I don't care if I can look at it. I just want to know if it will run Watch_Dogs on ultra at 60 fps.

And the Bible said it was OK to stone adulterers and that you shouldn't eat shellfish or touch your wife while she's menstruating.

Read the Gospel;

Which one? The ones that the Council of Nicea approved? Or the older ones or the ones Luther approved?

See that's the problem with religion: It's made by men and yet is supposed to be above the review of men.

Typo -- above should read: Martin Luther removed them from his Bible, and also wanted to remove a few other books as well --- James, for example.

So, you've proven my point. The Journal of Vibration and Control caught some improperly refereed articles and retracted them within four years. A system that works.

It took a millennium and a half for the reformation to try to straighten out Scripture. Except, with the Journal, it's an open process that is open for the involvement of the scientific community. With the Bible, it's a handful of people making changes because God told them to.

Science is a self-correcting system that has worked very well since before the first words of the Pentatuch were laid down by a handful of people pulling it out of their ass.

So which would you use to inform your life and society? If you said, "The Bible", then even God thinks you're a moron. Because, way before there was scripture, there was man's ability to reason.

both those declared 'canonical' by the Imperial Roman authorities

So, the Imperial Roman authorities were sort of like the editors of the Journal of Vibration and Control, except they're a lot less likely to admit and correct error.

(a Mac is a PC too, BTW).

It is now.

No, that's not what I'm saying. Not just recording. If you're trying to mix audio using the onboard audio chip on a PC, you're not going to get good results. It would mean you're plugging a set of headphones into a mini-stereo plug. If you're trying to mix even eight tracks from a DAW, unless you're just just remixing audio samples of already created music (which is fine by the way) you still have to have some way to input the music.

The problem is not the computer's ability to handle the audio data. The problem is the monitoring and if you're inputting control data via MIDI controllers. The audio hardware on a PC is just not able to handle it without horrible lag. You'll end up listening to what your fingers just played a second ago. Try and see what you're Macbook pro's audio subsystem is going to do with 40+ tracks of Kontakt samples in real time.

Why is this hard to understand? You can get pro-quality USB outboard audio for less than $100. You're already going to need some outboard gear (speakers, headphones, midi controllers and control surfaces), why are you freaking over a little 24-bit/96kHz audio interface that can be had for less than the price of your headphones?

Next you're going to tell me that you can create professional music on an iPad without external hardware.

Nobody ever wants to go on strike, any more than employers want a lockout. It's the nuclear option, used as a last resort.

Publisher SAGE announced it was retracting 60 papers from 2010–2014 in the Journal of Vibration and Control, which covers acoustics, all connected to Peter Chen of National Pingtung University of Education, Taiwan.

You will note from the article, that the papers with questionable provenance were retracted in a public way.

What was the last time there was a retraction of inaccurate or harmful material from the Bible?

I know more than one producer who uses plain old audio. Most music software has a "Render to audio file" feature that bypasses the audio subsystem completely.

And how would someone producing music that "bypasses the audio subsystem completely" know what music he's making if he cannot hear it? If someone told you that they produce professional-quality music using only the onboard audio hardware on their Mac or PC, they must think you are very gullible.

I believe you're mistaken. If you can point me to one professional music producer who uses only the onboard audio on his PC or Mac, I will refrain from calling you stupid.

finish off that bottle of Wild Turkey

Wild Turkey...please. Who's gonna drink that swill when I've got a few quarts of homemade slivovitza under my sink? That way, besides the buzz, I get all the vitamins and minerals from the plums. And, in a pinch, I can run my 1973 Mercedes diesel on the stuff.

If you were a real "thoughtful admirer" of Nikola Tesla, you'd know that. Hmph.

I have a Yugoslavian one hundred billion dinar note from when there was hyperinflation in that country a few decades ago. It's got a nice picture of Tesla on the front.

His birthday is also the same as my wife's.

I'm posting this comment apropos of nothing. But Tesla was one bad ass. And was so cool that David Bowie played him in a movie. And I have no evidence of this, but I'm pretty sure that the huge explosion in Tunguska back in 1908 was caused by Tesla trying to build a time machine. Or something. Here, go read it yourself. I have the day off tomorrow, so I'm already half in the bag. Catch me in an hour or so, and I'll tell you my theory about Tesla actually being the immortal Count of St. Germain, who still lives today developing Android apps and smoking DMT.

http://www.teslasociety.com/tu...

No, not if you are a consumer of sound.

If you are a creator of sound, or music, then discrete audio hardware is a must. But you all knew that already. You cannot create music on the audio hardware that comes onboard a PC or Mac.

It is easy to make good DACs these days. Basically any DAC, barring a messed up implementation, is likely to sound sonically transparent to any other in a normal system. When you look at the other limiting factors (amp, noise in the room, speaker response, room reflections, etc) you find that their noise and distortion are just way below audibility. Ya, maybe if you have a really nice setup with a quiet treated room, good amps, and have it set for reference (105dB peak) levels you start to need something better than normal, but that isn't very common. Even then you usually don't have to go that high up the chain to get something where again the DAC is way better than other components.

Now that said, there can be a reason to get a soundcard given certain uses. For example you don't always want to go to an external unit, maybe you use headphones. In that case, having a good headphone amp matters and onboard sound is often remiss in that respect (then again, so are some soundcards). Also even if you do use an external setup, you might wish to have the soundcard do processing of some kind. Not so useful these days, but some games like to have hardware accelerated OpenAL.

Regardless, not a big deal in most cases. Certainly not the first thing to spend money on. If you have $50 speakers, don't go and buy a $100 soundcard. If you have a $5000 setup, ok maybe a soundcard could be useful, but only in certain circumstances.

As a side note, the noise in a PC isn't a big issue. Properly grounding/shielding the card deals with it. A simple example is the professional LynxTWO, which is all internal yet has top notch specs, even by today's standards. http://audio.rightmark.org/tes...