How does the sound card improve the sound?

ComputerTime · 06-19-2008, 09:45 AM

Hi,

Sorry for asking some noob questions. These queries just come to my mind when I was playing with the sound control of my pc, setting which channel to be audible, and which channel is not.

Previously, we need to connect Audio Cable from our CD ROM to our sound card, so that we can hear CD Audio. However, with the incorporation of digital extraction in Windows (I think starting WIN98, please correct me), we no longer need the Audio Cable, but we are able to hear the music via the IDE Cable. Therefore, in the new generation, what we hear is actually the "WAV" channel, instead of "CD" Channel.

My queries are
1) Where is the sound from CD being decoded, via CPU power or it will be passed to the sound card for decoding?
2) How is the sound directly from CD ROM player to sound card compared with the sound through the IDE and reach the sound card, if the decoding is done at the sound card?
3) I understand that we can disable the digital extraction from CD ROM Drive via IDE Cable, will there be any impact if I want to extract the music out and convert to MP3? Will there be any impact if I watch DVD with 5.1 channel audio?
4) For those DVD movies with 5.1 audio, are the data transmitted via IDE Cable only? Can it be transferred via the digital audio cable to the sound card?

Thanks for reading, and hope someone can enlighten me on my noob questions.

Regards.

06-19-2008, 09:45 AM	#1 (permalink)
ComputerTime Registered User Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 12 OS: XP	How does the sound card improve the sound? Hi, Sorry for asking some noob questions. These queries just come to my mind when I was playing with the sound control of my pc, setting which channel to be audible, and which channel is not. Previously, we need to connect Audio Cable from our CD ROM to our sound card, so that we can hear CD Audio. However, with the incorporation of digital extraction in Windows (I think starting WIN98, please correct me), we no longer need the Audio Cable, but we are able to hear the music via the IDE Cable. Therefore, in the new generation, what we hear is actually the "WAV" channel, instead of "CD" Channel. My queries are 1) Where is the sound from CD being decoded, via CPU power or it will be passed to the sound card for decoding? 2) How is the sound directly from CD ROM player to sound card compared with the sound through the IDE and reach the sound card, if the decoding is done at the sound card? 3) I understand that we can disable the digital extraction from CD ROM Drive via IDE Cable, will there be any impact if I want to extract the music out and convert to MP3? Will there be any impact if I watch DVD with 5.1 channel audio? 4) For those DVD movies with 5.1 audio, are the data transmitted via IDE Cable only? Can it be transferred via the digital audio cable to the sound card? Thanks for reading, and hope someone can enlighten me on my noob questions. Regards.