Riches Return

[Mark]

heyhey!
I'd suggest that the "32bit-float" sample depth is perhaps what audacity is
using for calculation or file storage, but *not* what was used for
conversion. The converter itself (a chip on your creative X-fi card)
definitely doesn't run at that bit depth (none do - like i said even 24bits
has higher signal-to-noise ratio than ANY analogue electronics can
manage).. I think it's capable of decent 24bit A/D conversion (looks like
it uses the  Wolfson WM8775 chip which can go up to 24bits and up to 96khz)
so you'd have to find out what it was set to do in your driver settings...
(16 bit or 24bit)

The main thing to watch for with creative cards is I know it still by
default does their strange sample-rate-conversion (ie it runs natively at
48khz and then smushes it around to present a 44.1khz stream to audacity)
that creative always used - it does leave artifacts in the sound, even if
they claim it's 'transparent'.

It can be disabled with that card I believe .... by chosing (I quote from
wikipedia):
"Audio Creation mode" with "bit-matched playback" option, the X-Fi can work
with real 44,100 Hz <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/44,100_Hz> sample rate
without any kind of resampling or other signal processing.
I believe "audio creation mode" would allow other sample rates too..

So that would mean you were sure when you quote 44.1khz that it was
actually that and not creative's silly 48khz-converted-to-44.1 madness.

also I'd turn off whatever other 'crystalizer','3D' or other DSP-based
nonsense they'd have you believe was ace...

sorry if this technical babble seems relentless.. as usual I prescribe a
rennie and a pinch of salt. And by all means ignore this all because the
main thing is to get the tapes heard, everything else is secondary!