Quality vs. inferno Soundcard

Submitted by cansled on Sun, 2006-11-05 22:34.

1. If I am using the Callisto on my HTPC to my 5.1 Yamaha reciever is there any quality differences when I listen to MP3's, Games, DVD's compared to your Inferno Soundcard? What is the 16bit vs 24bit in relation to?

2. All of my music is in WMA format and I want to pass at least the same quality on to my reciever. Will DTS and DDL accomplish this for me?

‹ Digital transfer to a PC instead of out of a PC Performance specs? ›
»

Hi cansled, 1) It depends

Submitted by Aaron on Mon, 2006-11-06 18:54.

Hi cansled,

1) It depends which way you want to pass the audio out to your receiver. If you are planning on using the digital output from the Callisto/Inferno, you won't notice any quality differences. However, the analog outputs of the Inferno are of much higher quality than the Callisto's, so if you plan on connecting that way, the Inferno would be the way to go.

2) DDL and DTS are slightly lossy formats, which means there is some quality loss when encoding for them. However, they sound very good, and are a great way to encode multichannel audio onto a single digital connection.

If your music is stereo (2 channel), as is likely the case, you can use the PCM (uncompressed) output from the Callisto or Inferno, for higher audio quality.

Hope this helps,
Aaron

»

So does that mean everytime

Submitted by cansled on Mon, 2006-11-06 23:56.

So does that mean everytime I listen to music I will have to switch the control panel to PCM and when I watch a DVD I will have to switch the control panel to DDL or DTS?

What if I hook up the music via analog on the inferno card and digital for everything else? Will the inferno push it out without me switching the control panel?

»

If you want to switch the

Submitted by Aaron on Tue, 2006-11-07 01:09.

If you want to switch the card's output format, you will have to change the Control Panel's setting, yes.

However, you may not need to. In my opinion, the quality loss of DTS and DDL is minimal (especially for audio that is already in a lossy format). So I would advocate keeping the audio in one of these formats if movies will be played often.

For the Inferno, the analog and digital paths are the same before the DAC, so you can't have DTS coming through the digital output, and PCM through the analog outs.

»