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Best Sound Card

R

RaphaelVinceti

Gawd
Joined
Apr 7, 2005
Messages
600
Alright, Ill start this off with, Im not worried about the price. Ill mostly be using my sound card for gaming, and want EAX support. 7.1 support would be nice as well. Which card would be the best for me to buy. I want the best/most realistic sound for my gaming. Also, a speaker suggestion would be nice. again, preferably 7.1, but it isnt vital.
 
newest, most expensive audigy if you want the accessories
 
Compare the differences between the Audigy 2 and the audigy 4... I couldn't really find anything I cared about... They're both EAX HD 4.0 7.1 THX blah blah blah. I think the 4 just comes with a bunch of extra crap. I would take the extra money and buy better speakers.
 
If all you are doing is gaming then anything over an A2 ZS is wasting cash.

If you care about your music then the A4 or an A2 for games another good stero card for music.

If you are recording music (converting vinyl or mixing, etc) you will want a better pro audio card as the 2nd.

The A4 is waste of cash for most folks.
 
If you want, bar none, the best audio experience you can currently get out of a PC, I'd say you might as well get a Lynx-Two, which is supposed to be the current pinnacle of multi-channel sound cards. You lose out on hardware acceleration, but get the best SQ you can buy.

http://www.lynxstudio.com/lynxtwo.html

Get the 'B' option, only 995$ =]
 
BO(V)BZ said:
If you want, bar none, the best audio experience you can currently get out of a PC, I'd say you might as well get a Lynx-Two
Click to expand...
I realize you were somewhat joking, but wouldn't an internal card be worse than an external one? For a grand, one could get a RME hammerfall and a nice ADDA convertor box over lightpipe and not worry about the electronic noise inside the computer... and HDSP 96/52 is about $600, and a decent ADDA will fit in $400.

My two cents, anyways. I'd guess the OP isn't going for either of these ;)
 
Yeah, when you get into outboard DACS, things can get pricey very quickly. They're not strictly soundcards, however.
 
Is the Hammerfal external option a 6-channel setup? I can't say that I know much about it.

And I do realize that the OP probably doesn't want a 1000$ sound card, but he DID say he wanted the best, and that the price didn't matter =]
 
BO(V)BZ said:
And I do realize that the OP probably doesn't want a 1000$ sound card, but he DID say he wanted the best, and that the price didn't matter =]
Click to expand...

If that's not what he wanted, he should have said so...

If you're just gaming, and your onboard sound isn't total crap, just use that...as far as sound hardware goes spend money on speakers first and then everything else if needed.
 
BO(V)BZ said:
Is the Hammerfal external option a 6-channel setup? I can't say that I know much about it.
Click to expand...
It's a 36 or 52 channel option. :D It's entirely digital, so it depends on your DAC/ADCs for the sound quality, but it's pretty good about bit-for-bitting your output, so you don't have to worry about losing quality through it. It's designed for ASIO but mmc apparently rocks too. Latencies like 1.5ms. It has an internal mixer so you can have a couple of headphone mixes. I don't know how they get 52 channels out of 3 adats and 1 spdif, but that's their claim.

Linky here.

Note, I don't work for them or own one of their cards, but I've heard only good things about them. Also works with Linux.
 
Just get an Audigy 2 ZA retail. No 5.25 box or anything, just the card is all you need. It will sound good to you and your games will be happy.
 
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