[plug] ESS Audio Card and Real Encoder

[Bret Busby]

Nick Bannon wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 02:09:09PM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> [...]
> > that had sound capability, was sure to have a driver for them. But, from
> > what I understand, 16 bit sound has gone the same way as black and white
> > television, just a step on the way, that has come and gone.
> 
> 16 bit sound is very much the norm, though when doing sound
> processing inside a DSP you might use 24 bit to preserve accuracy.
> 
> Alternatives are mostly 8 bit (linear is a bit sucky, log, ie mu-law
> or a-law is perfectly decent) or 1 bit (the PC speaker...).
> 
> This has nothing to do with the bus the card is on, or how many
> "voices" it can play at once, or anything like that, which is where
> the 32/64/96/128 and so on numbers you might see come from.
> 
> We've reached the point where 16 bit stereo sound is a very cheap
> and perfectly decent standard and the possible improvements (3D
> sound processors or 5.1 Dolby, etc) are optional fluff.
> 
> Nick.
> 
> --
>   Nick Bannon  | "I made this letter longer than usual because
> nick at it.net.au | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal

I stand corrected.

I understood that the 32/64/... were the number of bits; eg SB128 was a
128 bit sound card, suitable for very high fidelity, digital sound.

-- 

Bret Busby

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