Sounds belong to the section of phonetics. The study of sounds is included in any school curriculum in the Russian language. Acquaintance with sounds and their main characteristics occurs in the lower grades. A more detailed study of sounds from complex examples and nuances takes place in middle and high school. This page gives only basic knowledge by the sounds of the Russian language in a compressed form. If you need to study the device of the speech apparatus, the tonality of sounds, articulation, acoustic components and other aspects that are beyond the scope of the modern school curriculum, refer to specialized textbooks and textbooks on phonetics.
What is sound?
Sound, like words and sentences, is the basic unit of language. However, the sound does not express any meaning, but reflects the sound of the word. Thanks to this, we distinguish words from each other. Words differ in the number of sounds (port - sport, crow - funnel), a set of sounds (lemon - firth, cat - mouse), a sequence of sounds (nose - dream, bush - knock) up to a complete mismatch of sounds (boat - boat, forest - park).
What sounds are there?
In Russian, sounds are divided into vowels and consonants. There are 33 letters and 42 sounds in Russian: 6 vowels, 36 consonants, 2 letters (ь, ъ) do not indicate a sound. The discrepancy in the number of letters and sounds (not counting b and b) is due to the fact that there are 6 sounds for 10 vowels, 36 sounds for 21 consonants (if we take into account all combinations of consonant sounds deaf / voiced, soft / hard). On the letter, the sound is indicated in square brackets.
There are no sounds: [e], [e], [u], [i], [b], [b], [g '], [w '], [ts '], [th], [h] , [sch].
Scheme 1. Letters and sounds of the Russian language.
How are sounds pronounced?
We pronounce sounds when exhaling (only in the case of the interjection “a-a-a”, expressing fear, the sound is pronounced when inhaling.). The division of sounds into vowels and consonants is related to how a person pronounces them. Vowel sounds are pronounced by the voice due to the exhaled air passing through the tense vocal cords and freely exiting through the mouth. Consonant sounds consist of noise or a combination of voice and noise due to the fact that the exhaled air meets an obstacle in its path in the form of a bow or teeth. Vowel sounds are pronounced loudly, consonant sounds are muffled. A person is able to sing vowel sounds with his voice (exhaled air), raising or lowering the timbre. Consonant sounds cannot be sung, they are pronounced equally muffled. Hard and soft signs do not represent sounds. They cannot be pronounced as an independent sound. When pronouncing a word, they affect the consonant in front of them, make it soft or hard.
Word transcription
Transcription of a word is a record of sounds in a word, that is, in fact, a record of how the word is pronounced correctly. Sounds are enclosed in square brackets. Compare: a - letter, [a] - sound. The softness of consonants is indicated by an apostrophe: p - letter, [p] - hard sound, [p '] - soft sound. Voiced and voiceless consonants are not marked in writing. The transcription of the word is written in square brackets. Examples: door → [dv'er '], thorn → [kal'uch'ka]. Sometimes stress is indicated in transcription - an apostrophe before a vowel stressed sound.
There is no clear juxtaposition of letters and sounds. In the Russian language, there are many cases of substitution of vowel sounds depending on the place of stress of a word, substitution of consonants or dropping out of consonant sounds in certain combinations. When compiling a transcription of a word, the rules of phonetics are taken into account.
Color scheme
In phonetic analysis, words are sometimes drawn with color schemes: letters are painted with different colors depending on what sound they mean. Colors reflect the phonetic characteristics of sounds and help you visualize how a word is pronounced and what sounds it consists of.
All vowels (stressed and unstressed) are marked with a red background. Iotated vowels are marked green-red: green means a soft consonant sound [y ‘], red means the vowel following it. Consonants with solid sounds are colored blue. Consonants with soft sounds are colored green. Soft and hard signs are painted in gray or not painted at all.
Designations:
- vowel, - iotated, - hard consonant, - soft consonant, - soft or hard consonant.
Note. The blue-green color is not used in the schemes for phonetic analysis, since a consonant cannot be both soft and hard at the same time. The blue-green color in the table above is only used to show that the sound can be either soft or hard.
Q: is it worth buying sound card, if in the built-in sound systemYour question should be divided into two categories: hardware and software and the actual sound quality.
there is an optical drive. If the transmission is through optics, there is a difference with
built-in zvukovuhi, or a separate, cool sound card?
1. Software and hardware:
If we are not talking about the built-in AC97 and HDaudio soft codecs, then a sound card in a PC is needed mainly to implement numerous sound algorithms like EAX (Creative, for example), which add realism, volume, take into account the characteristics of the visual environment in real time and correct the corresponding them sound parameters. For example, you are walking in some kind of horror story along the corridor and the sound corresponds to the characteristics of reflection from concrete walls, literally walks and is tangible. Then go out into the big hall and the reverb changes, the EQ characteristics shift, etc. etc. It's not as noticeable as visual effects, but in games with a high-quality soundtrack, it adds a significant amount of drama. Specialized gaming audio cards process all these effects at the hardware level with chips like EMU10K, EMU20K, etc., freeing the CPU from additional effects calculations. If a game engine does not detect such a device in your PC, it exposes a simplified sound effects scheme, which may not differ in actual parameters from EAX, or be inferior to it. It is up to you to decide whether it is necessary, although you can output sound in games through the ZK, and music through an external USB DAC by switching in the sound device manager or directly in the software player (some have this option);
2. Sound quality. Modern top-end (and expensive) GAMING sound cards (there is also a category of professional sound cards like those produced by LYNX, M-AUDIO, etc.) in principle sound at the level of cheap music material external USB DACs. To some extent, they are saved by ASIO drivers, if there are any for your sound card model, which allow the audio stream to bypass the Windows software meat grinder (Asio4all is a software crutch that does not solve this problem). As for the sound output through the outdated optical interfaces SPDIF (sonny-philips interface), TOSLINK (Toshiba link), etc., their only advantage is the limitedness and completeness of any options. How would it be more correct to describe it: "You can buy an advanced food processor with a bunch of lotions and adjustments that require at least an understanding of the process to use, or you can load everything into one cup and press one button, where the knives will shred your vegetables into some guaranteed mass, but you can immediately forget about any neat "cubes", "straws". In fact, these interfaces are a condom connection option, which guarantees that the digital stream will reach the DAC, and the amount of losses "along the way" will be minimized. This type of connection has been used for decades, all possible problems have been resolved for a long time and in general it is easier and cheaper to implement. With an outdated DAC or in a DAC where the manufacturer saved on a quality USB receiver, this type of connection sometimes shows best result. But there is a very big BUT: the speed of these optical interfaces is very limited and you can’t even talk about any DSD or serious high-res (usually the speed is limited to 24 bit 48 kHz). USB connection has many implementation possibilities, this is a topic for a large separate article, on a Windows PC it requires at least an understanding of the process and some user actions to software setting PC-USB DAC interface to provide the so-called. bit-to-bit transmission quality (some DACs even have a special indication of confirmation that this transfer mode has been reached). It is also important which USB receiver is installed in the DAC, and the number of "losses" of digital fragments along the way depends on it. The trick is that it is the USB audio stream that is transmitted in the outdated PCM format, which completely lacks such advanced features as data transfer by transaction, transfer of checksums of data packets, etc., and therefore in this case it makes sense as in high-quality USB receivers, as well as high-quality cables, methods for implementing data transfer (for example, top-end motherboards have specialized USB outputs for connecting to external DACs, in which the +5 Volt power supply line is OFF, and the signal range of the logical zero and one is increased (in fact, zero and one in USB differ only in voltage)). As for the DAC chips specifically, you should pay attention to them at the very least! It doesn't matter if your device has a cheap wolfson WM8741 or a top-end microchip from Asahi Kasei, the implementation and the environment are important first of all, which characterize the final sound by 90%. When they write about cool DACs and that "cheap" A produces a miserable signal-to-noise ratio of 107 dB, and advanced DAC B produces as much as 120 dB, it becomes ridiculous, because in most digital masters everything that lies below the level of 40 dB is simply castrated ! Those. there is no musical information at all in this area. Of course, this does not apply to high-quality high-res made from analog media on high-quality hardware with direct hands, but you still need to look for such ones. Specifically, the Cambridge CXA80 is a worthy device that sounds in the usual intelligent "British manner" (although this is a delusion and the so-called "British sound" is also a lot and very different), implying in general understanding timbre accuracy, as close as possible to the sound of the original, good spatial characteristics , provided by high-quality circuitry, acceptable dynamic and rhythmic performance. Cambridge and Arcam are some kind of all-rounders for "all times", which may not cause a storm of emotions with each phonogram, but they will deliver pleasure from listening. The USB DAC in this amp is built on the WM8740 chip, which was one of the most popular 10-15 years ago and received a lot of good reviews(IMHO well-deserved) due to neutrality, lack of digital sharpness, besides, in this amplifier it is implemented at least humanly, and not as a poor relative who is only invited to a funeral. Those. in a setup based on this amp, it is quite suitable for connection and adequate to the level of equipment. If you want more emotions and drive, less versatility - look in the direction of Atoll 100SE. It has no DAC, no phono stage, no tone controls, but for the price it's one of the best-sounding amplifiers on the market. You can look for YBA - also excellent devices. Again, there are worthy competitors in the face of Rega Elex, Naim 5si (I would advise Micromega, but the price for them now is just kind of sick in the head). In short, the choice is quite extensive. From the "Japs" you can pay attention to a good Denon 1520.
There was a time when the question of the need for a sound card did not arise at all. If you need a sound in your computer that is a little better than the grunting of a speaker in the case, buy a sound card. Don't need it - don't buy it. True, the cards were quite expensive, especially while they were made for the prehistoric port of ISA.
With the transition to PCI, it became possible to shift part of the calculations to CPU and also use RAM for storing music samples (in ancient times, not only professional musicians, but also normal people had such a need, because the most popular music format on computers 20 years ago was MIDI). So soon sound cards entry level prices fell a lot, and then the built-in sound appeared in top-end motherboards. Poor, of course, but free. And this dealt a severe blow to sound card manufacturers.
Today, built-in sound is absolutely in all motherboards. And in expensive ones, it is even positioned as high-quality. That's right Hi-Fi. But in fact, unfortunately, this is far from the case. Last year I collected new computer, where I put one of the most expensive and objectively the best motherboards. And, of course, they promised high-quality sound on discrete chips, and even with gold-plated connectors. They wrote so deliciously that I decided not to install a sound card, to get by with the built-in one. And got around. About a week. Then I dismantled the case, put the card in and didn’t do any more nonsense.
Why is the built-in audio not very good?
First, the question of price. A decent sound card costs 5-6 thousand rubles. And it's not the greed of manufacturers, it's just that the components are not cheap, and the requirements for assembly quality are high. A serious motherboard costs 15-20 thousand rubles. Is the manufacturer ready to add another three thousand, at least? Won't the user get scared if they don't have time to evaluate the sound quality? It's better not to risk it. And they don't take risks.
Secondly, for really high-quality sound, without extraneous noise, interference and distortion, the components must be at a known distance from each other. If you look at the sound card, you will see how unusually many free space. And on motherboard it is short, everything has to be put very tightly. And, alas, there is simply nowhere to do it really well.
Twenty years ago, consumer sound cards were more expensive than any other computer, and they had memory slots (!) for storing music samples. In the photo, the dream of all computer scientists of the mid-nineties - sound blaster AWE 32. 32 is not a bit depth, but maximum amount simultaneously playing streams in MIDI
Therefore, integrated sound is always a compromise. I have seen boards with built-in sound, which, in fact, hovered on top in the form of a separate platform connected to the “mother” only by a connector. And yes, it sounded good. But can such sound be called integrated? Not sure.
A reader who has not tried discrete sound solutions may have a question - what, in fact, does “good sound in a computer” mean?
1) He's outrageously louder. An amplifier is built into the sound card of even a budget level, capable of “pumping” even large speakers or high-impedance headphones. Many are surprised that the speakers at the maximum cease to wheeze and choke. This is also a side effect of a normal amplifier.
2) Frequencies complement each other, and do not mix, turning into a mess. A normal digital-to-analog converter (DAC) “draws” basses, mids and highs well, allowing you to very accurately tune them with the help of software to your own taste. When listening to music, you suddenly hear each instrument separately. And films will delight with the effect of presence. In general, the impression is as if the speakers used to be covered with a thick blanket, and then it was removed.
3) The difference is especially noticeable in games.. You will be surprised that the noise of the wind and the dripping of water do not drown out the quiet steps of rivals around the corner. That in headphones, not necessarily expensive, there is an understanding - who, from where and at what distance is moving. This directly affects performance. Sneaking up / driving up on the sly to you simply will not work.
What sound cards are there?
When this type of components became of interest only to connoisseurs of good sound, of which, unfortunately, there are very few, there were very few manufacturers left. Only two - Asus and Creative. The latter is generally a mastodon of the market, who created it and set all the standards. Asus, on the other hand, entered it relatively late, but still does not leave it.
New models come out extremely rarely, and old ones are sold for a long time, for 5-6 years. The fact is that in terms of sound there is nothing you can improve without a radical increase in price. And few people are ready to pay for audiophile perversions in the computer. I would say no one is ready. The bar for quality is already set too high.
The first difference is the interface. There are cards that are only for desktop computers, and they are installed in the motherboard through PCI-Express interface. Others connect via USB and can be used with both big computers as well as laptops. In the latter, by the way, the sound is disgusting in 90% of cases, and an upgrade certainly won’t hurt him.
The second difference is the price. If we're talking about internal maps, then for 2-2.5 thousand models are sold that are almost identical to the built-in sound. They are usually bought in cases where the connector has died on the motherboard (a phenomenon, alas, is common). An unpleasant feature of cheap cards is their low resistance to pickups. If you put them close to the video card, the background sounds will be very annoying.
The golden mean for built-in cards - 5-6 thousand rubles. It already has everything to please a normal person: interference protection, high-quality components and flexible software.
Per 8-10 thousand the latest models are sold that are capable of reproducing 32-bit sound in the 384 kHz range. This is right here top top. If you know where to get files and games in this quality, by all means buy :)
Even more expensive sound cards differ little in hardware from the already mentioned options, but they get an additional body kit - external modules for connecting devices, companion boards with outputs for professional sound recording, etc. Here it depends on real needs user. Personally, the body kit has never been useful to me, although it seemed to be needed in the store.
For USB cards, the price range is about the same: from 2 thousand alternative to built-in sound, 5-7 thousand strong middle peasants, 8-10 high end and beyond that, everything is the same, but with a rich body kit.
Personally, I stop hearing the difference in the golden mean. Just because cooler solutions require high-end speakers with headphones, and I honestly don’t see much point in playing World of Tanks with thousand-dollar headphones. There are probably solutions for every problem.
Several good choices
Several sound cards and adapters that I tried and liked.
PCI-Express Interface
Creative Sound Blaster Z. Sold for 6 years, I have in different computers costs about the same, and is still very pleased. The CS4398 DAC used in this product is old, but audiophiles compare its sound to $500 range CD players. average price 5500 rubles.
Asus Strix Soar. If in the Creative product everything is shamelessly geared towards games, then Asus has taken care of music lovers as well. The ESS SABRE9006A DAC is comparable in sound to the CS4398, but Asus offers more fine tuning options for those who like to listen to "Pink Floyd" in HD quality on a computer. The price is comparable, about 5500 rubles.
USB interface
Asus Xonar U3- a small box, being inserted into the laptop port, takes the sound quality in it to a new level. Despite the compact dimensions, there was even a place for a digital output. And the software is surprisingly flexible. An interesting option to try - why do you need a sound card at all. The price is 2000 rubles.
Creative Sound BlasterX G5. A device the size of a pack of cigarettes (smoking is evil) is almost indistinguishable from the internal Sound Blaster Z in terms of characteristics, but you don’t have to climb anywhere, just plug the plug into the USB port. And immediately you get a seven-channel sound of impeccable quality, all sorts of gadgets for music and games, as well as a built-in USB port just in case you don't have enough. The presence of space allowed us to add an additional headphone amplifier, and once you hear it in action, it's hard to wean. The main functions of the software are duplicated by hardware buttons. The issue price is 10 thousand rubles.
Play and listen to music with pleasure! Not so many of them, these pleasures.
If we talk about objective parameters that can characterize quality, then of course not. Recording to vinyl or cassette always involves the introduction of additional distortion and noise. But the fact is that such distortions and noise do not subjectively spoil the impression of music, and often even vice versa. Our hearing and the sound analysis system work quite complicated, what is important for our perception, and what can be assessed as quality from the technical side, are slightly different things.
MP3 is generally a separate issue, it is a clear deterioration in quality in order to reduce the file size. MP3 encoding involves the removal of quieter harmonics and blurring of the fronts, which means a loss of detail, "blurring" of the sound.
The ideal option in terms of quality and honest transmission of everything that happens is a digital recording without compression, and the quality of a CD is 16 bits, 44100 Hz - this is no longer the limit, you can increase both the bit rate - 24, 32 bits, and the frequency - 48000, 82200, 96000, 192000 Hz. The bit depth affects the dynamic range, and the sampling rate affects the frequency range. Given that the human ear hears at best up to 20,000 Hz and, according to the Nyquist theorem, a sampling rate of 44,100 Hz should be enough, but in reality, for sufficiently accurate transmission of complex short sounds, such as drum sounds, it is better to have a larger frequency. It is also better to have a larger dynamic range so that more can be recorded without distortion. quiet sounds. Although realistically, the more these two parameters increase, the less changes can be noticed.
At the same time, you can appreciate all the delights of high-quality digital sound if you have a good sound card. What's built into most PCs is generally terrible, Macs with built-in cards are better, but it's better to have something external. Well, the question is, of course, where do you get these digital recordings with a quality higher than CD :) Although the worst MP3 on a good sound card will sound noticeably better.
Returning to analog things, here we can say that people continue to use them not because they are really better and more accurate, but because high-quality and accurate recording without distortion is usually not the desired result. Digital distortion, which can come from poor audio processing algorithms, low bit or sample rate, digital clipping - they certainly sound much nastier than analog ones, but they can be avoided. And it turns out that a really high-quality and accurate digital recording sounds too sterile, there is not enough saturation. And if, for example, you record drums on a tape, this saturation appears and is preserved, even if this recording is later digitized. And vinyl also sounds cooler, even if tracks made entirely on a computer were recorded on it. And of course, external attributes and associations are invested in all this, the way it all looks, the emotions of the people who do it. It is quite possible to understand the desire to hold a record in your hands, to listen to a cassette on an old tape recorder, and not a recording from a computer, or to understand those who now use multi-track tape recorders in studios, although this is much more complicated and costly. But this has its own specific fun.
Before you suspect a broken sound card on your computer, carefully inspect the existing PC connectors for external damage. You should also check the performance of the subwoofer with speakers or headphones through which sound is played - try connecting them to any other device. Perhaps the cause of the problem lies precisely in the equipment you are using.
It is likely that reinstalling the operating system will help in your situation. Windows systems, be it 7, 8, 10 or the Xp version, as the necessary settings could simply go wrong.
Let's move on to checking the sound card
Method 1
The first step is to deal with the device drivers. For this you need:
After that, the drivers will be updated and the problem will be solved.
This procedure can also be carried out if current version software on the removable media. In this situation, you need to install by specifying the path to a specific folder.
If the audio card is not in the device manager at all, then go to the next option.
Method 2
In this case, a complete diagnosis is required for its correct technical connection. You need to do the following in a specific order:
Please note that this option is only suitable for discrete components that are installed as a separate board.
Method 3
If after visual inspection and checking the speakers or headphones, they turned out to be in working order, and reinstalling the OS did not bring any results, we move on:
After the sound card test is completed, the system will inform you about its status and if it is in out of order, you will understand this based on the results.
Method 4
Another option is how to quickly and easily check a sound card on Windows OS:
Thus, we will start diagnosing sound problems on the computer.
The program will offer you several options for problems, and also indicate the connected audio devices. If , the diagnostic wizard will allow you to quickly identify it.
Method 5
The third option, how you can check if the sound card is working, is the following:
In the tab "Driver" and "Details" you will receive additional data on the parameters of all devices installed on your PC, both integrated and discrete. Also, this method allows you to diagnose problems and quickly identify them through software verification.
Now you know how to quickly and easily check your sound card in several ways. Their main advantage is that for this you do not need online access to the Internet, and all procedures can be carried out on your own, without contacting a specialized service.