Generating tones with computer sound card

[Mitch Bradley]

Arjun Sarwal wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I need to do some testing (need sine waves of 50hz, 1khz, 10khz) and I 
> am unable to get hold of a function generator. I was thinking of using 
> my computer (PC) sound card to generate these tones. I am wondering if 
> anybody has done this - so that I may know how clean such tones 
> generated from the computer sound card generally are ?

The output from a computer sound card can be excellent.  16-bit 
synthetic audio, when properly antialias-filtered (which should be done 
automatically by the coded), is fine for all practical purposes that you 
are considering.  However, the actual analog output characteristics of 
specific PCs varies widely.  I have one Dell laptop whose audio output 
quality (from the headphone jack) is abysmal - it is very noisy, 
probably due to crosstalk from digital circuitry and poor layout of the 
analog circuitry.  A Dell desktop PC I used to have had very good audio 
quality.


>
> thanks,
> Arjun
>
> -- 
> Arjun Sarwal <arjun at laptop.org <mailto:arjun at laptop.org>>
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