On 4/16/23 06:42, Rich Shepard wrote: > The audio voice output quality from my Asus Prime X470-Pro is distorted and > unacceptable. I finally figured out that this is the issue with online > meetings and news/youtube videos, not the speakers (although I just replaced > the Creative Pebbles with ProSonus studio monitors). ... > > Please provide recommendations for an add-in PCIe audio card that outputs > clear voice as well as music to speakers and headphones/headsets. >
Rich, Most of the Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy series are well supported with high quality. You go have to check and pick the card by chipset and not by price as there are various gaps in some functionality in the myriad of available models. https://alsa-project.org/wiki/Matrix:Vendor-Creative_Labs (Alas, this list is not up to date.) Slackware-15.0 uses ALSA 1.25 and allows for replacing pulseausio with pipewire. Highly recommended. PA literally sucks donkey balls. In Slackware-15.0 use: /usr/sbin/pipewire-enable.sh /usr/sbin/pipewire-disable.sh 2 years back I upgraded my motherboard sound (AMD Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller) and switched to the Core3D chipset on the CL Soundblaster Z ($99.99 in 2021). The new motherboard did have only old timey PCI slots so I was not able to recycle the nice SB Audigy 2 card I was using. https://www.newegg.com/creative-sound-blaster-z/p/N82E16829102048?Item=N82E16829102048 The newer version is https://www.newegg.com/creative-sound-blaster-z-se/p/N82E16829102110 audio quality is excellent. The catch with Core3D is that you need a newer kernel that the one Slackware-14.2 ships with 4.4.x). IIRC, Core3D support hit around kernel-4.18+ I paired this with a Beyerdynamic headset (gaming version, there are others) - cat ate through the cord of a middling Turtle Beach headset. https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16826380033?Item=N82E16826380033 I usually skip trying to set stuff in the PA mixer GUI, other than to disable the webcam audio and GPU's HDMI audio. Alsamixer suffices, and Slackbuilds.org has a equalizer plugin. -Ed
