Will an external soundcard make much difference?

Thanks Qexi - will check the links and keep trying to improve the sound.

Here's a recording using N2/PT mix. Through the N2 speakers it doesn't sound good, but much better through headphones

https://soundcloud.com/chris-warren-369...de-opus-53

Thank you for the recording Chris, really enjoyed hearing this - a bit of a fav piece - nice touch! Bravo!

I can hear some excellent tones there and some good potential for tweaking - not too bass heavy.

If I can think of one thing off-hand to suggest for immediate gains, maybe just some upper midrange 'bell' maybe competing with both pianos plus some reverb tail catching that phase/wave/wash. If you could EQ some brightness out of the reverb (or one of the pianos) it might go some way to gluing all frequencies a little more and may reveal another step. I'd love to know you're able to get Pianoteq the way you want it.

There are so many ways to do things - Love what David's doing with his setup. Being a stereo speaker person, I live vicariously that dream of using a real piano and kitting it out with speakers and so on - looking forward to hearing the drivers in action David - I imagine it will be quite the thing hearing the whole piano joining in with the speakers

Headphone amplifiers downstream of the DAC of a laptop are often very poor.
A small external DAC (even relatively inexpensive as eg Behringer U-Phoria UMC-204 HD, or equivalent) can significantly improve the quality. Beyond this price, in my opinion, it is better to invest in better headphones than in a better DAC (of course, if it is possible for maximum quality, we must improve both). The problem with audiophile DACs is that they can have relatively high latency (ex 10ms on my Dac Aune S6) I ordered a more responsive DAC, Audient Id14, with mostly low-noise mic preamps for better build spectrum profile of my acoustic pianos), but I had to send it back for a standard exchange that I'm still waiting for. (no opinion yet)

Bruno

I tested a relatively cheap Behringer U-Phoria UMC-202 HD vs the headphone-out of a HP Elitebook. My bandmembers and I were shocked how big the difference is. (The Behringer having much much better soundquality). I guess the soundquality of circuits used in notebooks differ a lot; so you just have to test this.

Agree ++ with Wheat's and Marc's comments here. It's something more on the factual side rather than opinion side to me - yes an external audio unit can improve over a typical PC sound card experience.. I add some reasons below because I understand there will be plenty who will faithfully state what lovelovemale did - and they're not wrong - just they are also not right for a lot of us, possibly even most with PCs running Win or *nix.

You Mac guys - you you... ;0)

It is not a one-size-fits-all type of thing but a high probability there's good cause for anyone wanting better sound to go check out an external audio unit. I estimate OP would benefit.

Most importantly to me is, is whether we helped solve the 'bottle-neck' OP was experiencing (I thought a driver issue sounded like it), I sincerely hope so.

Then only after that, external audio would be the secondary consideration I'd say.

If OP is wanting to consider an external device, 100% yes, given the quality of keyboard used and obvious desire for better sound - and I think there are clear advantages to outboard units, even for many (not all) happy internal card users.

I didn't say "Get an exact unit" - again, not a one size fits all thing - I basically recommended to begin the search and hopefully OP will know himself in short time what to look for - I have faith in that.

Maybe I should point out some reasons an external audio device may be favourable:

1
Save some CPU - the box does some of the processing yeah!. (indispensable)
2
May sound better than many standard laptop sound cards. (yes for me)
3
May be more stable too. (very much so in my case, less crashy doing load heavy things)
4
Allows recording at higher specs (if you choose a device which does this - and not including mention of how Pianoteq can export to high res - maybe you'd like to hear it back at that same resolution and in real time? without waiting to take it to a record label to make a master or without fudging it through your sound card's DAC algo. which can be like dusting it with heart attack levels of sugar or inviting a visiting group of friendly Daleks to mumble and hum in the background of all your recordings).
5
Pro reasons - too many (less-destructive editing and so on)
6
Placebo may be a thing if upgrading for no 'scientific' reason.. but if that's inspiring, then human = happy. I'm OK with that as long as it's not total rip. There are arguably reasons and I'm happy for people to argue those things while I.. Oh, look over here..

Just hoping OP has found some relief

Thanks for the replies.

@Giles:

- I use a roughly equal mix of N2 and PT across both channels
- my sampling rate is set at c. 576 samples - c. 10ms latency, which I think is about right when comparing to an acoustic
- sampling is at 44100Hz
- I have the dynamics slider on full to help compensate for the rather weak effect the una corda pedal has on the native N2 sound

I've copied two links to screenshots showing my PT set-up in case that prompts any ideas:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fasmpb9oxfg2mjm/PT1.JPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wqr2mzja8yg2ejq/PT2.JPG?dl=0