Not All Sound Cards Music to Your Ears

What would the holidays be like if the only sound we heard was the ding-ding of the Salvation Army bell on the street corner? Like a PC without a sound card, that’s what.

There are a few shopping days left in which to buy your favorite computer user a sound system, but do so carefully. Sound cards are the most complicated PC upgrade you can buy. Prices can range from less than $100 to more than $1,000, and that may not include extras like speakers (under $20 to over $300), headphone and microphone.

Macintosh owners have an easier time because most Macs have at least monaural sound built in and many have stereo. Upgrade sound systems are available for Macs with expansion slots, however.

The least expensive sound cards for IBM-compatible computers are 8-bit cards, suitable only for older computers with 8088 or 8086 microprocessors. Such cards can divide the sound spectrum only 256 ways, compared to 65,000 ways for 16-bit cards.

If your computer has a 286 chip, don’t spend more than $100 to install a basic 16-bit monaural sound card. Such computers just don’t have the power to handle multimedia software on CD-ROM, so it’s a waste of money to try to upgrade them very much. Instead, you might want to consider buying a ready-to-go multimedia PC with CD-ROM, sound, color and a large hard disk.

A fast 486 computer is capable of handling the most sophisticated multimedia games and business software of today and tomorrow, provided it has at least 8 megabytes of RAM memory and a hard disk for at least 200 megabytes. So you need to go for a high-powered sound system when you upgrade.

One of the ironies of CD-ROM games, encyclopedias and other software is that they can take anywhere from 2 to 12 megabytes of regular hard disk storage as well. That’s because sound and image files are copied off the CD-ROM onto the hard drive so the program will run faster.

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If all this sounds like the stereo component business all over again, you’re right. Except it’s a lot harder to compare the performance of computer sound systems, because they aren’t sold in quiet rooms where you can listen to the differences.

The first thing you’ll notice when you go shopping is that two companies dominate the market. Creative Labs Inc. of Milpitas, Calif., ((800) 998-5227) defined the business with its Sound Blaster family of sound cards. But Media Vision of Fremont, Calif., ((800) 845-5870) competes strongly at every level with its ProAudio and Fusion series.

Their dominance makes it tough for others to gain shelf space, but there are a lot of other sound board manufacturers nonetheless, including Turtle Beach, Cardinal, Logitech, ATI Technologies and Aztech.

Newcomers must compete with new features. For instance, Alpha Systems Lab of Irvine has a new $299 board, the Cyber Audio/SRS, that achieves surround sound out of just two speakers. It also has voice recognition, complete with a headset microphone, and 125-word vocabulary sets large enough to control software programs by voice rather than mouse or keyboard. Call (800) 576-4ASL for more information.

High-quality sound goes hand-in-hand with CD-ROM, which has the space to store the huge audio and video files that put sound capabilities to work. Rather than buying sound and CD-ROM separately, look for packages that bundle them together--most convenient way to go. But some of the premium brands of CD-ROM drives, such as Toshiba, Chinon and Hitachi, are not generally available in such bundles.

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Whether you buy a system bundled with CD-ROM drive or not, it is better to spend a little extra to get a card with an SCSI-2 connection for a CD-ROM drive. That assures you’ll be able to connect most brands of high-performance CD-ROM drives, including future models, should you want to upgrade from the one in a bundle. To assure the best multimedia performance, make sure the CD-ROM drive you get is at least a “double speed” model with an access time no longer than 350 milliseconds and a transfer rate of at least 300 kilobytes per second.

Most sound cards create sound with a built-in FM synthesizer, the best of which have eight “operators” instead of four and 20 “voices.”

An even better way to create sound uses actual sound bytes from various musical instruments stored in memory chips on the card. That is called “wave table look-up” and is particularly desirable to those who will be creating their own soundtracks for presentations or even connecting their computers to keyboards.

Among the boards offering wave table synthesis are those from Turtle Beach and the Alpha Systems Lab Cyberaudio/SRS.

Unfortunately, sound board installation can be difficult. There is a strong likelihood that the sound system will interfere with other peripheral devices already installed in your computer. Such conflicts can be resolved, but it takes know-how and trial and error. Most users will be happier if they buy a sound card from a dealer who will install it and make sure it works properly.