Envy24 HT-S or Realtek ALC888 onboard

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rcf1987

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I have an old Turtlebeach Catalina soundcard that uses the Envy24 HT-S chip and was wondering if I should use that or my onboard sound,
 
rcf1987 said:
An onkyo HT-r340 receiver with a 5.1 setup
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Digital or analog interconnect? If digital, don't bother with the card - the on-board will do the same job with less fuss about drivers and who gets to be enabled. If analog, the general rule is "try both if you own both"...but dude, that card looks to be over ten years old. Can you even find compatible drivers?

Wait, no, it's only from 2004. The chip OTOH is from a company that went kaput around 2000, although VIA apparently kept selling it. Might be able to find drivers. If so, try both - if you're not using digital.
 
Ashmedai: Isn't the Envy24-HTS the same or at least very similar to the chip used in the Chaintech AV710?
 
The AV710 did use the HT-S chip. I've compared the 888S on my netbook with an M-Audio Revo 7.1 (Envy HT) and find them to be roughly equivalent for music purposes; but the specs of the Envy for overall audio quality are definitely better and would be noticeable on better speakers than mine.

The 888 is actually a slightly cut down version of the ALC885 and 889, it's not a fully 24-bit chip; I'm still trying to find the article where it lists that. The good old reliable Envy HT is still perfectly usable and Via's drivers have always been stable.

Edit: Spec comparison -
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/520/2
 
Last edited:
450 said:
Ashmedai: Isn't the Envy24-HTS the same or at least very similar to the chip used in the Chaintech AV710?
Click to expand...

among about a dozen other products (Envy24 or variants, like HT) including basically every M-Audio card ever made, Onkyo's more recent cards, the AV710, the Game Theatre XP, ESI's less expensive models, etc (overview of Envy chips: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/audio/controllers/)

drivers are still available, and Turtle Beach is still around and kicking to this day, go here: http://turtlebeach.com/support/index.php?View=files&CategoryID=39

Catalina itself is discontinued/EOL, so don't expect tech support from them, but they've still got some drivers online

as far as which to use, the Catalina does support h/w audio processing and some other features, doubtful it does DDL, I'd probably use it (smoke'em if you got'em), but I doubt theres any quantitative defense for either option
 
Compare them yourself and choose which sounds better? I find my old AV710 sounds much better than ALC888.
 
Yeah, I don't have any speakers that use digital inputs. My speakers are Logitech X-530s. I also just found out that my Turtule Beach does not have any hardware processing onboard, it still offloads to the CPU.

Edit: oops, thought this was my post about the Catalina vs ALC888.
 
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