I have a spare Sound Blaster Live! at home.

MorphOS works perfectly fine using the Power Mac G4s onboard sound, so i ask, is it worth switching to the SB Live! or is there not really any difference and not worth the bother?

If the Onboard sound is ok for you ... keep it. But some people seem to have problems with volume being to low and that kind of stuff...

If you have the G4 connected to a Hifi Stereo, it will be probably better to have a soundblaster, but on those small speakers playing old games...

Its connected to the small speakers of my 17" lcd monitor. Sound is good and loud enough :)

I'm using a SB Live in my Powermac Gigabit, and it's worth the effort, the output quality is very good. Don't know how good the output is on a audio-wise supported Powermac, but if you aren't running short of PCI slots, it's clearly worth the effort.

Quote:

Can you use the IN, right ? (In PowerMac atm is not supported the IN onboard).

I'd like also to find one of this SB Live!

If you are planning to use a Live!, Audigy or Audigy 2 (Audigy 2 ZS and above don't need the setting marked in yellow) these settings will give you the highest quality. The cards prior to the Audigy 2 ZS used an AC'97 (similar to worse quality than realtek integrated AC'97 audio) codec on the front outputs but not on the rear. So a trick to get better quality was to map the front audio to the rear outputs. Luckily MorphOS supports doing this. Setting the frequency to 48000 Hz is required (or does the MorphOS driver somehow bypass the DSP?) to avoid distortion from the card attempting to resample all audio to 48000 Hz. The distortion can be as severe as clicks, pops, or even stuttering.

soundblastersettings.jpg

So, after setting the card up like in the picture repeat them for Unit0 as well. Then just plug your speakers into the rear audio output (black on Live! cards).

Even after these settings the quality of the integrated audio (especially with later powermac g4s) is probably about the same as the Soundblaster Live!. If you are having trouble with the integrated audio, have grounded speakers (thats a whole other issue with the g4s), or want multichannel audio then the Live! is a clear winner.

With the Audigy and above the cards start to pull away from the built in audio of the G4s. Given how subjective perceived audio quality is the best choice is ultimately whatever sounds best to your ears.

[ Edited by baisaz on 2010/10/29 16:20 ]

No I don't agree with baisaz. I have a Soundblaster Live 5.1 on my system with some good Altec Lansing speakers and it is lightyears above the sound quality of the built in sound.
Further, the Audigy models supported use the same chip or a closely related chip (from one generation after) as the Soundblaster Live.
I have a later generation Audigy than those, and while it might have higher specs, I can't use it.
So far, I've heard negative statements from Davey, in favor of the nearly unobtainable Envy 24 based cards and I've heard negative comments from baisaz favoring Audigys.

But, honestly, in my own experience, to directly answer the question you answered, yes install your SB card. You'll notice the difference.

Most of what I was talking about was audio reproduction quality and not the "hey I like the way this sounds" factor. If you are using the front audio output, with the default settings, on the Live! you have a significantly more distorted sound than the built in powermac G4 audio. Whether or not you personally like how that distortion sounds doesn't mean the card reproduces the audio better. The flaws I detailed about the cards are well known and aren't just my opinion on how they sound. I personally prefer the Live! to the built in audio, probably for some of the same reasons you do, but it isn't in the same league as the later cards. The signal to noise ratio changes and dropping of the AC'97 codec are among the improvements. I really suggest trying the settings I mentioned and see if you notice any difference.

I'm not sure of the validity of your information, but as far as liking distortion, my old DC ampped stereo receiver has a total harmonic distortion of ..01%, Most current equipment is significantly higher than this. I think I'm fairly familiar with the comparitive qualities of sound outputs.
SB Live sounds better than the rear sound outputs of a Powermac (which probaly does use an AC '97 codec)..
Whether that's through my Altec Lansing speakers, out of my television, or through my stereo. In all comparisions there is less distortion and noise.

When you force 48 kHz on the soundcard, all audio streams will be resampled up to 48 kHz by AHI. Since AHI uses very simple, linear interpolaton algorithm, the signal to noise ratio will be very poor. I will verify it experimentally next week, but see no advantage of using these rear outputs this way.

That would explain the apparent difference.
After diiging out another SB Live, I can vetrify what baisaz has stated. The SB Live boes indeed contain an AC'97 codec labeled EMU-101K1.
However, since there are obvious improvements using this card (and not all AC'97 implementations are equal) I'll stand by my original statement that the SB Live is a big improvement over the rear sound outputs of a Powermac.

A quick question. The Audigy card I have uses the CA0106 DAT (which isn't supported). Which Audigy's (and which chiosets) are supported?

[ Edited by Jim on 2010/10/30 0:13 ]

@Krashan
That is too bad to hear. I wonder which is worse: AHI doing the resampling or the card itself? People get around the problems on Windows by just doing the resampling in the media player itself.

Mapping to the rear output is the default setting in the kX Project drivers on Windows. While the front has creative's AC'97 codec, the rear has a Philips UDA1334.

@Jim
No, the powermac G4s don't use an AC'97 chip. Are you using grounded equipment with the internal mac audio? If so you'll notice a horrid hum even when there is no no audio being produced (touched on this in one of my previous posts). Is it the Audigy SE/Value you have? From the info Andreas linked to in the other thread I'm thinking: Audigy, Audigy ES, Audigy 2. Maybe the Audigy 2ZS as well?

[ Edited by baisaz on 2010/10/29 18:40 ]

> Which Audigy's (and which chiosets) are supported?

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7490&forum=11&post_id=78271#78271

Wowsa Andreas, beat me to referencing your own post!

Yep, and without reminding me that I've seen this before (which is how I knew the CA0106 I had wouldn't work)..

My SB Live has an EMU10K1 and not the EMU10K2 that i hear about. Will it work?

Yes, emu10k1 is what you will find on most SBLive cards (all those supported in fact).

yes

@baisaz

I wonder which is worse: AHI doing the resampling or the card itself? People get around the problems on Windows by just doing the resampling in the media player itself.

It depends on the algorithm used for resampling by the card. If it just drops or repeats some samples (nearest-neighbour), AHI wins. If it uses some kind of FIR filter - AHI looses. And in fact doing resamling in the media player may be the best solution quality-wise. On MorphOS, MPlayer is able to resample on request.

I've studied the whole subject with Efika. Its AC97 codec is a minimalistic one and supports 48 kHz only. Then AHI is forced to resample 44.1 kHz streams. Distortions are easily hearable when playing sine sweep tone going up, a "mirror" tone going down appears. It is caused by well known aliasing phenomenon. When such tone is played via MPlayer forced to do resampling itself, the mirror tone is not hearable (MPlayer resampling routines keep aliasing below -60 dB level).

I will do similar experiments with SB Live in my Power Mac next week (the card is not here yet).