On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 02:25:35PM -0400, Andrew J. Hutton wrote: > You may also have your gain turned up far too high on the primary > mixer. This will result in ambient electronic noise being amplified > before it gets to the output amplifier (depending on the arch of the > sound setup of course) which is why most audio is done at line level > out and then amplified later on in the process outside the computer > (inside the speakers typically for computers). In my case, I've actually found the opposite. My noise is caused by system interference (it rattles when the mouse moves, clicks when I type, and tweets at regular intervals) and resides at a low but constant volume. Hence, I keep my master at 90%, my PCM at 80%, and my PC speaker (beeps and tones) at 90%. That's about as high as I can go before I start to risk clipping in some cases. During playback, the interference is so quiet by comparison that I don't hear it. I've seen some computer sound speakers that have a permanent buzzing of their own when on. Again, it's quiet on its own but loud if you turn the volume up high; in this situation, again, you want to feed them as strong a signal as you can (short of clipping) to keep the experienced sound stronger than the interference. I'm pretty happy with my old SB Live! soundcards at home and at the office. Dead silent and have lasted for years; several of them have outlived the computers they began inside, although for upgrade reasons rather than machine deaths. What I *don't* like are the speakers at work -- I've never trusted the whole "treble on top, bass from the subwoofer" system. Seems like a cheap and dirty hack to me. "Each speaker has its own bass" seems far more appropriate; I think I'll bring my minisystem in and use that. :)
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