what is sound card

A sound card, also called an audio card, is the most basic component of a computer multimedia system. It is a kind of hardware that realizes the mutual conversion of sound waves/digital signals. The basic function of a sound card is to convert original audio signals from microphones, tapes, and optical discs. The sound signal is converted and output to audio equipment such as headphones, speakers, amplifiers, and tape recorders.

#The operating environment of this article: Windows 7 system, Dell G3 computer.

Sound Card (Sound Card), also called audio card (called sound effect card in Hong Kong and Taiwan), is the most basic component of computer multimedia system. It is a kind of hardware that realizes the mutual conversion of sound waves/digital signals. The basic function of a sound card is to convert original sound signals from microphones, tapes, and compact discs, and output them to sound equipment such as headphones, speakers, amplifiers, and recorders, or to emit the sounds of synthetic instruments through the Music Equipment Digital Interface (MIDI).

Composition

• Digital signal processing chip

Digital signal processing chip can complete various signals Recording and playback tasks, it can also complete many processing tasks, such as audio compression and decompression operations, changing the sampling frequency, interpreting MIDI instructions or symbols, and controlling and coordinating direct memory access (DMA) work.

• A/D and D/A converter

Sound originally appears in the form of analog waveforms and must be converted into digital form before it can be played on the computer used in. To achieve this conversion, the sound card contains an A/D converter that converts analog signals into digital signals so that the data can be stored on disk.

In order to send the sound output signal to speakers or other devices for broadcast, the sound card must use a D/A converter to convert the sound represented in digital form in the computer into an analog signal for broadcast.

• Bus interface chip

The bus interface chip transmits commands and data between the sound card and the system bus.

• Music Synthesizer

The music synthesizer is responsible for synthesizing digital audio waveform data or MIDI messages into sound.

• Mixer

The mixer can mix sound signals from different channels, such as microphone or line input, and CD input. Additionally, the mixer provides users with software-controlled volume.

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