Questions about sb live

[Sunhk]

Sorry for typing english, because i duno typing chinese. First, nice to meet u guys.

I am a new member and i come from hong kong, and i am using sb live 5.1. I have some questions:

1. new sb live is 24 bit, but i heard that it do not suport EAX, is it correct? old 16 bit better or 24 bit better?

2.There is many versions of sb live, how can i identify? which sb live is better?

3. the 'bit' mean what? high bit output can give higher sound quality?

[Sunhk]

I use foobar to listen mp3.
My setting is:

Kernal Streaming output + SSRC High Precision Resampler

does it give the best sound quality for my sb live?
(b4 use media player to listen mp3, i find that foobar is better)

[JCG]

1. not really. SB Live 24bit supports EAX2.0 and EAX Advanced HD.
The SB Live 24bit carries a DAC chip with better characteristics(distortions, noise level, dynamic range.......etc.) than the one used on 16bit SB Live. Therefoire, in terms of analog audio output quality, the Live 24bit is superior to the old Live 16bit series, but the margin is not huge in my opinion.

2. Here's an article discussing the differences between different versions of SB Live.

3. uhhh......not exactly. Here's another article that should help you understand how audio signal is quantized and stored in a computer system. Currently all CD-DA is encoded using pulse code modulation with only 16bit precision. So when playing CD-DA, 24bit DAC will not "improve" the sound quality of the music.

4. yes. Set the foobar2000 output format to 32bit fixed point and SSRC to 48kHz or 96kHz then you're done.

[Sunhk]

thanks ur information!
I know much more now

i only understand about 70%....some are too deep.

[Sunhk]

4. yes. Set the foobar2000 output format to 32bit fixed point and SSRC to 48kHz or 96kHz then you're done.

my card only support up to 16bit output.
choose 48bit helps?

[JCG]

oooops...sorry. I mistakingly thought that you're using Live 24bit.

since you're using old Live 16bit series, then set the output data format to 16bit fixed point and enable dithering, SSRC to 48kHz.

[Sunhk]

thank you!!

u are using sb live too?

[JCG]

not anymore.
I sold it to my friend.