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Two channel PC Sound Card recommendation

Buying or building computers for Hauptwerk, recommendations, troubleshooting computer hardware issues.
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Antoni Scott

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Two channel PC Sound Card recommendation

PostMon Feb 23, 2015 5:14 pm

I wanted to use my PC that has an i5 -2400, 3.1GHz processor and 8GB of RAM, as a Hauptwerk backup computer. Originally I had planned to use this PC in another Hauptwerk conversion I was working on but because I was plagued with audio glitch problems I swapped it out for a MacMini.

I learned afterwards that I should have had a specific sound card in the PC. The PC is a HP P7-1187c with Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. But I have no idea what sound card I should get. I only need 2 channel capability. The PC played the smaller organs quite well except for the audio problems.

I suppose the next question should be:
Is there anything else this computer needs to eliminate audio issues ?

I would prefer an internal audio card but an external audio sound card would be OK but I wouldn't know how to hook it up to my PC.

Any help would be appreciated.
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kkiiwwii

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Re: Two channel PC Sound Card recommendation

PostMon Feb 23, 2015 8:55 pm

Antoni,
I am not really a person qualified to give a foolproof reply, but wondering if you could possibly do what I have discovered will work if, and only if, you use a good quality home theatre amplifier. If you use the digital optical out from your computer to connect to this amplifier, then you can utilise the DAC in the amplifier, thus giving no latency or distortion from inside the computer. Since you are at present only interested in stereo, this method avoids the need to buy an expensive sound card.
Another method with which I am still struggling is to use an HDMI lead from computer to HT amplifier, this enabling multi-channel use (there was a series of postings a few week's ago on this). Possibly one of these hauptwerk users could advise a little more detail on this?. These high-quality sound cards seem to cost more than the computers themselves.
Charles
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B. Milan

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Re: Two channel PC Sound Card recommendation

PostMon Feb 23, 2015 9:12 pm

[Topic moved]

Antoni,

Please re-read the forum descriptions for each forum heading (smaller text under the bold text on the home page of this forum) as you continually post in the incorrect forums. The Technical Support forum is for specific Hauptwerk questions/problems on the software program itself, not for peripherals related to computers or audio interfaces.

All computer related questions such as this goes under the Computer hardware/specs forum heading.

Thank you for offering your attention to this in future postings.
Brett Milan
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MILAN DIGITAL AUDIO
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mdyde

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Re: Two channel PC Sound Card recommendation

PostTue Feb 24, 2015 5:09 am

Hello Antoni,

These documents cover general recommendations for audio/MIDI interfaces, and list some makers that are popular amongst Hauptwerk users:

https://www.hauptwerk.com/clientuploads/documentation/PDF/HauptwerkPrerequisites.pdf
https://www.hauptwerk.com/clientuploads/documentation/PDF/HauptwerkBackgroundTechnicalInfoOnComputerHardware.pdf

As mentioned in there, we use RME interfaces here and particularly recommend them since we've found them to be especially reliable and to perform particularly well, and they have excellent support and audio quality.

E.g. you might want to look at the RME BabyFace, which has MIDI IN/OUT and four audio output channels (left and right XLR connections and a stereo headphones jack) and connects to the computer via USB:

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_babyface.php
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.

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