audio fo my jukebox

[ac_12_00]

I am looking into building my fist jukebox and want to use a household receiver to power my speakers. What kind of sound card would i need to do this? is there a card that has the outputs for me to be able to do this? Where might i be able to find one? 

[Ralman]

Why not use a standard sound card, and just use an adapter cable.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021804&p_id=665&seq=1&format=2


This is what I am doing in my jukebox.  Works fine for me.

[Fordman]

I Second Ralman's advice! Works great!

Fordman

[BobA]

You don't need a sound card just use your motherboard's on board sound.

[richms]

Optical digital out is better if you can do it, since you may have some issues with ground loops with an analog cable between the 2 if the receiver is connected to things that have a cable or satellite connection. But since those cables cost a couple of bucks try it before you worry about anything else.

[bigvic]

l am using the same sort of cable as above , straight out of the mother board into a small berringer 6 channel mixer and out of that to a 200watt stero power amp, works great and plenty of grunt

[unclet]

Yes, I am using audio cables right from my motherboard's audio out port and split into red/white audio RCA cables (like the picture above) which are then connected into the audio in to my receiver and it works great.

[digitaldj]

Same here no ground loops! For better sound you can go with Sound Blaster high end cards.

[shardian]

Optical digital out is better if you can do it, since you may have some issues with ground loops with an analog cable between the 2 if the receiver is connected to things that have a cable or satellite connection. But since those cables cost a couple of bucks try it before you worry about anything else.

That's subjective IMO, and more related to surround sound. A high quality digital coax cable kicks optical's ass.

All you need is on-board sound to output the audio signal to your amp, which does all the work anyways.

[digitaldj]

The specs are there on the better cards even if you put the surround aside. Of coarse my opinion and if I spend the $100.00 bucks for the card then I will probably do my homework. Then again why spend $100.00 on a card and use cheapy computer speakers! Even the cheap sound blaster cards are still better than some on board sound.

[Barry Barcrest]

The specs are there on the better cards even if you put the surround aside. Of coarse my opinion and if I spend the $100.00 bucks for the card then I will probably do my homework. Then again why spend $100.00 on a card and use cheapy computer speakers! Even the cheap sound blaster cards are still better than some on board sound.

I had some high end Yammaha card with gold phono outputs on it. I didn't notice any improvment in the sound over the onboard sound. Seems like the more expensive cards offer more features but non that really apply to playing audio, tends to be midi stuff or EAX. I did see that the soundblaster cards now offer something that is supposed to improve the quality of MP3 playback but i have not tried them and i'm dubious as to that claim.

[digitaldj]

A few years ago a company came out with some DJ softwre that I used to use that solved the dynamic range loss of mp3's. Creative is just doing the same thing with their new cards and software. As you know The concept for MP3's were originally streaming audio that is why they have the dynamic range loss. Supposedly it isn't what we here but I doubt that works for everyone. The X_FI cards from Creative are actually superior cards and the specs are very good. I tried to find them again to post on here and couldn't locate them. Newegg etc. doesn't show the true specs. They do have a better signal to noise ratio, frequency response and stereo seperation. The earlier soundblaster cards were just renamed but still have the same specs, the X_FI cards are of the newest with a whole new chipset. A co-worker of mine is sold on these cards and is a audio nut big time. He only likes the big name audio equipment(must be nice to be rich and no kids) like Bang & Olsen etc, so i trust his opinion when he tells me that these cards make a huge difference.

Sound is like art, it's in the eyes and ears of the beholder. If you are happy with what sounds good to you that's all that matters!

[richms]

If you are using the digital out of a card then the s/n of it is irrelevant, as is the higher sample rates as you are only playing stuff with a 44.1kHz rate.

Some cards like the old lives do a shockingly bad resampling of the audio - but that affects the analog and digital outputs - but thats what happens when you build a soundcard out of a synthisizer chip - the proper x-fi's dont have that problem, and there are many other cards out there that can send a 44.1kHz signal out unmolested by processing.

When I tried the creative tools to "enhance" MP3 playback, the results were horrid - it just seemed to be a multiband compressor-limiter so anything played on it came out sounding like a loud distorted FM station rather than what it did sound like. If you are lacking frequencies in your MP3's that bother you then re-rip them at a better bit rate rather then rely on dodgey DSP to try to mask the deficiencies. Its not like disk space costs much now.

[digitaldj]

Yes you are correct! I haven't tried the enhance because I am satisfied with sound quality of 192bps and 320bps. I don't use digital out for the fact that my amp is analog. I know I can go from digital to analog and get away from any minute white noise but I don't want to spend the money. In my opinion it's just having a good amp and set of speakers. If you are happy with it that's all that matters.

I have a Bose system(not the ones with the little speakers) for my sound system audio and surround sound with a Cerwin Vega sub and I like my jukebox audio quality better. Go knows it cost me less!

[Barry Barcrest]

Well for my home juke i am just running it through a microsoft sound system. It actually gives a pretty good sound and is more than loud enough for home use. Even though it's badged up mircosoft it's actually made by phillips, for PC Speakers i am pretty impressed.