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PCI sound card with audio amp built in?
Apollo:
Excuse my thickness but I have been looking for a sound card with amp built in to it. Is there such a thing? And if so does anyone know brand and model numbers or pricing etc?
Thanks for your help
krick:
I have a cheapo Crystal CS4280 based PCI card in my parts bin that has a jumper labeled...
"bypass amplfier/enable amplifier"
I really don't know if it really changes the output from line to amplfied or not.
Here's the text printed on the card...
FCC ID: FQ1C14/80PCI
P2-C14/80-A3-N
SND-CS4280/J
Based on a bit of googling the last line of numbers, I think that the card might be a "Joytech Twister 3D PCI soundcard".
You should go to a computer show and physically inspect a bunch of really cheap made-in-china type sound cards. I'm sure you'll find one with the jumper. Whether it actually does anything is another story. And if does something, I really have no idea how to know exactly how many watts the amplifier actually puts out. It's probably very few.
...
Krick
osiris:
I've never really looked for a card with a built in pre amp, but Im pretty heaving to to computers/casemoding, and i've never heard of one with a built in preamp. I think you might be better off with a set of powered speakers, or using a inline headphone amp.
Just a thought, I dont know if either of those will do what you want though.
daeven:
I know you said 'PCI,' but many Soundblaster 16 ISA cards have the pre-amp with a volume control on the edge of the card. I use them for cheap MAME cabinet conversions. No need for an external amp and works great with the speaker that comes with the cabinets. Of course ISA slot on modern computer hardware are hard to find!
quarterback:
I've got a cheap PCI Sound Card that has an on-board amp that seems to work great.
I didn't even know about it because it's just an old card I had laying around and I had always used it with powered speakers, but today I was looking at the manual and saw that it had a setting to use an onboard amp.