PCI Max & Soundcards

[Sir Nigel]

Not covering all cases, but usually a better sound card reduces the hiss or fuzz in your audio and can increase the range of audio being produced. FM radio doesn't cover the entire audible spectrum so usually your sound card is fine for whatever purpose. If you heard excess hiss that goes away when you unplug the cable from your transmitter, then that might be caused by bad audio to start with.

Likely if your station doesn't sound like the "others", you might look into using some software to process the audio for a more professional sound. At least one that can get you started is a Winamp plug-in called SoundSoulution.

[Dogen]

I was just wondering...how does the sound quality of the broadcast compare using different sound cards? I have an el-cheapo soundcard that came with my computer and was wondering if it was worth it to upgrade to something of a little higher quality. Would I or my potential listeners be able to tell a difference or is this just a waste of money?

The soundcard makes a tremendous difference. When I first began testing out my new transmitter, I was using a cheap SoundBlaster 16 card. The vocal tracks of most songs were almost completely inaudible. Or, in other instances, instruments were gone that should have been there. I was a bit worried that the transmitter was faulty, but I knew that it was probably the soundcard. I purchased an M-Audio Revolution 5.1 card and entered audio bliss. The sound quality of the music, stereo seperation, etc., was beautiful. A complete night and day difference.

So yes, by all means, purchase a high end sound card. You don't need one for digital recording and mastering so you don't have to spend several hundreds of dollars. But you do want to do some research on general musical quality of playback on the non-gaming variety cards. Google for a few hours, read reviews, etc.

[anon]

I recommend the Chaintech AV710. It has a VIA Envy24 chip and if you use the VIA drivers (NOT the crappy drivers that Chaintech includes with the card) you can get a true 24-bit, 192 kHz output. It sounds good! What's even better is that you can find it for about US$25. (I hope this doesn't count as an advertising post since PCS doesn't sell soundcards!)

I wonder though, are you feeding audio into your soundcard or do you only broadcast Mp3s, CDs, etc.? If you are feeding audio into the soundcard, you might get a better improvement by getting a decent mixer and feeding your audio in through the line-in jack. Don't use the microphone jacks in computers, for the most part they are bad.