Sounds belong to the section of phonetics. The study of sounds is included in any school curriculum in the Russian language. Familiarization with sounds and their basic characteristics occurs in the lower grades. A more detailed study of sounds with complex examples and nuances takes place in middle and high school. This page provides only basic knowledge according to the sounds of the Russian language in a compressed form. If you need to study the structure of the speech apparatus, the tonality of sounds, articulation, acoustic components and other aspects that go beyond the modern school curriculum, refer to specialized manuals 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 - estuary, cat - mouse), a sequence of sounds (nose - sleep, bush - knock) up to complete mismatch of sounds (boat - speedboat, forest - park).
What sounds are there?
In Russian, sounds are divided into vowels and consonants. The Russian language has 33 letters and 42 sounds: 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 caused by the fact that for 10 vowel letters there are 6 sounds, for 21 consonant letters there are 36 sounds (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], [yu], [ya], [b], [b], [zh'], [sh'], [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 exhaled air passing through 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 encounters an obstacle in its path in the form of a bow or teeth. Vowel sounds are pronounced loudly, consonant sounds are pronounced 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 influence the consonant in front of them, making it soft or hard.
Transcription of the word
Transcription of a word is a recording of the sounds in a word, that is, actually a recording of how the word is correctly pronounced. 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 indicated in writing in any way. The transcription of the word is written in square brackets. Examples: door → [dv’er’], thorn → [kal’uch’ka]. Sometimes the transcription indicates stress - an apostrophe before the stressed vowel.
There is no clear comparison of letters and sounds. In the Russian language there are many cases of substitution of vowel sounds depending on the place of stress of the word, substitution of consonants or loss 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 color schemes: letters are painted in different colors depending on what sound they mean. The 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 the soft consonant sound [й‘], red means the vowel that follows it. Consonants with hard sounds are colored blue. Consonants with soft sounds are colored green. Soft and hard signs are painted 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 phonetic analysis diagrams, since a consonant sound cannot be soft and hard at the same time. The blue-green color in the table above is only used to demonstrate that the sound can be either soft or hard.
If we talk about objective parameters that can characterize quality, then of course not. Recording on vinyl or cassette always involves introducing additional distortion and noise. But the fact is that such distortions and noise do not subjectively spoil the impression of the music, and often even the opposite. Our hearing and sound analysis system work quite complexly; what is important for our perception and what can be assessed as quality from the technical side are slightly different things.
MP3 is a completely separate issue; it is a clear deterioration in quality in order to reduce the file size. MP3 encoding involves removing quieter harmonics and blurring the fronts, which means a loss of detail and “blurring” of the sound.
The ideal option in terms of quality and fair transmission of everything that happens is digital recording without compression, and CD quality 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. Bit depth affects dynamic range, and sampling frequency affects frequency range. Given that the human ear hears, at best, up to 20,000 Hz and according to the Nyquist theorem, a sampling frequency of 44,100 Hz should be sufficient, but in reality, for a fairly accurate transmission of complex short sounds, such as the sounds of drums, it is better to have a higher frequency. Dynamic range It’s better to have more, too, so that quieter sounds can be recorded without distortion. Although in reality, the more these two parameters increase, the less changes can be noticed.
At the same time, appreciate all the delights of quality digital audio it will work if you have a good one 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, of course, is where you will get these digital recordings with a quality higher than CD :) Although the most crappy MP3 will sound noticeably better on a good sound card.
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 distortions, which can arise from poor audio processing algorithms, low bit rates or sampling rates, 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 and lacks richness. And if, for example, you record drums on 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, all this includes external attributes and associations, how it all looks, the emotions of the people who do it. It’s quite understandable to want to hold a record in your hands, listen to a cassette on an old tape recorder rather than a recording from a computer, or understand those who now use multi-track tape recorders in studios, although this is much more difficult and costly. But this has its own certain fun.
Before you suspect that the sound card on your computer is broken, take special care to inspect the existing PC connectors for external damage. You should also check the functionality of the subwoofer with speakers or headphones through which the 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, since the necessary settings could simply be lost.
Let's move on to checking the sound card
Method 1
The first step is to deal with the device drivers. To do this you need:
After this, the drivers will be updated and the problem will be resolved.
This procedure can also be carried out if you have the latest version. software on 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 move on to the next option.
Method 2
In this case, a complete diagnosis is required to ensure correct technical connection. You must do the following in a specific order:
Please note that this option is only suitable for discrete components that are installed on a separate board.
Method 3
If, after a visual inspection and checking the speakers or headphones, they are 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 inoperative, you will understand this based on the results.
Method 4
Another option on how to quickly and easily check a sound card on Windows OS:
In this way, we will run a diagnosis of audio problems on the computer.
The program will offer you several options for problems and also indicate the connected audio devices. If so, the diagnostic wizard will allow you to quickly identify this.
Method 5
The third option for checking whether the sound card is working is as follows:
In the “Driver” and “Information” tabs, you will receive additional data about the parameters of all devices installed on your PC, both integrated and discrete. This method also allows you to diagnose problems and quickly identify them through software testing.
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 independently, without contacting a specialized service.
There was a time when the question of needing a sound card was not raised at all. If you need a sound in your computer that is a little better than the grunting of the speaker in the case, buy a sound card. If you don't need it, don't buy it. However, the cards were quite expensive, especially while they were being made for the prehistoric ISA port.
With the transition to PCI, it became possible to shift part of the calculations to the central processor, and also use RAM for storing music samples (in ancient times, this need was not only for professional musicians, but also for normal people, because the most popular music format on computers 20 years ago was MIDI). So soon entry-level sound cards became much cheaper, and then built-in sound appeared in top-end motherboards. It's bad, of course, but it's free. And this dealt a severe blow to sound card manufacturers.
Today, absolutely all motherboards have built-in sound. And in expensive ones it is even positioned as high quality. That's straight up Hi-Fi. But in reality, unfortunately, this is far from the case. Last year I collected new computer, where I installed one of the most expensive and objectively best motherboards. And, of course, they promised high-quality sound on discrete chips, and even with gold-plated connectors. They wrote it so well that I decided not to install a sound card and make do with the built-in one. And he got by. About a week. Then I disassembled the case, installed the card and didn’t bother with any more nonsense.
Why is the built-in sound not very good?
Firstly, the issue of price. A decent sound card costs 5-6 thousand rubles. And it’s not a matter of manufacturers’ greed, it’s just that the components are not cheap, and the requirements for build quality are high. A serious motherboard costs 15-20 thousand rubles. Is the manufacturer ready to add at least three thousand more? Will the user get scared without having time to evaluate the sound quality? It's better not to take risks. And they don't take risks.
Secondly, for truly high-quality sound, without extraneous noise, interference and distortion, the components must be located at a certain distance from each other. If you look at the sound card, you will see how unusually much free space there is on it. And on motherboard there's just enough space for it, everything has to be placed very tightly. And, alas, there is simply nowhere to do it really well.
Twenty years ago, consumer sound cards cost more than a computer, and they had memory slots (!) for storing music samples. The photo shows the dream of all computer geeks in the mid-nineties - Sound Blaster AWE 32. 32 is not the bit depth, but the maximum number of simultaneously playable streams in MIDI
Therefore, integrated sound is always a compromise. I have seen boards with seemingly built-in sound, which, in fact, hovered from above 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 exactly does “good sound in a computer” mean?
1) He's simply louder. Even a budget-level sound card has a built-in amplifier that can “pump” even large speakers or high-impedance headphones. Many people are surprised that the speakers stop wheezing and choking at maximum. This is also a side effect of a normal amplifier.
2) The frequencies complement each other, and do not mix, turning into mush. A normal digital-to-analog converter (DAC) well “draws” the bass, mids and highs, allowing you to very accurately customize them using software to suit your own taste. When listening to music, you will suddenly hear each instrument separately. And the films will delight you with the effect of presence. In general, the impression is as if the speakers were previously covered with a thick blanket, and then it was removed.
3) The difference is especially noticeable in games.. You'll be surprised that the sound of the wind and dripping water doesn't drown out the quiet footsteps of your opponents around the corner. That in headphones, not necessarily expensive ones, there is an understanding of who is moving, where from and at what distance. This directly affects performance. It simply won’t be possible to sneak up/drive up to you on the sly.
What kind of sound cards are there?
When this type of component became of interest only to connoisseurs of good sound, of which, unfortunately, there are very few, there were very few manufacturers left. There are only two – Asus and Creative. The latter is generally a mastodon of the market, having created it and set all the standards. Asus entered it relatively late, but it still hasn’t left.
New models are released extremely rarely, and old ones are sold for a long time, 5-6 years. The fact is that in terms of sound you can’t improve anything there without a radical increase in price. And few people are willing to pay for audiophile perversions in a computer. I would say no one is ready. The quality bar is already set too high.
The first difference is the interface. There are cards that are intended only for desktop computers, and they are installed into the motherboard via the PCI-Express interface. Others connect via USB and can be used with both large computers and laptops. The latter, by the way, have disgusting sound in 90% of cases, and an upgrade certainly wouldn’t hurt it.
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 similar to built-in sound. They are usually purchased in cases where the connector on the motherboard has died (alas, a common phenomenon). An unpleasant feature of cheap cards is their low resistance to interference. If you place them close to the video card, background sounds will be very annoying.
The golden mean for built-in maps is 5-6 thousand rubles. It already has everything to please a normal person: interference protection, high-quality components and flexible software.
Behind 8-10 thousand The latest models are sold that can reproduce 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, be sure to buy them :)
Even more expensive sound cards differ little in hardware from the already mentioned options, but they acquire additional equipment - external modules for connecting devices, companion boards with outputs for professional sound recording, etc. It depends on the actual needs of the user. Personally, I have never needed the body kit, although in the store it seemed like it was needed.
For USB cards, the price range is approximately 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 at the golden mean. Simply because cooler solutions also require hi-fi speakers and headphones, and to be honest, I don’t see much point in playing World of Tanks with thousand-dollar headphones. Probably, every problem has its own solutions.
Several good options
Several sound cards and adapters that I tried and liked.
PCI-Express interface
Creative Sound Blaster Z. It's been on sale for 6 years now, in my different computers It costs about the same and is still very satisfying. The CS4398 DAC used in this product is old, but audiophiles compare its sound to CD players in the $500 range. The average price is 5500 rubles.
Asus Strix Soar. If everything in the Creative product is shamelessly geared towards games, then Asus has also taken care of music lovers. The ESS SABRE9006A DAC is comparable in sound to the CS4398, but Asus offers more fine-tuned parameters for those who like to listen to Pink Floyd on their computer in HD quality. The price is comparable, about 5500 rubles.
USB interface
Asus Xonar U3– a small box, when inserted into a laptop port, takes the sound quality in it to a new level. Despite the compact dimensions, there was even room for a digital output. And the software is simply surprisingly flexible. An interesting option to try is why you need a sound card at all. Price 2000 rubles.
Creative Sound BlasterX G5. The device is the size of a pack of cigarettes (smoking is evil) and its characteristics are almost indistinguishable from the internal Sound Blaster Z, but there is no need to climb anywhere, just plug the plug into the USB port. And immediately you have 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 of them. Having space made it possible to add an additional headphone amplifier, and once you hear it in action, it’s hard to get out of the habit. 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! There are not so many of them, these pleasures.
