SoundCards ?

[wbt50]

What exactly do soundcards do as every PC I have has never had these and the sound always seems to be fine ?

 

[voyagerfan99]

Previously, on board sound was absolute garbage, and sound cards provided better sound over on board . However these days on board sound system much better. Sound cards today don't hesitate same thing, but you need to spend a lot of money to notice any actual difference.

 

[spirit]

In addition to that, you also need a really nice pair of speakers too. No point spending loads on a sound card when you have a pair of cheap speakers.

 

[Okedokey]

Dedicated sound cards are still way better than realtek or equivalent integrated rubbish. But as the others have said, you need good gear to listen through. They also provide additional features/connection and on older computer off load sound processing from the cpu.

 

[linkin]

I would say onboard is okay if motherboard makes would move past the Realtek ALC892 and on to something with better SNR/Quality and better drivers.

That said it would also help if Microsoft would give their OS direct hardware access to sound devices again.

 

[ayan]

I have amateur musician friends, who use proffesional soundcards. What's the benefit? -better sound quality
- sound processing power (noise reduction, and stuff like that)
-multiple connection ports. (for using multiple microphones for example).
Multiple output ports which individual setings/equalisers. ( for enviroment sound tune) etc.

I think that the normal sound cards only offer good quality. I got a laprop with beats sound card at work, and tested it with beats headphones. They might be overpriced, but they definitely sound pretty damn awesome!

 

[FuryRosewood]

...should have bought senn's if you were going to spend that kinda money on headphones, at least its not all marketing with Sennheiser.

 

[Okedokey]

Senns are pretty mainstream these days. Not great bang for buck

 

[MMM]

What exactly do soundcards do as every PC I have has never had these and the sound always seems to be fine ?

Depends on your intended purpose for sound & what quality you desire, for general use most people would not know or care of the difference between onboard to a card, generally sound cards will have enhanced features/controls compared to onboard.