It actually does not matter how much electrical noise the card makes unless the noise is so bad that it cuts through all the electronics and the shielding of the speaker/headphone wire, at which point it should not be called SDCard but a "small-EMP -generator". The music is only read, digitally, of the card. everything else happens on your memory and processor, which means that the quality of sound is in no way affected by SD card unless we talk about bad sectors and read errors.
medv4380 said:
Good marketing.
At this point I don't care how badly audiophiles get ripped off. They've been more than willing to buy snake oil from just about anyone. Audiophiles are easily con'd into believing records with the pop and hiss of a needle are "better" than digital [http://www.npr.org/2012/02/10/146697658/why-vinyl-sounds-better-than-cd-or-not]. They think that the sound ranges on vinyl are better, but their actually more restrictive because the needle will bounce if the music gets too extream. They've been sold so much snake oil over the years because there is no more improvements to be made in audio. Once we went to digital signalling, and had the entire range of sound the human ear can hear mapped out there was no more "clarity" to be had. That won't stop them from saying they can hear the improvement, or sounds outside of the range of human hearing that they then fail when tested.
Take audio cards as an example. There hasn't been a good reason to upgrade and have a separate audio card in a pci slot for easy upgrades since the late 90's. There is some high end stuff for people who like to use a lot of audio equipment with their PC, but no real reason to get the latest Sound Blaster [http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster?ctlcmp=SEM_CLI&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=soundblaster&gclid=CjwKEAiAsJanBRCgnpfa0orvyz4SJAAbxEq-DnAFb0YNZPY24bQAnmcU6kXKlyLFYAIaVLQGspYGuhoC7hPw_wcB] card unless you're doing audio recordings.
Do not mix audiophones with vynil collectors. Digital sound is as "pure" as we got with terms of sound ranges and the like since they are, in theory, unlimited.
There is a reason to buy sound card though. if you are a regular home user that likes to listend to music you dont need one, sure. however if you really care about quality of your audio a seperate card is worth it. of course such card should also be accompanied with audio system that can actually reprduce the difference, which 99% of people do not have (or ever think is affordable for audio equipment). Sound cards nowadays are mostly aimed at people who make music rather than listeners. but it does benefit listeners
with proper setups.
Queen Michael said:
I'm not good at tech. Can anyone explain to me if electrical noise is a thing?
Electrical noise is a thing in analog transmission. this means that for purpose of audio playback the only place where electrical noise matters is your speaker/headphone wires. these are usually shielded. even if yours arent (some cheap models arent, but they are also low enough quality that it doesnt matter) the electromagnetic interference from SD cards will be the least of your worries. the electronics that process playback make more electric noise than the card, and the ouside world has even more. you will get more interference just by getting next to a window (in a city) than from SD card on its worst day ever.
Also if you are user of the new apple digital signal headphones (i dont recommend for other reasons) even that is no longer a factor.
maneyan said:
The person him/herself admits that the computer eequipment is doing this and it only affects analog signal. You know what also generates it - not living in faraday cage, that is, your enviroment is FULL of electrical interference. the only way an SD card can have a significant impact on playback that overshadows other components if its some kind of EMP in disguise. He mentionca capacitors, yep, those are usually the culprits for electrical noise in hardware. guess what SD is not - a capacitor.
the part about recording directly to SD is simply wrong. in order to record directly to SD you need to convert your recorded signal to digital BEFORE moving it to SD, so shielding on SD is irrelevant.