Sound Cards

As might be expected, your choice of sound card depends on your needs and preferences. If you are into sound mixing or audio editing, you'll need something heavy duty with all the bells and whistles, but otherwise you can get by with just a basic sound card.

Channels and Sound Quality

When choosing a sound card you will encounter a couple of numbers that you should know something about. The number of channels supported refers to the number of separate sounds which can concurrently be played. You'll often hear references to "5.1 audio" which refers to five normal channels (for front and back speaker pairs and a center speaker) plus one low frequency subwoofer channel. Even if you aren't interested in 5.1 audio, I'd still recommend at least four channels of sound. The other number is the number of bits on the sound processor and affects the quality of sound. Depending on your needs, you might get by with 16-bit sound but that technology is fairly dated now; unless you really don't care about sound on your computer I'd suggest getting something with at least 24 bit technology.

Integral Sound

For many people, on-board sound will be sufficient. Many motherboards come equipped with integral sound; if you are on a budget, you might want to try this out for a while; just make sure it's easy to disable in case you decide to install a separate sound card. As long as you have a free PCI slot available most sound cards will be easy to install.

Creative Labs

It's difficult to talk about sound cards without mentioning Creative Labs. This company has a long history of making good reliable sound cards; the best cards currently on the market are made by Creative. Of course, you will be paying top bucks for the top equipment and brand name; I don't recommend getting their most expensive models unless you actually need all those features or money is no object. There are other sound card manufacturers, but reportedly there are often issues with their software drivers; perhaps Creative Labs' position in the market allows them more leverage in this area. In any case, don't take my word for it, do your own research on the subject.

Speakers

If you listen to any music at all on your PC, I definitely recommend getting at least a 3-piece speaker system which includes a subwoofer; I find that a simple left and right speaker setup always sounds tinny in comparison. Five piece surround sound might seem like the ultimate experience, but you have to be pretty serious to make good use of it on a desktop computer instead of on your entertainment system. Whatever speaker setup you decide upon, make sure your soundcard has all the appropriate functionality. It might also be worthwhile to point out that you shouldn't spend big bucks on a state of the art sound card unless you have the speakers to back it up.

Other Sound Card Issues to Consider

If you're getting one of the newest audio cards with all the latest features, make sure your CPU can handle it; if you don't have at least the equivalent of Pentium 4 technology there won't be much point in equipping your system with state of the art components.

Something to consider if you can't make up your mind between audio cards is the bundled software that comes with the card. The latest Creative Labs cards come with a suite of software that can save you a lot of money if you were need the software anyway.

That about does it for our guide on buying a sound card. We've left it purposely non-technical in nature; if you are really into sound on your PC you should research sound cards further to discover more about the various features available if you haven't done so already. If you're getting a sound card, no doubt you want a CDROM drive to play all your favorite music so be sure to check out our next article on CDROMs.