Buyers Guide: Soundcards and Speakers

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With the transformation of the PC into an all-singing all-dancing multimedia centre, sound has become an important element.

Most PCs today will come with some form of built-in sound on the motherboard. However, while some support six-channel (5.1) surround sound (two front, one centre, two rear speakers and a subwoofer), a dedicated soundcard is always going to do a better job of bringing your favourite movies and games to life.

Upgrading to a better soundcard is the best option and fierce competition means it can cost as little as £25 for a leading brand. Here are a few tips on your options, what to look out for, and what the jargon means.

Use
Before splashing out on features that you'll never need, decide up front what you want the card for. If it's for playing and making CDs and mp3s, as well as reproducing surround sound on DVDs and games, most cards will fit the bill.

If you are into creating music then you may want to start with cards offering 24bit 48KHz or 96KHz sampling quality (see Quality below), with internal cards starting at around £60. However, for a card boasting a decent music software bundle you can expect to pay from £80 to £200, without entering the professional soundcard arena.

Quality
All entry-level soundcards support 16bit quality sound recorded or played back at 44.1KHz, which is CD-quality sound. The next step up is 24bit sound at higher sampling rates of 48KHz or 96KHz, which is recommended for anyone wanting to make their own music.

A 24bit card is also the way to go for DVD movies sporting newer THX surround or Dolby Digital EX 6.1 or 7.1 sound formats. A small number of high-end consumer cards support 24bit 192KHz playback, which is required for DVDAudio, a relatively new music format that offers very high quality stereo and surround sound playback. Since this has not yet been widely adopted by the music industry, DVD-Audio functionality is not essential.

Also look out for a decent signal-to-noise ratio, measured in decibels (dB). It's a measure of the amount of sound you expect (signal) versus that which you don't expect (noise) when playing something back. Decibel ratings can range from 60dB with entry-level cards to over 100dB with high-end offerings. As a rule, the higher the dB rating, the better.

Type
Internal PCI cards are the cheapest option with some brands offering 5.1 surround sound support for as little as £15. However, entry-level cards from bigger brands, such as Creative or Terratec, start at around £25 and it might make more sense to spend that extra £10.

Thanks to USB, there are now a growing number of external soundcards capable of matching the quality of their internal cousins. Entry level USB soundcards will cost around £35, but expect to pay £60-£80 for a decent 24bit USB card.

The upside of external cards is that you don't have to go poking around the guts of the PC. The downside is that they can boast fewer features than internal cards and cost more, but this is changing as competition increases. External cards can be easily hooked up to a notebook to boost poor onboard audio.

Gaming
Many PC games support surround sound, which has helped drive the market. The main formats are A3D, Direct Sound 3D and EAX, all of which are supported on the majority of cards.

Connectivity
Most cards have many of the same options such as microphone in, line in/line out (front speakers), line out (rear speakers), Midi/joystick port, CD-in and headphones connectors. All of these should be there as standard. Newer cards also have high-speed Firewire ports for connecting up digital camcorders.

For audio enthusiasts, a growing number of cards have S/PDIF in and out. S/PDIF stands for Sony/Philips Digital Interface, an audio transfer format that means you can connect speakers via a single optical or coaxial cable and enjoy much higher quality digital sound.

Speakers
PC speakers have come a long way, with most manufacturers now offering 2.1, 5.1, 6.1 and even 7.1 packages. Here are three things to watch for when you're looking to buy.

First is the output, which is often expressed in watts. Try to look beyond 'Amazing 125w total output' statements as this can be misleading. For instance, that 125w might comprise a 100w sub-woofer and five measly 5w speakers.

You may see speaker output quoted as PMPO (Peak Music Power), which relates to the maximum output that can be achieved under perfect conditions. This is also misleading.

Lastly, there is RMS (Root Mean Square) which is expressed in watts i.e. total 200w RMS. This is a better reference for overall power, albeit not perfect.

Impedance is measured in ohms and tells you how much of an electrical load a speaker presents to the amplifier. The higher the impedance the less power the amplifier needs to drive it. The average on most speakers is 8ohms, which is fine. A lower rating than this means that the amplifier has to work harder to drive them, which can result in distorted sound.

Frequency response refers to a speaker's tonal qualities and its ability to reproduce sounds at different frequencies. Speakers listed as having a response of 20Hz-20KHz (the range of a CD-quality recording) are the most common in the PC speaker market.

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