Why Are Computer Soundcards So Crap?!?!?!?!

[duekfx]

Further arguments of mine would be a waste of time I guess. I just hope your future wisdom will overcome your blindness, fotios (no offense) I can't blame you, I was just like you 🙂

 

[fotios]

I'd like to thank fotios for your ellaborate work. I think I'll buy Virtins now.

Have you made a input protection (selectable levels) for your soundcard? I have made a few attempts but I'm not satisfied with any of them.

You are welcomed!
No, i have not made any protection circuit yet. Simply, i use the callibrated oscilloscope of Virtins MI to check that the level of signal injected in Line In of essence stx does not exceeds the 1,06Vrms or 3Vpp. Above this level (i don't know why) the sound card may presents hung-ups or can be damaged. As i told in a previous post i have destroy one card, although the maximum allowable input level of its CS5381 ADC it is 5,6Vpp. I did a circuit analysis of the Line In of essence stx that you can see - as well other improvements that i did on essence stx and some other reports - in my web page: http://www.eal.gr
I have tried a lot of FFT analyzers, and i resulted in Virtins MI because its fairly good price, its oscilloscope, its proffesional operation, and above all for its sophisticated signal generator which is not depending on the wave in of mixer. During measurements i mute allways the wave in to not injected in the test signal any spurious noise or sound produced from the Windows OS. The only control of mixer that can affects the Virtins signal generator, it is the master level and its mute button.
If you downlowd the trial version of Virtins MI (which is fully operational) please don't forget to look at page 154 of instruction manual. In this page, there are precious informations about the smoothing windows, the appropriate frequency of test signal for each FFT size etc. Here is found the secret for the trustable operation of FFT analyzer, in the table of suggested frequency of signal for each FFT size. I use by default a sampling rate of 48KHz which offers the most reliable results for THD, THD+N, SNR, NL etc. A 192KHz sampling rate it is usefull only for frequency response test, as it is reffered as well in the "Audio Precision Test Report" leaflet of essence stx 😀 😉

Regs
Fotios