sound card noise

[djclikk]

i'm not a hardcore sound enthusiest so my soundcard is pretty cheap, but i'm havin a problem. i have a diamond dt688 soundcard. it was like 10 bucks and it uses c-media cmi3738 drivers. the problem is that i'm getting noise in the center and rear channels or my 5.1 setup. the noise is the worst at low volume and drowns out when i turn it up. i'm wondering if this is a driver problem.. a soundcard problem. or maybe a speaker problem. i'd like to hear any input, thanks

[bubba freaktree]

good news:
it's not your fault

bad news:
there's nothing you can do about it.

there's hope:
you can spend about 100 dollars and get a much better card

your problem sounds simply like a poor signal-to-noise issue. try switching your speakers. take the "quiet" speakers and run them on the line where the "noisey" speakers are. if you're still getting the noise, it means your soundcard simply spits out a lot of "hash".

10 bucks for 6 channels. it's kind of a miracle it works at all.

see if you can do some research on your card.

90db signal to noise ratio: very good
100db signal to noise ratio: excellent
110db or above: fantastic/world class

your card is probably spitting out about 55db signal to noise.

[djclikk]

thanks for all the info. i figured it was just a cheap card issue. it doesn't bother me enough to get a new card tho. thanks again

[fm 2030]

Bubba's probably pretty much right, but I'm going to comment a little anyway, and see if I can't muddy the water a little ;-)

Did you switch the speaker channels around to verify that the problem was with the outputs from the soundcard?

Where are you adjusting the volume from? Are you adjusting the volume the sound card is outputing, or the volume of the amp it's driving? You say that at high volumes, the hiss is drowned out to the point where it doesn't bother you, which suggests an acceptable signal to noise ratio, for you, by definition - right? So if you can maximise the volume coming out of the card, and then turn down the amp to the level you want, then it ought to be ok. If you are changing the volume on the amp / speakers and the hiss is at a fairly constant level (and drowned out when you turn them up), this would suggest that it wasn't the soundcard, or the noise would get louder along with the rest of the signal being amplified... I'm guessing you don't have top of the range amp or speakers to go with your $10 soundcard. Maybe the noise just seems to be drowned out when you turn it up. I dunno.

It could just be a couple of slightly dodgy connections somewhere in the leads / jacks - try jiggling them a bit.

I hope you can get the best out of it... maybe this helps a bit.

[djclikk]

wow. what i was doing was leaving the soundcard volume low, while using the amp as primary volume... which was really high. I guess it's the crappy speakers/amp that were making the noise. now, i keep the amp a lot lower and turn up the soundcard volume and it sounds great. thanks for your help guys

[bubba freaktree]

woah...big gap in my analysis.
"gain staging" could definitely have been the factor. it's when you're boosting too much from one part of the signal path and not enough from another part.

but it seems weird that you would get noise on one set of speakers and not the other. anyway...

[djclikk]

thanks guys, great forum