Powermac Intergrated Audio (any Good?) Options

[opiepac]

(This is not a PC vs Mac post, but I will give some intro)

I'm a long time x86 user, having used about 50/50 of windows and linux. I prefer linux, but I'm crazy about trying OSX and want to use it for my home audio recording, photo editing, and eventual video editing. I'm looking at a Power Mac dual 2.0GHz, or something similar if they do update the line, along with Tiger. Now to my question:

Is the integrated audio on the current Power Mac any good? In the PC world, its a mixed bag, intel's integrated audio is horrible, I've heard some of the nVIDIA nForce integrated audio is pretty decent (for integrated audio). I'm curious as to what people think of the stuff on the Power Mac. My initial thoughts are that it might be okay, considering its got optical in/out. Perhaps a description of the rest of my setup may help:

I will be using an M-Audio Firewire Solo for recording, so I can do either two line in's or 1 line in and 1 XLR. This is to be used for my demo's, its not a pro setup for sure. The Solo has digital coax in/out also. Should I use this to hookup to my stereo for monitoring, or should I use the Power Mac optical out?

Eventually, I may be inclined to buy a sound card as an upgrade, I've heard that the PCI-X ones are the way to go. But for now, I'd prefer to limit my purchases to the PowerMac if possible.

Thanks in advance for any help ...

Evan

[coldharbour]

It makes no difference wheter you use the Mac's own optical or Solo's S/PDIF as it's same digital signal that'll be transferred. The important question is where you'll be doing the D/A conversion.

Do you have digital inputs in your monitors or are you planning to use separate converters?

[opiepac]

I didn't even think of that ... I guess it doesn't matter. I'll likely be routing through my home stereo for monitoring.

[coldharbour]

So you're outputting analogue signal from PowerMac - or does your home stereo have optical / S/PDIF digital inputs?

In the end it all depends on how high standards you set. You said you're only doing demos and you're planning to route the signal through your home stereo amplifier - are you using nearfield monitors or consumer hi-fi speakers?

For best results you should ditch your home stereo (unless it has digital in and good quality converters) and have a quality PCI soundcard or external audio interface for analogue outputs, plugged straight into decent active nearfield monitors.

If your budget is tight I'd still recommend on getting external audio hardware for analogue outputs as you can upgrade the rest later and you really want the D/A conversion to be done decently.

EDIT : Just some additional explaining referring to your original question : All audio processing inside your computer is of course done digitally by the software you're using. If you bounce audio digitally into a file the sound quality is just as good as the algorithms your software is using to process it - your soundcard does not have any effect on that. The difference in soundcards is in how good they can interpret the digital signal into the analogue domain - that's why I'm focusing on the point where your D/A conversion is done. Hope this helps a bit.

This post has been edited by coldharbour: Tue 15 Mar 2005, 00:03