I am using a 12'' PB 1.5 Ghz G4. I was wondering what kind of sound card came with my computer. It must be whatever was stock.
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what kind of sound card do I have?
- Thread starter umdjb
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Not a card per se. The sound circuitry is integrated onto the logic board, and drivers are built into OS X so you don't particularly have a need to know anything about it.
It is at least 16-bit, 44.1 KHz audio, but I can't seem to find more information about the A/D D/A specs.
Apple Specs
# Audio line in (minijack) (12- and 15-inch models)
# Headphone out (minijack) (12- and 15-inch models)
It is at least 16-bit, 44.1 KHz audio, but I can't seem to find more information about the A/D D/A specs.
Apple Specs
# Audio line in (minijack) (12- and 15-inch models)
# Headphone out (minijack) (12- and 15-inch models)
I am not 100% percent positive about this but I do not think that any Macs have a dedicated soundcards. All the sound processing is done virtually. However, please don't quote me on this, as I am not sure. Do you mind me asking why you need this information for anyway?
Thanks!
I am overwhelmed by the amount of responses in such short time. I was asking for this information because I wanted to run a quality comparison against PCs and see what type of products Apple is putting their machines.
How does the sound circuitry built into the logic board work, and why does Apple do it that way? I feel like Apple tries to cut corners in some aspects and still put a premium on their machines because of the software, when the hardware may be second rate or similar to a less expensive PC.
I am overwhelmed by the amount of responses in such short time. I was asking for this information because I wanted to run a quality comparison against PCs and see what type of products Apple is putting their machines.
How does the sound circuitry built into the logic board work, and why does Apple do it that way? I feel like Apple tries to cut corners in some aspects and still put a premium on their machines because of the software, when the hardware may be second rate or similar to a less expensive PC.
umdjb said:
Most, if not all laptops just have a chip on the motherboard for audio processing. How else do you want it done? There's no room, or need for a separate board with the chip on it. Even dedicated video cards in laptops are nothing more than the GPU and dedicated RAM soldered onto the mobo.
EDIT: ****, if you wanna get technical, as far as quality and speed are concerned, most processing is still done thru the CPU. Even PCI cards on desktop PCs still hand off all DSP decoding to the CPU. In addition to that, all games nowdays use proprietary DSP that wouldn't use any hardware **** on the sound card even it was there. So quit talking **** about Apple's hardware till you actually leard something about computers.
I think it can also run a optical out, when you buy the converter.
EDIT: It looks like only the 15" can run optical out. Correct me if i am wrong.
EDIT: It looks like only the 15" can run optical out. Correct me if i am wrong.
In that series of machines, only the 17" had the optical in and out. The 12" and 15" had to wait until the final rev to get optical.trainguy77 said:I think it can also run a optical out, when you buy the converter.
EDIT: It looks like only the 15" can run optical out. Correct me if i am wrong.
Macs have always had (good) sound. PCs originally didn't have sound, so sound cards were necessary. I think that legacy has really sort of continued on. However, a lot of PCs come with integrated sound now too. There are dedicated, powerful sound-cards available for Macs however. Mainly they'd be used in the Power Macs which have PCI slots and often get used by professional musicians/audio engineers.
There are USB and Firewire sound devices available as well.
There are USB and Firewire sound devices available as well.
Correct, but you can add one.*Y* said:
EchoAudio and others make sound cards that will work with Macs. Pretty much at this end, they are break-out boxes with pre-amps, amps, and processors. Similar Firewire and USB break-out/processing boxes are equivalent to "sound cards". A good external sound processor, like a dedicated video card, can slave off processing power from your computer. Most people don't understand how much processing power it takes to work with audio, especially multi-track audio.
I have a particular like for Echo Audio's equipment. Their engineers are willing to answer questions, give tours, and even let you play a little foozzball on their table. Of all of the sound card's I have ever worked with, their's have the lowest noise floor. I also like that years before it was common place, they used the combined XLR+1/4" plugs to save space.
Welll erm... what, exactly, are you talking about???*Y* said:I think it has something to do with the Apple Vs. Apple settlement back in the day.
umdjb said:
umm almost all the computers out there do not have deticated sound cards. Even the high end models rarely come with them be default. they are almost always an extra add in.
Most computer run of ingrated sound cards. It not very offen some one needs the extra power that a deticated sound card would provided. Sound is very very light on a computer and it never really get heavy enough ot demand more. And with a modern system there is so much extra overhead in ram and CPU power it not going to effect it any way.
basicly no one really puts deticated sounds cards in there system by default. I dont know of any laptop that runs with one. All the ones I see run on intgrated. Most custom buildings just use the one on the mobo and are very find with it. Unless you have a speaker system to use why waste the money. Heck the integrated one in my PC can do 5.1 sound if I wanted to.