The theory of sound and acoustics is understandable. Is it true that the quality of the sound of modern audio cassettes and plates are not worse, and even better digital sound? Do you need audioparta

Cosmos is not homogeneous nothing. There are gas and dust clouds between different objects. They are remnants after the explosion of supernova and the place to form stars. In some areas, this interstellar gas is tight enough to spread sound waves, but they are not susceptible to human hearing.

Is there a sound in space?

When the object is moving - whether it is a vibration of a guitar string or exploding fireworks - it affects the nearby air molecules, as if pushing them. These molecules are crashed into their neighbors, and those in turn in the following. Movement spreads through the air like a wave. When she reaches the ear, a person perceives it as a sound.

When the sound wave passes through the airspace, its pressure hesitates up and down, like sea water in the storm. The time between these vibrations is called the sound frequency and is measured in Hertz (1 Hz is one oscillation per second). The distance between the peaks of the highest pressure is called a wavelength.

The sound can only be distributed in the medium in which the wavelength is not more than the average distance between the particles. Physicists call it "conditionally free expensive" - \u200b\u200bthe average distance that the molecule passes after the collision with one and before the interaction with the next one. Thus, the dense medium can transmit sounds with a short wavelength and vice versa.

Sounds with long waves have frequencies that earn perceive as low tones. In a gas with an average free mileage, exceeding 17 m (20 Hz), the sound waves will be too low-frequency so that the person can perceive them. They are called infrasounds. If there were aliens with ears that perceive very low notes, they would have known exactly if the sounds in the open space were heard.

Song of black hole

At a distance of about 220 million light years, in the center of the cluster of thousands of galaxies, refers to the lowest note that the universe ever heard. By 57 octave below average "to", which is about a million billion times deeper than the sound of the frequency that a person can hear.

The deepest sound that is possible to catch people has a cycle about one oscillation every 1/20 second. A black hole in the constellation Perseus Cycle is about one oscillation every 10 million years.

It became known in 2003, when the Space Telescope NASA "Chandra" found something in a gas that fills the Perseus cluster: Concentrated Rings of Light and Darkness, similar to ripples in the pond. Astrophysics say that these are traces of incredibly low-frequency sound waves. More bright are the vertices of the waves, where the greatest gas pressure. Rings are darker - these are depressions, where the pressure is lower.

Sound that can be seen

Hot, the magnetized gas rotates around a black hole, similar to water circulating around the drain. Moving, it creates a powerful electromagnetic field. Strong enough to speed up the gas near the edge of the black hole almost to the speed of light, turning it into huge bursts, called relativistic jets. They force gas to turn on their way to the side, and this impact causes terrible sounds from the space.

They are transferred through the Perseus cluster for hundreds of thousands of light years from their source, but the sound can travel only until gas is enough for its transportation. Therefore, it stops on the edge of the gas cloud that fills the peers. This means that it is impossible to hear his sound on earth. You can only see the effect on the gas cloud. It looks like looking through the space on a soundproofed camera.

Strange Planet.

Our planet makes a deep moan every time its bark moves. Then there is no doubt: whether the sounds in space are distributed. An earthquake can create vibrations in an atmosphere with a frequency of one to five Hz. If it is strong enough, then can send infrasonic waves through the atmosphere in open space.

Of course, there is no clear boundary where the Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins. The air simply gradually becomes thinner, until in the end does not disappear at all. From 80 to 550 kilometers above the surface of the earth The length of the free run of the molecule is near a kilometer. This means that the air at this height is approximately 59 times thinner, in which it would be possible to hear the sound. It is capable only to transfer long infrasound waves.

When in March 2011, the earthquake of magnitude 9.0 shocked the northeastern coast of Japan, seismographs around the world recorded how his waves passed through the ground, and vibrations caused low-frequency fluctuations in the atmosphere. These vibrations passed all the way before the place where the ship (Gravity Field) and the Ocean Circulation Explorer stationary satellite (GOCE) compares the gravity of the Earth at a low orbit with a mark of 270 kilometers above the surface. And the satellite managed to write these sound waves.

Goce has very sensitive accelerometers on board, which control the ion engine. It helps maintain a satellite at a stable orbit. 2011 GOCE accelerometers found a vertical displacement in a very thin atmosphere around the satellite, as well as wave-like shifts in air pressure, at the time of the propagation of sound waves from the earthquake. The satellite engines adjusted the offset and retained the data that became the similarity of the earthquake infrasound record.

This entry was classified as a satellite data until a group of scientists, headed by Raphael F. Garcia, did not publish this document.

First sound in the universe

If it were possible to return to the past, about the first 760,000 years after a large explosion, it would be possible to know if there were sound in space. At this time, the universe was so dense that sound waves could spread freely.

At about the same time, the first photons began to travel in space as light. After everything finally cooled so much to condensed into atoms. Before cooling occurred, the universe was filled with charged particles - protons and electrons - which were absorbed or dispelled photons, particles that constitute the light.

Today it reaches Earth as a weak microwave background, visible only by very sensitive radio telescope. Physics call it relic emission. This is the oldest light in the universe. He answers the question whether there is a sound in space. Relic radiation contains an entry of the most ancient music of the Universe.

Light to help

How light helps to know if there is a sound in space? Sound waves pass through the air (or interstellar gas) as pressure fluctuations. When the gas is compressed, it becomes hotter. In a cosmic scale, this phenomenon is so intensively that stars are formed. And when gas expands, it cools. Sound waves propagating in the early universe caused weak pressure fluctuations in the gas environment, which, in turn, left weak temperature failures reflected in a cosmic microwave background.

Using the temperature changes, the physics of the University of Washington, John Kraeura managed to restore these terrible sounds from the space - the music of the expanding universe. He multiplied the frequency of 10 26 times so that the human ears could hear it.

So no one really will hear a cry in space, but there will remain sound waves moving through the clouds of interstellar gas or in the sparse rays of the external atmosphere of the Earth.

There was a time when the question of necessity sound card Not standing at all. Love in the computer the sound is a little better than fracturing the speaker in the case, buy a sound card. Do not need - do not buy. True, the cards were quite expensive, especially until they were done for the prehistoric ISA port.

With the transition to PCI, it became possible to shift the part of the calculations on cPU, as well as use rAM For storage of musical samples (in the old days, such a need was not only professional musicians, but also in normal people, because the most popular music format on computers was MIDI on computers 20 years ago). So soon the sound cards of the entry level have fallen in cheaper, and then the built-in sound appeared in the top motherboardsoh. Bloomy, of course, but free. And it caused the strongest blow to the manufacturers of sound cards.

Today, the built-in sound is absolutely in all motherboards. And in expensive, it is even positioned as high quality. That's right Hi-Fi. But in fact, unfortunately, this is not so. Last year I collected new computerwhere put one of the most expensive and objectively the best motherboards. And, of course, we promised a high-class sound on discrete chips, and even with gold-plated connectors. So tasty wrote that I decided not to install a sound card, to do the built-in. And cost. About a week. Then disassembled the corps, put the card and did not do anything more nonsense.

Why is the built-in sound not very good?

First, the price is the price. A decent sound card costs 5-6 thousand rubles. And the point is not in the greed of manufacturers, just the components of silence, and the quality requirements are high. Serious motherboard costs 15-20 thousand rubles. Is the manufacturer ready to add thousands of three more to them, at least? Isn't the user who does not have time to evaluate the sound quality? It is better not to risk. And do not risk.

Secondly, for really high-quality soundwithout foreign noise, filing and distortion, components must be at a certain distance from each other. If you look at the sound card, you will see - as unusually a lot on it free space. And on the motherboard it in the edge, everything has to be put very tight. And, alas, it is really clear nowhere to do.

Twenty years ago, consumer sound cards were more expensive than another computer, and there were memory slots for them for storing musical samples. In the photo of the dream of all the Mid-Ninette-Mid-Necks - Sound Blaster AWE 32. 32 - this is not a bit, but maximum amount Simultaneously reproducible streams in MIDI

Therefore, the integrated sound is always a compromise. I saw fees with a built-in sound, which, in fact, steam from above in the form of a separate platform connected to the "mom" only with the connector. And yes, it sounded good. But is it possible to call such a sound integrated? Not sure.

The reader who has not triggered discrete sound solutionsmay have a question - and what, actually, means "good sound in the computer"?

1) It is tritely louder. In a sound card, even a budget level is built-in an amplifier, capable of pumping even greater speakers or high-aligned headphones. Many are surprised that the speakers per maximum cease to wipe and chop. This is also a "soup" of a normal amplifier.

2) Frequencies complement each other, and do not mix, turning into porridge. The normal digital-analog converter (DAC) is good "draws" bass, a middle and tops, allowing you to very accurately set them up with the help of software under your own taste. When listening to music, you suddenly hear every tool separately. And the films will delight the effect of presence. In general, the impression as if before the column, being covered with a thick blanket, and then it was removed.

3) Especially clearly the difference is felt in games. You will be surprised that wind noise and water dripping does not flick the quiet steps of rivals around the corner. What in the headphones is not necessarily expensive, an understanding appears - who, from where and at what distance is moving. This directly affects performance. Support / drive up the sideline to you simply will not work.

What sound cards are there?

When this type of components began to interest only connoisseurs good sound, Together, unfortunately, very few, producers remained very small. There are only two - Asus and Creative. The latter generally Mastodont of the market, which created it and asked all the standards. Asus entered him relatively late, but not even leaves.

New models are extremely rare, and old are sold for a long time, 5-6 years. The fact is that in terms of sound there will not improve anything without a radical increase in the price. And few people are ready to pay for audiophile perversions in the computer. I would say - no one is ready. Quality plank and so drop too high.

The first difference is the interface. There are cards that are intended only for landline computers, and they are installed in the motherboard through pCI-Express Interface. Others are connected via USB, and they can be used with both large computers and laptops. In the latter, by the way, the sound is disgusting in 90% of cases, and the upgrade does not precisely hurt him.

The second difference is the price. If we are talking about internal maps., then 2-2.5 thousand Models are sold, which are almost similar to the built-in sound. They are usually bought in cases where the connector (phenomenon, collaborated) died on the motherboard. An unpleasant feature of cheap cards is low stack resistance. If you put them close to the video card, the background sounds will be very annoying.

Golden middle for built-in cards - 5-6 thousand rubles. Everything is already here to please a normal person: protection against filtering, high-quality components and flexible software.

Per 8-10 thousandsold the latest models that can reproduce a 32-bit sound in the range of 384 kHz. This is right here top top. If you know where to take files and games in such an area - do not buy :)

Even more expensive sound cards, hardware differ from the already mentioned options, but they acquire additional body kit - external modules for connecting devices, companyon board with outputs for professional recording of sound, etc. It already depends on the real needs of the user. Personally, the body kit never came in handy, although it seemed to be needed in the store.

Usb-cards price variation is about the same: from 2 thousand Alternative to the built-in sound, 5-7 thousand strong middling, 8-10 High & End And over this is all the same, but with rich kites.

Personally, I stop hearing the difference in the golden middle. Just because more cool solutions require haifine columns with headphones, and I, honestly, I see no particular sense to play World of Tanks in headphones for a thousand dollars. Probably, for each task there are solutions.

Some successful options

Several sound cards and adapters that tried and liked.

PCI-Express Interface

Creative Sound Blaster Z. For sale for 6 years, I have in different computers It costs about the same, and still very happy. The CS4398 DAC, used in this product, is already old, but audiophiles compare its sound with CD-players of the 500-dollar band. The average price is 5500 rubles.

Asus Strix Soar.. If in the product Creative, everything is loosely sharpened for the game, then ASUS has taken care of music lovers. The ESS SABRE9006A DAC on the sound is comparable to CS4398, but ASUS offers a more subtle setting of parameters for those who like to listen to Pink Floyd in HD quality. The price is comparable, about 5,500 rubles.

USB interface

ASUS Xonar U3. - A small box, being inserted into the port of the laptop, transfers the sound quality in it to a new level. Despite the compact dimensions, there was even a digital output. And the software is just surprisingly flexible. An interesting option to try is why you need a sound card at all. Price 2000 rubles.

Creative Sound Blasterx G5.The device with a bundle of cigarettes (smoking - evil) according to the characteristics is almost indistinguishable from the inner Sound Blaster Z, but it is not necessary to climb anywhere, just stick the plug into the USB port. And immediately you seven-digital sound of impeccable quality, all sorts of music and games, as well as built-in USB port In case you are not enough for you. The presence of a place allowed us to put an additional amplifier for headphones, and once hearing him in the case, it is difficult to loosen. The main functions of the software are duplicated by hardware buttons. The price of a question is 10 thousand rubles.

Play and listen to music with pleasure! Not so much and many pleasures of these.

Before suspecting a breakdown of a sound card on a computer, inspectible to inspect the available PC connectors for external damage. You should also check the performance of the subwoofer with columns or headphones through which the sound is played - try connecting them to any other device. Perhaps the cause of problems consists precisely in the equipment you are using.

It is likely that the reinstall will help in your situation. operating system Windows, be it 7, 8, 10 or XP version, as the necessary settings could simply be shot down.

Go to checking the sound card

Method 1.

The first thing should be done by the device drivers. For this you need:


After that, the driver will be updated, and the problem will be solved.

Also this procedure can be carried out in the presence of an urgent version software on the removable media. In this situation, you need to install, specifying the path to a specific folder.

If the audio cards are generally not in the device manager, then go to the next option.

Method 2

In this case, its complete diagnostics is required for the proper technical connection. You must do the following in a specific order:


Consider what this option Suitable only for discrete components that are installed in a separate board.

Method 3.

If, after visual inspection and checking columns or headphones, they were in working condition, and the OS reinstallation did not bring any results, moving further:


After the sound card test is completed, the system will inform you about its condition and if it is not working, you understand this based on the results.

Method 4.

Another option as quickly and just check the sound card on Windows Windows:


Thus, we will run the diagnosis of sound problems on the computer.

The program will offer you several troubleshooting options, as well as indicate the connected audio devices. If, the diagnostic wizard will allow you to quickly reveal it.

Method 5.

The third option to check whether the sound card works, is the following:


In the Driver tab and "Details" you will receive additional data on the parameters of all devices installed on your PC, both integrated and discrete. Also, this method allows you to diagnose malfunctions and quickly identify it by software verification.

Now you know how quickly and just check the audio card in several ways. Their main advantage is that for this you do not need online access to the Internet, and all procedures can be carried out on your own without contacting the specialized service.

The sound wave is areas of increased and reduced pressure, perceived by our auditory bodies. These waves can pass through solid, liquid and gaseous media. So they easily pass through the human body. Theoretically, if the sound wave pressure is too high, it will be able to kill a person.

Any sound wave has its own definite frequency. The human ear can hear sound waves with a frequency of 20 to 20,000 Hz. The level of the intensity of sound can be expressed in dB (decibels). For example, the level of intensity of the sound of a jackhammer is 120 dB - standing next to a person will receive not the most pleasant feeling from a terrible screame in the ears. But if you sit opposite the column playing with a frequency of 19 Hz and set the intensity of the sound of 120 dB, then we will not hear anything. But sound waves and vibrations will all affect us. And after a while you will begin to experience various vision and see phantoms. The thing is that 19 Hz is a resonant frequency for our eyeball.

It is interesting: The fact that it was 19 Hz - a resonant frequency for our eyeball, scientists learned with quite interesting circumstances. American astronauts when climbing orbit complained to periodically emerging visions. Detailed studies of the phenomenon showed that the frequency of the engine of the first stage of the rocket coincides with the frequency of the work of the erophic apple of a person. With the necessary audio intensity and strange visions arise.

The sound with a frequency below 20 Hz is called infrasound. The infrasound can be extremely dangerous for living beings, as organs in the human and animal organism work with infrasound frequencies. The imposition of certain infrasound frequencies on each other with the necessary audio intensity will cause malfunction of the heart, view, nervous system or brain. For example, when exposed to Rats, an infrasound of 8 Hz 120 dB causes them to damage the brain [wiki]. With increasing intensity up to 180 dB and the conservation of the frequency in 8 Hz is already a person will feel no the best way - Breathing will slow down and become intermittent. The prolonged impact of such sound waves will cause death.

It is interesting: Record for the loudest sound automotive system Belongs to two engineers from Brazil - Richard Clarku and Daid Navona, who managed to install a subwoofer in the car with the theoretical sound volume of 180 dB. Is it worth saying that you should not use this system at full power?

During testing, the subwoever, which is driven by electric motors and the crankshaft, reached the intensity of the sound of 168 dB and broke. After this incident, the system was decided not to repair.

Question: Is it worth buying a sound card if in a tripled sound
there is optical drive. If the transmission through optics, there is a difference from
trimming sounds, or with a separate, cool sound card?
Your question must be divided into two categories: software and hardware and actual sound quality.

1. Software and hardware:

If it comes to the built-in software codecs of the AC97 and HDAUDIO standard, the audio card in the PC is necessary mainly to implement numerous sound algorithms like Eah (Creative Company for example), adding realism, volumes that take into account the characteristics of the visual environment and corrective relevant They are sound parameters. For example, you go to some horror car along the corridor and the sound corresponds to the characteristics of the reflection from concrete walls, literally walks and touches. Then go out into the large hall and then the reverb changes, the characteristics of the equity, etc. are shifted. etc. It is not as noticeable as visual effects, but in games with a high-quality sound track adds a significant proportion of drama. Specialized game audio photographers process all these effects at the hardware level chips such as EMU10K, EMU20K, etc., freeing the CPU from additional effects. If the game engine does not detect such a device in your PC, it sets a simplified scheme of sound effects, which may not differ in the actual parameters from EAX, and to give it a lot. It is necessary to decide whether it is yourself, although you can withdraw the sound in games h \\ s zk, and music h \\ s external USB DAC, switching in the dispatcher sound devices or right in the software player (some have such an opportunity);

2. Sound quality. Modern top (and expensive) game sound cards (there is another category of professional sound cards such as those produce Lynx, M-Audio, etc.) in principle, on the musical material, they sound at the level of cheap external USB DACs. To some extent, the ASIO drivers are saved, if any, there are sound cards for your model, allowing the audio streams bypassing the Windows software grinder (ASIO4all - software crutch, not solving this problem). As for the output of the sound of h / s Outdated optical interfaces SPDIF (Sonny-Philips interface), Toslink (Tosyb Link), etc., then their most advantage is the limited and completeness of any options. As it were, it would be more correct to describe: "You can buy an advanced food processor with a bunch of lotion and adjustments to use which you need at least an understanding of the process, and you can download everything into one cup and click one button where knives crush your vegetables in some guaranteed mass, But about all kinds of neat "cubes", "straw" you can immediately forget. " In fact, these interfaces are a private connection option that ensures that a digital stream will reach the DAC, and the number of losses along the way will be minimized. This type of connection is used for decades, all possible problems It has long been solved and in general it is easier and cheaper in implementation. With the DAC of the outdated design or in the DAC, where the manufacturer saved on a high-quality USB receiver. This type of connection sometimes shows the best result. But there is very large, but: the speed of these optical interfaces is strongly limited and the speech is not even a DSD or a serious Hayreza (usually the speed is limited 24 bits of 48 kHz). USB connection It has many implementation opportunities, this is the topic to a large separate article, on a PC with Windows OS, requires at least an understanding of the process and some user actions for software configuration of the PC USB interface DAC to ensure the so-called. The quality of the BIT-B-bit transmission (on some DSC, there is even a special indication of confirmation of this transmission mode). An important thing is that a USB receiver is installed in the DAC and the number of "dropments" of digital fragments along the path depends on it. The chip is that it is the audio stream of USB transmitted in an outdated PCM format, in which there are no advanced chips such as data transaction by transaction, transmitting the control sums of data packets, etc., and therefore in this case It makes sense both in high-quality USB receivers and in high-quality cables, ways to implement data transmission (for example, the top motherboards have specialized USB outputs for connecting to an external DAC, in which the power line of the email is +5 volts, and the running signal of the logical signal Zero and units are increased (actually zero and unit in USB differ only with voltage)). As for specifically, the chip of the DAC, then they should pay attention to the very last place! It does not matter worth a cheap Wolfson WM8741 in your device or the top chip from Asahi Casii is important primarily implementation and surroundings, which characterize the final sound of 90%. When they write about the steep DAC and that the "cheap" A issues a miserable ratio of the signal \\ noise 107 dB, and the advanced DAC b gives an increase of 120 dB, it becomes ridiculous because in most digital masters everything that lies below the 40 dB level is simply neutered ! Those. In this area there is no musical information at all. Of course, this does not concern high-quality hayrezov made from analog carriers on high-quality iron straight hands, but such a look needed. Specifically Cambridge CXA80 a decent apparatus sounding in the usual intelligent "British manner" (although it is a misconception, so-called "British sound" is also a lot of different things), implied in general understanding The timbre accuracy, as close as possible to the sound of the original, good spatial characteristics provided by high-quality circuitry, acceptable dynamic and rhythmic indicators. Cambridge and Arcam Funny Universals on "All Times", which may not cause every phonogram of a storm of emotions, but delight from listening will deliver. USB DAC in this amp is built on the WM8740 chip, which is 10-15 years ago was one of the most part and got a lot good reviews (IMHO deserved) by virtue of neutrality, the lack of digital sharpness, and in this amplifier, it is implemented at least in human, and not as a poor relative, whom only for the funeral is invited. Those. In setup based on this amcuscant, it is quite suitable for connecting and adequate to the level of equipment. Want more emotions and drive, smaller versatility - see atoll 100SE stron. It does not have a DAC, nor the phonocorrector, nor the tone regulators, but for its price it is one of the best in the sound of amplifiers in the market. You can search YBA - also excellent devices. Again, there are decent competitors in the face of Rega Elex, Naim 5SI (I would advise Micromega, but the price of them is now just some kind of sick on the whole head). In short, the choice is quite extensive. From "Japs" you can pay attention to a good Denon 1520.