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now there are plenty of topics that elicit strong reactions from PC and

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audio enthusiasts but few come close to

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is it worth it to Shell out the cash on a sound card or external audio interface

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so why does this debate stir up such passion and emotion on both sides who

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are sound cards for and what advantages do they really provide let's start this

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with an analogy think of the electrical signals traveling through the inside of

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your PC like cars on a highway if you're out there driving around all by yourself

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it's going to be pretty peaceful and quiet unless you've souped up your

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engine to make some sort of statement about the size of your junk but as more

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and more cars get on that Highway the ambient noise level is going to go up

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well the situation inside your computer is much more similar to The Busy Highway

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than the lonely one your CPU is processing millions of instructions per

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second and all that data flowing around on the motherboard makes it a very noisy

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place and if you turn on your speakers you might actually even be able to hear

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it all that extra electrical noise from inside the computer can manifest itself

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as hissing cracking and other distortions over your speakers or

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headphones when you're trying to listen to music watch Netflix or blow away that

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freaking annoying kid that keeps headshotting you through the wall somehow motherboard manufacturers have a

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few different ways of addressing this problem the most elegant of which is to

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place the audio circuitry on a dedicated area of the PCB away from the other

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components how however this solution is quite expensive to implement so it's

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mostly only straight Ballin boards that have this feature discrete sound cards

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are basically a more robust version of this and can be added to any motherboard

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they put all the audio signaling on a completely separate PCB that attaches

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via PCI or PCI Express and it comes with

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some additional advantages as well such as the capability for more inputs and

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outputs more powerful application to drive those fancy pant headphones of

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yours clean cleaner digital to analog conversion for more detailed sound and

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of course the ability to carry it forward to your next system when you

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upgrade the rest of your Hardware but sound cards are hardly a perfect

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solution they're still near the Emi noise inside your PC Tower their

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software drivers can be problematic and due to their nature as all-in-one

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Solutions their DAC or amp or both are

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not always the best enter external dacks

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these usually require no drivers and take the audio processing out of the

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noisy environment of your PC case all together allowing a cleaner analog

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signal to be sent to an amplifier that is either built into your speakers or

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bought separately even though Dax built into even onboard integrated sound cards

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are better than ever having a dedicated one that sits outside the case safe from

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Emi is something that many folks who are passionate about audio absolutely swear

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by but limus you still haven't actually answered the $644,000 question who are

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these products actually for well for one sound producers if you make music

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instead of just listening to it you might need more inputs and outputs than

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your onboard sound solution can give you which is usually just a complement of 3

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and 12 mm Jacks and an optical tossing port for two if you're super serial

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about getting the absolute most out of your fancy speakers or headphones

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especially High impedance or low sensitivity ones that are difficult to

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drive an onboard audio upgrade with particular attention to the amplifier

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might be necessary for hearing the finest details of whatever you're

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listening to too and finally and perhaps most obviously if you keep hearing

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noticeable hissing Distortion or just plain muddy audio quality then you'll

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definitely want to look into moving away from your onboard sound unless of course

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you enjoy listening to everything as if it was recorded on a cassette tape

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that's been traveling around the cosmos for the last 20-some years speaking of

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carrying around audio recordings with you and audible.com membership is the

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thousands of highquality Audi books like Gone Girl by Jillian Flynn which I

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absolutely kicks butt by the way I love this book and I'm planning to go see the

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movie as soon as I possibly can but I have a baby but I'll I'll I'll get to it

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at some point because I can't get enough of it an audible membership gets you one

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do that every month and gets you discounts on additional audiobooks if

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over to audible.com to sign up and get started

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thanks for watching guys like this video if you liked it dislike if you thought it sucked leave a comment if you have

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suggestions for future fastest Poss also leave a comment if you have any feedback

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on this particular script our new guy actually wrote it so if you think that

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he sucks then make sure you let him know in the comments and as always guys don't forget to subscribe for more videos like

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this from Techquickie I never say that that's an outro for a different Channel

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that I do forget it subscribe if you haven't already