file quality resulting from using internal sound card

old gregg

So here's a question that has troubled me for some time regarding working with audio files .....

As it's the case that listening to an audio file using a computer's internal sound or cheapo external card will not sound as good as when a 'professional' quality interface is used, does the choice of sound card/interface impact on the actual file when it's saved? To put it another way, if I open a studio quality sound file using the regular sound chip on my laptop and then save it, will the resulting file be the same as if I'd carried out the same procedure using my m-audio regular interface?

My reason for asking is that sometimes I open audio field recordings for initial cropping while away from my home studio using the laptop internal sound chip and then bring the files back home to be properly mixed and stuff. Am I losing quality here?

many thanks for considering this little moment of abstraction :-)
regards,
Mick

PaulBrewer

old gregg wrote: »

if I open a studio quality sound file using the regular sound chip on my laptop and then save it, will the resulting file be the same as if I'd carried out the same procedure using my m-audio regular interface?

Good question Mick!

I guess the answer is theoretically yes once you're bouncing internally.

However audio is rarely that simple in my experience!

artvandulet

I believe the answer is No.

If you aren't doing any conversion of formats/re encoding etc then the quality isn't changing. The sound card doesn't matter here, as it is just a device for taking in and out the audio and playing it. It doesn't have an affect on changing the quality of the file played through it as it is not doing the encoding and decoding itself.

jtsuited

old gregg wrote: »

My reason for asking is that sometimes I open audio field recordings for initial cropping while away from my home studio using the laptop internal sound chip and then bring the files back home to be properly mixed and stuff. Am I losing quality here?

nope you won't lose quality at all. once the files are on the inside of the digital domain so to speak, the DAC (soundcard, interface etc) will not effect the file whatsoever.

old gregg

many thanks too all who have cleared this up for me.

I'd recently spent several weeks travelling with a portable recorder and laptop doing natural sound recordings and had found it handy to cut out the bad bits at the end of each day so that when I got back home there would be the good stuff left for playing with.

again thanks folks, muchly appreciated!

Mick

jtsuited

old gregg wrote: »

many thanks too all who have cleared this up for me.

I'd recently spent several weeks travelling with a portable recorder and laptop doing natural sound recordings and had found it handy to cut out the bad bits at the end of each day so that when I got back home there would be the good stuff left for playing with.

again thanks folks, muchly appreciated!

Mick

do you have a mangina old gregg?

old gregg

jtsuited wrote: »

do you have a mangina old gregg?

yes, a bottle of Baileys

jtsuited

old gregg wrote: »

yes, a bottle of Baileys

lol