Next Genereration Sound Cards?

[Retardo]

The ZS series been out for awhile and im planning on buying the ZS platinum but since they have been out fo awhile, are there any new sound cards comming out soon?

 

[Kako]

lol, Are you waiting for the 512mb sound cards? Alright, all joking put aside, I'll contribue with a question also. Have sound cards currently reached the state where it wouldnt be a problem if a user doesnt upgrade for years on end? The current generation of Revo's and ZS', can they be surpassed with something better soon to come, or are we even speaker handicapped at this point?

-K

 

[UltimaParadox]

I believe sound cards has reached a certain point when we hit the Audigy 2 type cards, but things will always be improved and new things implemented to continue the cycle so they can continue to recieve our money.

So I bet we will see a new product before the end of the year.

 

[dandragonrage]

Support for > 48kHz will improve on consumer level cards. I'm not sure if that's going to happen this year or next year or when, but it will happen.

And, of course, there is PCI Express, but that won't happen for a while.

 

[xonik]

There are quite a few good soundcards out that are still in the "accessible" range. Worth mentioning are the $140 E-Mu 0404 and $165 (street) 1212M soundcards. They are a step or two above the Revolution/Audigy 2 ZS level in terms of both analog and digital, but they lack several important consumer features. They are definitely worthwhile, to the music listener.

 

[corrosive23]

since creative now controls almost all the technology in the gaming soundcard market dont expect any improvment in the next few years. All they have to do is market a similar card with a couple of new features, add a new number to the end and the schmucks will buy it. Sounds like nvidia really.

 

[bobsaget]

^^^ Damn!

 

[xonik]

since creative now controls almost all the technology in the gaming soundcard market dont expect any improvment in the next few years. All they have to do is market a similar card with a couple of new features, add a new number to the end and the schmucks will buy it. Sounds like nvidia really.

VIA's got the resources to come up with a worthy competitor. Analog Devices, maybe. NVIDIA's really got a fighting chance, since they have a lot of ex-Aureal employees. I think that they are waiting for the market to demand more development in this area.

 

[aug1516]

VIA's got the resources to come up with a worthy competitor. Analog Devices, maybe. NVIDIA's really got a fighting chance, since they have a lot of ex-Aureal employees. I think that they are waiting for the market to demand more development in this area.

I think the demand is the bigest thing holding back advancements in this area. Most people don't really care if they have some cheap onboard audio solution or a decent PCI card. To compound the problem, the speakers that come with most PC's are probably incapable of demonstrating any kind of quality difference between the two anyway. The advancements do come, just much slower than everything else in computers.

 

[E-virus]

I think aug is mostly right. The onboard C-media for my board was pretty darn good for the most part. Its sound was detailed enough and I used it for a short time for music and gaming. It did not have the horsepower to handle a lot of demand (like base battles in planetside) so it started to skip and not play certain sounds. However, for someone like my dad, it would suit him just fine. So the current demand is not for high end audio. People (other than enthusiasts) want something that works.

The other thing is that sound technology is really not changing too much, and frankly does not need to for most people. With video cards, most stuff can improve to be more "life like". From what I can tell, my soundcard sounds pretty real to me. I personally can't imagine that changing my soundcard a few years from now will really make that big of a difference so long as Creative is still a market leader and EAX is supported.