Hello Andy,
There was a very good article in QST a few years ago about sound cards.
They ran five different cards through quite a battery of tests in the ARRL
Lab and yes indeed, you really do get better performance out of some cards.
But dollar for dollar, the performance was not linear. As you know, you can
do quite well on a cheap card but do marginally better on a 60 dollar card
and the lab reports showed as much. I am sure that most of the cards they
reviewed are no longer being manufactured or have changed at least a little
so it is difficult (like anything else electronic these days) to keep up
with what is good. I am sure that QST article is available in the back
issues if somebody wanted to dig for it but I learned a lot. I have no
trouble with my card but I am not fighting the WINMOR Battle with it yet.
Contentment and enlightenment await those who are not early adopters of
technology . . . I have not yet reached the 24th stage of WINMOR awareness.
:-) And I am prepared to wait on a few more beta releases - Yes I am a
member of the WINMOR Yahoo group.
I suspect that any calibration done in one application is only good for
the use of that card in that application and nowhere else in that computer.
But hey, I could be wrong on this.
Rick - KH2DF
_____
From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of obrienaj
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 6:01 PM
To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [digitalradio] Understanding soundcard basics ?
>From what I have read in the past, there is a difference between inexpensive
sound cards and the high quality ones. I recall past articles that suggest
the high quality ones can result in some very weak signals being detectable
in a waterfall, whereas cheap cards may not reproduce the signal. However,
as most of us know, even the cheap sound cards effectively render the
average ham signals, even quite weak ones.
So, aside from the higher end ones rendering weak signals on a waterfall
better, what are measurable difference between a poor cheap one and a really
good top-of-the-line one ? Can someone explain this is plain English?
I am aware of the "calibration/timing" issue. Although that too does not
seem to make a huge difference with many digital modes. Of the numerous
digital modes I have tried over the years, PC-ALE and JT65A in WSJT have
been the most impacted by calibration issues. I have seen WSJT not decode at
all when timing of the soundcard is not correct. Do higher end sound card
have less problems with timing/calibration than cheap ones?
Is calibration really an issue of concern IF an application can enable a
re-calibration process ? If an application enables re-calibration, does that
only "hold" for that application or can it correct the soundcard for other
applications.
I raise these questions out of general interest, but also because of recent
WINMOR test where the poor performance has been blamed , in part, on cheap
sound cards or sound cards not dedicated to the application. I don't know
enough to argue the point, but my suspicion is that it is really not that
sound card related.
Andy K3UK
