The Sound Card
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For playing and editing music, whether from CD ROM or files like MP3's,
a computer must have a sound card.
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Sound cards differ depending on how many bits the sound stream they can
handle is broad. Thumb rule: The more bits, the better performance (and
the more expensive, of course). An 8 Bit sound card, for instance, will
play only mono, whereas with 128 Bit technology you can compose a
symphony and listen to the result with stereo and dolby surround.
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Sound cards must use a system bus for data transmission from and
to the CPU. The following solutions are common:
- ISA bus
This solution is cheap and suffices for almost everyone.
Of course the mainboard must have a free ISA slot; have a look at
that before you buy an ISA sound card.
- PCI bus
PCI is the more modern solution and an option for those computers
that have no more free ISA slots on the motherboard.
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