What sound chip is better? SSS1629 or CMEDIA HS-100B

[Rujdaga]

Ay fellas, i've been doing some research about some usb sound cards, and im wondering what sound chip is better? I've seen a cmedia hs-100b on ugreen usb sound card and i've seen sss1629 on sharkoon sb1 usb sound card. 

[Ahoy Hoy]

The SSS1629 marginally better. 

http://www.3system.com.tw/upload/product/46ee1aa50fd3eabf0a799590f26cdf46.pdf

https://datasheet.lcsc.com/szlcsc/1906061502_Cmedia-HS-100B_C371351.pdf

 

[Rujdaga]

28 minutes ago, Ahoy Hoy said:

The SSS1629 marginally better. 

http://www.3system.com.tw/upload/product/46ee1aa50fd3eabf0a799590f26cdf46.pdf

https://datasheet.lcsc.com/szlcsc/1906061502_Cmedia-HS-100B_C371351.pdf

 

thanks

 

[Rujdaga]

29 minutes ago, Ahoy Hoy said:

The SSS1629 marginally better. 

http://www.3system.com.tw/upload/product/46ee1aa50fd3eabf0a799590f26cdf46.pdf

https://datasheet.lcsc.com/szlcsc/1906061502_Cmedia-HS-100B_C371351.pdf

 

but why is it better?

 

[mariushm]

1 hour ago, Rujdaga said:

but why is it better?

 

Slightly better DACs (the circuitry which converts the digital sound, series of bits, into the analogue signal, the voltages going to speakers)... but both aren't great.

 

The SS chip seems to be newer design but not by much ... the c-media seems to be ~ 2012-2013-ish design, the SS chip seems to be 2014 ...

They're both old, from the usb 2.0 days (not that some headphones need usb 3.0) and they're both kinda crappy as in they support maximum 48 kHz sampling rate and 16 bit samples.. so even though the SS chip may be a bit better it's not like you're gonna actually *hear* the differences in most cases.

The quality of the actual drivers (the speakers) and the insulation around the speaker and other factors will define how good the headphones will actually sound, not the chip.

 

I mean what do you expect ... you're talking about 70 cents chips (if you buy 1000pcs) ... it's not an audiophile chip.

 

[Rujdaga]

12 hours ago, mariushm said:

Slightly better DACs (the circuitry which converts the digital sound, series of bits, into the analogue signal, the voltages going to speakers)... but both aren't great.

 

The SS chip seems to be newer design but not by much ... the c-media seems to be ~ 2012-2013-ish design, the SS chip seems to be 2014 ...

They're both old, from the usb 2.0 days (not that some headphones need usb 3.0) and they're both kinda crappy as in they support maximum 48 kHz sampling rate and 16 bit samples.. so even though the SS chip may be a bit better it's not like you're gonna actually *hear* the differences in most cases.

The quality of the actual drivers (the speakers) and the insulation around the speaker and other factors will define how good the headphones will actually sound, not the chip.

 

I mean what do you expect ... you're talking about 70 cents chips (if you buy 1000pcs) ... it's not an audiophile chip.

 

I wanted to buy a usb sound card for my mic bm800 just that it sounds a bit better, idk what sound card to buy between those 2

[mariushm]

The onboard sound chip on your motherboard should have way better microphone input than these usb chips. You have 24bit ADCs and higher sample rates, but you may get a bit of noise / interference from other components inside the case.

 

A USB sound card may be less noisy because it's outside the case, but that depends on how clean the usb power supply is.  But, the actual quality of the analogue signal will be worse.

 

I don't know what to say... if I were to have a need for a sound card, I'd probably look at something like Creative Play! 3 which seems reasonably cheap at $25 and seems to have good specs: https://www.newegg.com/creative-sound-blaster-play-3/p/N82E16829102100

But... I didn't do much research on this subject.

[H713]

Usually the implementation of a chip matters just as much (or more) than the chip itself. 

 

FWIW, the external vs. internal sound card issue doesn't have a lot of merit. People think that moving it outside of the case "solve the noise issue", but the reality is that most of the noise problem isn't EMI. The main issue is that ground noise in PCs is notoriously awful, and the USB ground is no exception to this. It's all about the design of the card, not where it's located. That's why good internal cards are just as quiet as good external cards- they use all of the necessary design techniques to get around the noisy grounds in most PCs. Cheap cards don't, either for cost reasons or because the people who designed them don't know better. Sadly, the latter seems to be extremely common, and even some relatively expensive cards perform very poorly.