what sound card should I buy?

May 13, 2002, 10:57 PM

ive a crap onboard sound chip... and I have about $100 to buy something new... what cards do you recommend? any help is great.

Malus · May 13, 2002, 11:01 PM

Personally, I wouldn't buy a Creative Card. I would go for either a Santa Cruz or an Acoustic Edge, which both happen to be under $100. I find that both have a nice set of features, great audio quality, and not quite as many compatibility issues as I have seen with Creative cards. That's just my opinion though.

UberLord · May 13, 2002, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Malus
I would go for either a Santa Cruz or an Acoustic Edge

I'll vouch for the Santa Cruz. If you're European than you want the VideoLogic SonicFury, elsewhere is the TurtleBeach Santa Cruz - exactly the same card but VideoLogic controls the European side of things.

Only problem the card has is the occasional EAX cockup with Dungeon Seige, but aside from that its very well supported, working in both Linux and BeOS really well. Driver updates happen every few weeks - occasionally a month or two.

May 14, 2002, 09:25 PM

thanks for the replies I think ill go with what uberlord says, I trust him, he seems to know his hardware... getting it tomorrow !

Impulse · May 14, 2002, 10:41 PM

An On-board based Soundcard suck, but if you got a CMI 5.1or 6.1 channel with neat features that I can remember but its usefull as of Creative :P. Anyways Billy, consider the Hercules Fortissmo 2 Soundcard, great features, sound qualify for a low price and low CPU usage, LMAO. It only cost about $31 bucks at newegg.com here . Ditch Creative :P MUAHAUAUHHUAA...

DallasStar · May 15, 2002, 01:29 AM

After searching pricewatch, I've been able to find the Herculese Gametheater XP for less that a hundred bucks. Make sure to search for "Game Theater XP" (exactly like that) because that's the only string that got results for me. Anyway, that card is full of features and is a much better buy than those cards. It has the same audio chip, so expect similar sound quality. (I have an audigy and love it, but I guess you guys don't see that as an option...)

Malus · May 15, 2002, 03:43 AM

I don't think any of these cards use the same DSP, save the Live! and the Audigy.

DallasStar · May 15, 2002, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Malus
I don't think any of these cards use the same DSP, save the Live! and the Audigy.

Live and Audigy don't use the same DSP. The Audigy uses a completely remade DSP which is 4x as powerful as the old. The sensaura cards, however, do use the same DSP as other sensaura cards. I'd recommend you get the facts before posting.

Malus · May 15, 2002, 08:30 PM

It was sarcasm, sorry if I wasn't clear. I was implying that the new Audigy cards are nothing but Live cards with some extra crap.

DallasStar · May 15, 2002, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Malus
It was sarcasm, sorry if I wasn't clear. I was implying that the new Audigy cards are nothing but Live cards with some extra crap.

That's the exact thing I was trying to counter. What I was saying was that the Audigy is a completely DIFFERENT card with features similar to the Live's. The features are the only things they have in common (with the exception of their midi processor, which is the same).

Motoki · May 16, 2002, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by dallasstar
The features are the only things they have in common (with the exception of their midi processor, which is the same).

Well that and the fact that they both have horrible incompatibility problems with lots of different software and hardware.

WyreTheWolf · May 18, 2002, 01:33 PM

Anything that doesn't say CREATIVE LABS on it...
I vote for the :

ACOUSTIC EDGE

Motoki · May 18, 2002, 03:21 PM

I just got my Santa Cruz yesterday and it works and sounds great. I highly reccomend this card.

kinetic · May 21, 2002, 09:13 PM

I recently upgraded my system and got an ASUS A7V333 motherboard but I had problems with the onboard sound. Rather than mess around I bought a Videologic Sonicfury (Santa Cruz) soundcard for about £50 and it has been excellent value for money.

Enchanter · Jun 2, 2002, 05:36 AM

I currently own a SB Live! 5.1DE (No crackling issues ever and it plays music nicely) and an Altec Lansing ACS 56. I find this combination really good in terms of quality. I wonder if there is any need to upgrade the soundcard to something better. I am mainly into music (MP3) listening and DivX viewing only (I play games occasionally though), so I don't really need a solid gaming soundcard, just one that delivers very nice sound quality (superior to the Live!, of course). Will the upgrade justify the cost (I can sell the Live! card for slightly cheaper than the normal retail price)? If I do make the upgrade, which should it be? It's either the Philips Acoustic Edge (How is its sound quality compared to the Santa Cruz?), Hercules GameXP/Santa Cruz (They both have the same chip, right?), or the Audigy (Creative again?). Thanks.

DaSnIpE · Jun 2, 2002, 07:04 AM

If you have no cracking, no issues, don't upgrade right now, it isn't worth it, and there's nothing really more technologically advanced then your card right now, the Audigy is your card with a little more power, but it ain't worth it.

Yostarr · Jun 2, 2002, 01:27 PM

Dude don't spend 100 bones. Just go out buy a sb live value or what not and save the rest. you won't have a problem with it. BTW my sb live is awesome with my old school altec lansing ACS 500. Just my ten cents you can keep the two cents

Necrosis · Jun 4, 2002, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Enchanter
I currently own a SB Live! 5.1DE (No crackling issues ever and it plays music nicely) and an Altec Lansing ACS 56. I find this combination really good in terms of quality. I wonder if there is any need to upgrade the soundcard to something better. I am mainly into music (MP3) listening and DivX viewing only (I play games occasionally though), so I don't really need a solid gaming soundcard, just one that delivers very nice sound quality (superior to the Live!, of course). Will the upgrade justify the cost (I can sell the Live! card for slightly cheaper than the normal retail price)? If I do make the upgrade, which should it be? It's either the Philips Acoustic Edge (How is its sound quality compared to the Santa Cruz?), Hercules GameXP/Santa Cruz (They both have the same chip, right?), or the Audigy (Creative again?). Thanks.

I've owned at one time one or another of the cards you mentioned here. Currently as you will see by my specs. I am using the Santa Cruz. I do think the Audigy does offer a very small improvement over the Live Value as in playback quality. Maybe very minor, but with a good set of speakers you can hear the difference. I went from a SBLive 5.1 Platinum to an Audigy Gamer. Just like everyone else has said here, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Though I will say I am quite impressed with the quality of the Santa Cruz. My Audigy seemed to be a bit more "harsh". If you look on pricewatch for the oem cost of your card, there really is no way you could justify it.

peterosesbookie · Jun 4, 2002, 06:47 PM

I have tried many different cards in my systems. I have worked with many sound cards and a few motherboards. I first had a Abit KT7-Raid (2 years old) and had problems with Philips and Soundblaster Live! 5.1 and Philips acoustic edge with popping and crackling. I then used a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and then had no problems with that matter until I tried to capture some video. The sound was okay for the first 15 minutes then the audio got faster than the video (still is a driver issue on my current system). Here is a thread if anyone can help me. Capture thread about my problem.

The problems I see with sound cards. I have a Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum collecting dust on my shelf because that is where it is going to stay. I had some major problems with that card. The card itself was not the problem it is the driver and IRQ sharing. The soundcard always wants to share the firewire port with the videocard. That creates problems during capture and puts the soundcard stability down and creates cracks and popping.

The issue with the soundcards is that the drivers need to be tweeked with the motherboard, chipsets and bios.

I did find out the Turtle Beach has no support for Dual Motherboards period.

I just finished building my multimedia computer. Here is its system specs

MSI KT3 Ultra Aru
AMD Athlon XP 1900+
1 Stick of Corsair 256 MB PC2700 C2 with heat spreader
ATI Radeon 8500 128
No soundcard yet
1 20 GB Maxtor Diamond Max Plus ATA 133 7200
4 USB 1.1
4 USB 2.0
3com TX-3CR990-97 168 bit offload encryption 10/100 full duplex Nic card
Modemblaster v.90
Toshiba DVD model 1612 16x dvd 48x cd 512k buffer
Plextor Plexwriter 24/10/40a
3.5 floppy driver
Antec SX-840
All round cables
Thermaltake Volcano 6Cu+ heatsink and fan

Just waiting on a Hercules F II card

May 13, 2002, 10:57 PM	#1
Billy Guest Posts: n/a	what sound card should I buy? ive a crap onboard sound chip... and I have about $100 to buy something new... what cards do you recommend? any help is great.

May 13, 2002, 11:01 PM	#2
Malus BSD SMASH! Join Date: May 2002 Location: A rabbit hole. . . Posts: 1,170 Rep Power: 0	Personally, I wouldn't buy a Creative Card. I would go for either a Santa Cruz or an Acoustic Edge, which both happen to be under $100. I find that both have a nice set of features, great audio quality, and not quite as many compatibility issues as I have seen with Creative cards. That's just my opinion though. __________________ quad (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel Q6600 - Asus P5E-VM HDMI - 2x2 GB Kingston PC6400 DDR2 Ram - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - 2xSeagate 1TB 7200RPM HD in RAID 1 via ZFS - Lite-On 20x DVD Multi Recorder - Coolermaster Centurion 5 router (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel E4500 - Intel D945GCNL - 2 GB PC6400 Mushkin Ram - Lite-On 48x24x48x16 - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - Silverstone SST-SG02-F wanderer (FreeBSD/i386 7-CURRENT): Lenovo Thinkpad T61p mini (OS X 10.5): Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz, 4 GB Mushkin PC5400 Ram - Headroom MicroDAC Portable sound: Rockboxed iPod Video -> Westone UM2's Not-So-Portable Sound: Headroon MicroDAC -> Singlepower PPX3-SLAM -> Grado RS-1's or Beyerdynamic DT-880's Very-Not-Portable-Sound: Squeezebox v3 -> Denon AVR-1507 -> B&W 683's & Sunfire HRS-10

May 15, 2002, 01:29 AM	#6
DallasStar Junior Join Date: May 2002 Location: Wave Existence Posts: 2,065 Rep Power: 0	After searching pricewatch, I've been able to find the Herculese Gametheater XP for less that a hundred bucks. Make sure to search for "Game Theater XP" (exactly like that) because that's the only string that got results for me. Anyway, that card is full of features and is a much better buy than those cards. It has the same audio chip, so expect similar sound quality. (I have an audigy and love it, but I guess you guys don't see that as an option...) __________________ "A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night." --- Franz Kafka

May 15, 2002, 03:43 AM	#7
Malus BSD SMASH! Join Date: May 2002 Location: A rabbit hole. . . Posts: 1,170 Rep Power: 0	I don't think any of these cards use the same DSP, save the Live! and the Audigy. __________________ quad (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel Q6600 - Asus P5E-VM HDMI - 2x2 GB Kingston PC6400 DDR2 Ram - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - 2xSeagate 1TB 7200RPM HD in RAID 1 via ZFS - Lite-On 20x DVD Multi Recorder - Coolermaster Centurion 5 router (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel E4500 - Intel D945GCNL - 2 GB PC6400 Mushkin Ram - Lite-On 48x24x48x16 - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - Silverstone SST-SG02-F wanderer (FreeBSD/i386 7-CURRENT): Lenovo Thinkpad T61p mini (OS X 10.5): Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz, 4 GB Mushkin PC5400 Ram - Headroom MicroDAC Portable sound: Rockboxed iPod Video -> Westone UM2's Not-So-Portable Sound: Headroon MicroDAC -> Singlepower PPX3-SLAM -> Grado RS-1's or Beyerdynamic DT-880's Very-Not-Portable-Sound: Squeezebox v3 -> Denon AVR-1507 -> B&W 683's & Sunfire HRS-10

May 15, 2002, 08:30 PM	#9
Malus BSD SMASH! Join Date: May 2002 Location: A rabbit hole. . . Posts: 1,170 Rep Power: 0	It was sarcasm, sorry if I wasn't clear. I was implying that the new Audigy cards are nothing but Live cards with some extra crap. __________________ quad (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel Q6600 - Asus P5E-VM HDMI - 2x2 GB Kingston PC6400 DDR2 Ram - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - 2xSeagate 1TB 7200RPM HD in RAID 1 via ZFS - Lite-On 20x DVD Multi Recorder - Coolermaster Centurion 5 router (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel E4500 - Intel D945GCNL - 2 GB PC6400 Mushkin Ram - Lite-On 48x24x48x16 - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - Silverstone SST-SG02-F wanderer (FreeBSD/i386 7-CURRENT): Lenovo Thinkpad T61p mini (OS X 10.5): Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz, 4 GB Mushkin PC5400 Ram - Headroom MicroDAC Portable sound: Rockboxed iPod Video -> Westone UM2's Not-So-Portable Sound: Headroon MicroDAC -> Singlepower PPX3-SLAM -> Grado RS-1's or Beyerdynamic DT-880's Very-Not-Portable-Sound: Squeezebox v3 -> Denon AVR-1507 -> B&W 683's & Sunfire HRS-10

May 14, 2002, 09:25 PM	#4
Billy Guest Posts: n/a	thanks for the replies I think ill go with what uberlord says, I trust him, he seems to know his hardware... getting it tomorrow !

May 14, 2002, 10:41 PM	#5
Impulse l33t Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 248 Rep Power: 0	An On-board based Soundcard suck, but if you got a CMI 5.1or 6.1 channel with neat features that I can remember but its usefull as of Creative :P. Anyways Billy, consider the Hercules Fortissmo 2 Soundcard, great features, sound qualify for a low price and low CPU usage, LMAO. It only cost about $31 bucks at newegg.com here . Ditch Creative :P MUAHAUAUHHUAA...

May 18, 2002, 01:33 PM	#12
WyreTheWolf Wolfish Bastard Join Date: May 2002 Location: Cave; Ozark Mountains Posts: 2,111 Rep Power: 0	Anything that doesn't say CREATIVE LABS on it... I vote for the : ACOUSTIC EDGE

May 18, 2002, 03:21 PM	#13
Motoki DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 51 Rep Power: 0	I just got my Santa Cruz yesterday and it works and sounds great. I highly reccomend this card.

May 21, 2002, 09:13 PM	#14
kinetic DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Manchester England Posts: 2,559 Rep Power: 0	sound card I recently upgraded my system and got an ASUS A7V333 motherboard but I had problems with the onboard sound. Rather than mess around I bought a Videologic Sonicfury (Santa Cruz) soundcard for about £50 and it has been excellent value for money.

Jun 2, 2002, 05:36 AM	#15
Enchanter DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Somewhere Posts: 7 Rep Power: 0	I currently own a SB Live! 5.1DE (No crackling issues ever and it plays music nicely) and an Altec Lansing ACS 56. I find this combination really good in terms of quality. I wonder if there is any need to upgrade the soundcard to something better. I am mainly into music (MP3) listening and DivX viewing only (I play games occasionally though), so I don't really need a solid gaming soundcard, just one that delivers very nice sound quality (superior to the Live!, of course). Will the upgrade justify the cost (I can sell the Live! card for slightly cheaper than the normal retail price)? If I do make the upgrade, which should it be? It's either the Philips Acoustic Edge (How is its sound quality compared to the Santa Cruz?), Hercules GameXP/Santa Cruz (They both have the same chip, right?), or the Audigy (Creative again?). Thanks.

Jun 2, 2002, 07:04 AM	#16
DaSnIpE Driverage Snipe Join Date: May 2002 Location: Montreal, Canada or NYC, USA Posts: 372 Rep Power: 0	If you have no cracking, no issues, don't upgrade right now, it isn't worth it, and there's nothing really more technologically advanced then your card right now, the Audigy is your card with a little more power, but it ain't worth it. __________________ Antec SX1030 Case - Enermax 431 W Whisper PS - 4 Case Fans -ThermalRight AX-7 With Panaflo Ultra Fan - Sb Audigy / Logitech Z-560 Speakers / Sennheiser HD497 Headphones WD 80GB 7200 rpm HD - Samsung SyncMaster 955DF - LG 16x10x40x Burner / Pionner 16x Slot DVD View my rig http://nl.dodhq.net/Rig/

Jun 2, 2002, 01:27 PM	#17
Yostarr DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Toronto Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	Dude don't spend 100 bones. Just go out buy a sb live value or what not and save the rest. you won't have a problem with it. BTW my sb live is awesome with my old school altec lansing ACS 500. Just my ten cents you can keep the two cents

Jun 4, 2002, 06:47 PM	#19
peterosesbookie HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: OHIO Posts: 556 Rep Power: 0	IT DEPENDS ON THE SYSTEM WHEN WORKING WITH VIDEO I have tried many different cards in my systems. I have worked with many sound cards and a few motherboards. I first had a Abit KT7-Raid (2 years old) and had problems with Philips and Soundblaster Live! 5.1 and Philips acoustic edge with popping and crackling. I then used a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and then had no problems with that matter until I tried to capture some video. The sound was okay for the first 15 minutes then the audio got faster than the video (still is a driver issue on my current system). Here is a thread if anyone can help me. Capture thread about my problem. The problems I see with sound cards. I have a Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum collecting dust on my shelf because that is where it is going to stay. I had some major problems with that card. The card itself was not the problem it is the driver and IRQ sharing. The soundcard always wants to share the firewire port with the videocard. That creates problems during capture and puts the soundcard stability down and creates cracks and popping. The issue with the soundcards is that the drivers need to be tweeked with the motherboard, chipsets and bios. I did find out the Turtle Beach has no support for Dual Motherboards period. I just finished building my multimedia computer. Here is its system specs MSI KT3 Ultra Aru AMD Athlon XP 1900+ 1 Stick of Corsair 256 MB PC2700 C2 with heat spreader ATI Radeon 8500 128 No soundcard yet 1 20 GB Maxtor Diamond Max Plus ATA 133 7200 4 USB 1.1 4 USB 2.0 3com TX-3CR990-97 168 bit offload encryption 10/100 full duplex Nic card Modemblaster v.90 Toshiba DVD model 1612 16x dvd 48x cd 512k buffer Plextor Plexwriter 24/10/40a 3.5 floppy driver Antec SX-840 All round cables Thermaltake Volcano 6Cu+ heatsink and fan Just waiting on a Hercules F II card __________________ A Cat almost always blinks when hit in the head with a ball peen hammer!