why.

 

I'll just stick to the basics.

 

Cheers mydude.

[homeap5]

8 minutes ago, Skullbunny said:

That's what I thought I was hearing, a downgrade, but I had no idea what the heck or why.

 

I'll just stick to the basics.

 

Cheers mydude.

This is really very sensitive topic. Many audiophiles thinks that they hear difference and many people think that more = always better.

In fact number of bits don't hurt - you can set it at 24 or even 32 bits. But frequencyy - this is what is great explained in links i give and in video.

I don't want to repeat everything that guy said and explain, so I strongly recommend this article to everyone, espeically those who think that "24 bits and 192 kHz makes great sound".

 

Well - it makes great sound, if you're a bat and has special designed amplifier for a bat.

 

PS. If you don't want to read everything, you may start with "192kHz considered harmful" section.

[Hiya!]

33 minutes ago, Skullbunny said:

on the spec sheet it says it supports 60hz to 20khz.

That is called frequency range, Basically its the frequency of the sounds that human can hear which is between 20 Hz to 20 kHz.

So why the 60Hz? because its very difficult to design something that can output a sounds as low as 20Hz and on top of that, Its kinda inaudible..its felt not heard.

 

Most manufacturer will just use those 60hz to 20khz thingy even on the most cheapest audio equipment.

 

38 minutes ago, Skullbunny said:

it has options from 41khz to 192khz, 16bit and 24bit.

This is called the Sampling Rate, When a sound is recorded in digital format, its better if you can double the sampling rate of the sounds as it will help avoid aliasing and in theory would allow the perfect sounds reconstruction at least according to Nyquist principle "Nyquist principle states that the sampling rate must be at least twice the maximum bandwidth of the analog signal in order to allow the signal to be completely represented." That is why most DAC will output twice the analog sampling rate.

 

Bit is the information/data that the given audio files has/can process, The more the better.

 

 

[homeap5]

5 minutes ago, Hiya! said:

"Nyquist principle states that the sampling rate must be at least twice the maximum bandwidth of the analog signal in order to allow the signal to be completely represented."

And that is why CD fequency is 44100, not 22050, since 20 kHz is absolutely higher limit of human hearing, multiple it x2 and you have your double sampling rate.

I recommend to read links I provided.

 

5 minutes ago, Hiya! said:

Bit is the information/data that the given audio files has/can process, The more the better.

Again - not always, mostly is just waste of disk space. This is good explained in video. But basically yes - better, but not noticeable.

[Hiya!]

5 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

And that is why CD fequency is 44100, not 22050, since 20 kHz is absolutely higher limit of human ear.

I recommend to read links I provided.

Its not because of that, Its because when you try to render the audio above the maximum range of human hearing, it will introduce aliasing and a filter so to speak has to be applied to it.

 

The problem is, Its very difficult to do and most of the times it would only downgrade the audio quality itself and its very rare for it to be correctly done.

But again, There are some people who could hear the difference and those who can't..like me..

And i think a better DAC will do a better job on giving a better audio quality than those above human hearing frequency mumbo jumbo..

[homeap5]

1 minute ago, Hiya! said:

But again, There are some people who could hear the difference and those who can't..like me..

Seriusly - read that link. It doesn't hurt. Unless you're person who know best without even trying to check other sources.

Some people THINK that they hear difference. Mostly because they want to be so special and great. They can't really hear anything above 20 kHz because they are humans with human ears. That's all.

Some people hear everything (as they says) - even "Wooden Audiophile Cable Elevator" increase quality for them. That is real - you can buy that crap: link.

And these are cheap - I saw one piece for over 100$! Some guys thinks that they hear difference, so other people sells them everything.

 

[Hiya!]

2 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

Seriusly - read that link. It doesn't hurt. Unless you're person who know best without even trying to check other sources.

Some people THINK that they hear difference. Mostly because they want to be so special and great. They can't really hear anything above 20 kHz because they are humans with human ears. That's all.

Some people hear everything (as they says) - even "Wooden Audiophile Cable Elevator" increase quality for them. That is real - you can buy that crap: link.

And these are cheap - I saw one piece for over 100$! Some guys thinks that they hear difference, so other people sells them everything.

 

I have and i don't trust that or whoever says it won't make a difference and the one who said it would make a difference.

 

I don't trust them both. because there are so many controversies..just like one of those 440 vs 432 tuning war.

 

I trust myself..because sometimes i could hear the difference although its not that noticeable or mindblowing or anything and MOST of the times i cannot..

Thats..that..but i just can't CONCLUDE..its kinda vague thing at least for me..but i didn't overthink it, For me what sounds better..better. I don't care what it is. 

[homeap5]

Sometimes when people says that hearts more details, they just hear small distortions.

 

You can trust something or not. The same about flat Earth. No matter how many proofs is, some people just "knows what they knows".

 

You can even hear difference if you change position of your head or bow for few seconds and stand up - ear pressure changes and people thinks that they hear something better. I like facts, not autosuggestion.