[Meat Miracle]

One of the few things that current soundcards are worth for is professional recording, I'm not denying that. But not too many people need that as a requirement. That includes hobbyists who think they do.

To me, one of the charms of my Megadrive is in fact the analog noise, which makes it sound better than the ear bleeding cleanness of emulators - this cannot be replicated easily, since it also changes from machine to machine. Plenty of others think the same for other systems too, you should check the elaborate setups the C64 scene made for getting the analog filter right for the SID chip, on a per-machine basis.

Many consoles from SNES and above (including the Dreamcast) process all audio digitally with a DAC tucked on, you can mod them to output SPDIF digital audio straight through coax or optical. I'd first go for recording from that instead of analog with a high-end soundcard.

[Sik]

Since this topic has completely missed the point of the OP (which was to just get a sound card that was as good or better as the one he had), I may as well argue from the viewpoint of an extreme audiophile.

Chibisteven, on 05 November 2011 - 05:41 AM, said:

Let me ask you this? If you had a small room to work in and need professional recording and didn't mind shelling $200-$1,000 for such a card and getting adapters just to rip from a Genesis, would you do it? Considering you would good analog-to-digital equipment if you were to rip from real Genesis hardware. And no crappy compress to lossy format from emulator don't count. Get used to 2 seperate 1/4' TSL connectors for both left and right.

First of all you'd need to probably rip open the console, and then look for the connectors where the YM2612 and PSG signals are output, and record them separately, since there's a huge quality loss when those signals get mixed. And then you'd need to find out a way to level them appropriately. This is what CCAM attempts to fix, but even that will introduce a small SNR since, well, analog components aren't perfect, so if you're that anal you'll have to record the two chips separately.

Meat Miracle, on 05 November 2011 - 06:13 PM, said:

If your goal is recording, pretty much any random soundcard can do that equally fine... I did 16bit 96khz recordings from my Megadrive in the past using onboard audio (ALC889a), with a standard 1/8 jack from the megadrive headphone out. Not terribly high-grade equipment, but not much more is needed to record from a Megadrive, considering that it was a noisy model 1 machine.

Assuming that you were to record straight from the chips and not the noisy crap coming from the mixing I mentioned before, 96 KHz actually would be bad. The YM2612 sample rate is around 53 KHz. 96 KHz is around 1.8 times that. Guess how much noise are you adding? If you're an extreme audiophile then 96 KHz is crap.

Meat Miracle, on 05 November 2011 - 10:19 PM, said:

To me, one of the charms of my Megadrive is in fact the analog noise, which makes it sound better than the ear bleeding cleanness of emulators

An audiophile would be in the opposite extreme. That's why CCAM exists.

Meat Miracle, on 05 November 2011 - 10:19 PM, said:

Plenty of others think the same for other systems too, you should check the elaborate setups the C64 scene made for getting the analog filter right for the SID chip, on a per-machine basis.

The biggest issue with the 6581 SID chip (C64) is that it needs analog noise to be emulated properly. The SID has absolutely no means to do any sort of sample playback, the only reason that trick works is because the mask suffers so much from analog noise that the signal is severely affected by what the other parts of the circuit are doing. The 8580 SID (C128) doesn't suffer so much from analog noise, but that also breaks the trick that allowed sample playback.

Also I guess I may as well leave this here:
http://www.gamasutra...ot_Speakers.php

Audio monitors (that's how professionals call speakers) cost thousands of dollars, and unlike consumer products, they try to be as balanced as possible (no woofer, treble, equalizer, etc.). Then again, if you're a professional rather than just an audiophile, you probably want a dedicated room where everything is placed in the right position since that affects the sound.

[Chibisteven]

I don't know if this has been said before... I'm big on dynamic range. Older commerical releases seam to keep it, where newer ones lack it. My chief complaint with the Sonic 1&2 Soundtrack is everything that was re-released is 25% louder than older releases notably Sweet Sweet Sweet when the volume of the two newer versions could have been reduced a little to compensate. And the Mega Drive recordings are overprocessed from a model 2 that had crackling problems in the sound, like hearing the clearity of the snare is reduced a little from being compressed then it crackling that happens in the shitter models or units that need a recap. I know it's mastering. There's just too many crappy consumer devices on the market that lack a decent volume control and this is just an excuse to let that happen.