Audio devices and sound cards

I like sound cards, Doom! was never the same when my Creative Labs sound card died.

The quality of sound you get from an add on card or embedded device is higher than that of the little 3 inch speaker in your computer. The computer speaker does not have the capability to reproduce higher frequencies.

The quality of the sound devices and the speakers make all the difference.

Consider the sound device and speaker setup as your stereo for your computer.

If you use it for business, gaming, or music the quality that you install is the quality you will get out. I said my sound card died, it did, it could have been from heat (big killer of components) or over driving it.

If you don't know about Doom!, it is a game that came out in the late '80's. Tons of monsters and lots of noise, loud noise. Some of the noise would over drive a high quality speaker, and the higher the volume the more power, the more power the more heat...........

I haven't had much luck with the embedded sound device on main boards, could be that the games I played have too much boom, bang? So I have a separate card for audio and high quality speakers that rival what the kids put in their cars these days.

04/18/16 Update...

When I wrote this article the chips sets for sound devices were of poor quality and low amperage to drive even head set speakers. Since that time the chip makers have improved the quality and power of these devices. My new ASUS P5K3 chip set will almost over drive my high quality head set, it is so loud that I have the speaker Icon almost to minimum. If the head set had a volume control of it's own this wouldn't matter, but alas it does not.

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Add on sound devices for sound can also be used to record sound or communicate with other people on the WWW. This gives you the option of live chat, or free phone calls (check out VPN). Lets say you have "Skype" or "Microsoft Net meeting" if you have a crappy sound card and headset the people you are talking to may misconstrue what you are saying if they can hear you at all.

The only problem with sound is quality equals money, you can scrimp on some components but sound is not one.

You will need speakers for normal day to day programs, games, and music. If you do meetings or chat then you will need a good to high quality headset with microphone, I don't recommend the desk microphones because they don't have nose canceling qualities that the headsets microphones do.