[ANNOUNCE] New Mixer Handling in PA 0.9.16/F12

[Matthew Woehlke]

Doug Ledford wrote:
> Every system I build still keeps the analog signal cable between the
> CD/DVD and the soundcard. This doesn't help if I try to watch a movie
> as that signal has to be decoded and then played, but for audio CDs
> it is still a perfectly acceptable means of playing the music. So I'm
> not sure where this "CD in is obsolete" comes from. Even the
> motherboard I bought about 2 months ago still has a CD in port and
> the CD/DVD in that machine still has an analog output.

CD is digital and can be read in digital format by your CPU and sent in 
digital to the sound device. This is lossless.

You want to:
(D->A) do the DAC in the CD drive
(A) toss that on an analog wire
(A/A->D->A) apply an analog volume adjustment (if you're lucky; you 
might actually end up doing a ADC, digital volume adjustment, DAC)
(A/A->D) toss that on a different wire that might be digital
(A/D->A) hear it from your speakers

You could:
(D) read the CD digital data
(D) toss said data to the sound device (losslessly!)
(D/D->A) apply a digital volume adjustment (or maybe analog volume 
adjustment after DAC)
(D/D->A) send that, maybe digitally, to your speakers
(A/D->A) hear it from your speakers

What exactly is better about the first scenario? At *best* you're moving 
the analog signal across a longer run of wire (and one that is inside 
your computer case with who-knows-what shielding picking up 
who-knows-what interference). At worst you've tossed several analog 
elements into a process that could have been digital from disc to 
speaker cones.

Seriously... do I miss something?

-- 
Matthew
Please do not quote my e-mail address unobfuscated in message bodies.
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