The Official Computer Tech Support Thread

[Freebase Dali]

Originally Posted by eric generic

I plan on listening to many 24bit flac releases in the future. I want to keep this card for a long time, so I'm looking for the best bang/buck ratio.

I currently use Sennheiser HD280's(these will be upgraded eventually).

Does using a mono jack converter mess up the quality?

24 bit is fine. There's absolutely no reason to buy a 16 bit audio card for what you want to do. I doubt you'll find many that aren't built in to a mobo as it is, and you certainly won't pay ridiculous amounts of money for what's a standard for most add-on audio cards.
You don't even need to debate the facts... 24bit would be better even if only for the fact that it's a larger number. Nevermind the headroom and dynamic improvements. It's not like you're going to pay ridiculous prices for 24bit anyway. Although it may seem that way if you're stuck in the mid 90's. I assume you're not.

Also, there's absolutely no earthly reason why you'd pay the ridiculous amounts of money for an Apogee (or similarly useless audio card in context with your application) audio card simply for listening to music and playing games. Buy a reasonable device and if it meets your expectations, then you win. A bazillion-dollar audio card is not going to make any noticeable difference to most folks, compared to a standard 24bit gaming sound card being used in the context you'll be using it. And any difference you DO notice will NOT be worth the price tag unless you're one of those mentally OCD audiophile types who has nightmares about bit truncation and only converts files in a sterile laboratory.

Regarding using a mono jack converter... do you mean an adapter that goes from mono to stereo or vice versa?