Suggest me a sound card

T

Tanatz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 13, 2006
Messages
271
Sorry to do this!

I run XP, Windows 7 and if I can, and I would toy around with Ubuntu also. I currently have Logitech Z-5500s as my 5.1 speakers. I listen to music regularly and game occasionaly. I would need mic capability. I currently have a Creative X-Fi Platinum.

My beefs with the Creative are: poor support in Ubuntu, occasional crackling in XP, and unexplained poor sound quality / crackling in Windows 7. I use Windows Media Player for music in both Windows OSs.

Are my Z-5500s good enough to hear any difference in an "upgrade" in sound card?

I plan on getting a Yamaha or Onkyo receiver down the road, so I would like a card that plays well with that, too.

Thanks in advance!
 
well, any card will "play well" with a proper A/V receiver, as long as you connect it right, and the X-Fi Plat does have the connections you need there

honestly I've never seen Creative cards perform well in Ubuntu or any other *nix OS, and I have no idea whatsoever how Asus, Onkyo, or HT Omega cards handle the same, so can't really help you on that

regarding the sound quality/wtf'age in Windows, sounds like something is amiss with the hardware, if you feel like replacing the card, and want some slick drivers, grab the X-Fi Forte and keep your front panel I/O drive, :D
 
I can't find the equalizer / SRS "WOW" settings and other enhancements in WMP in Windows 7 (is it WMP12?). I feel like that may be a large part of why I can't reproduce the same good sound that I get in XP. I wonder how much of a noticeable difference I'd hear with the Forte and my Z-5500s?
 
That seems like overkill if your getting a reciever. I'd check on the unix stuff but my bet is that the Striker would be good enough for now. The advantage of something like that is its based on a rather generic sound chip (C-Media)..which I'd bet Linux supports. Something like the Forte or Xonar stuff uses more obscure chips and might not play as nice with Linux..

Remember if you get a reciever you can send digital out and the DACs on the reciever will do the work. With a reciever alot of motherboards don't need a sound card at all - as they might have crappy analog sound but they are fine digitally..

But if your getting a reciever I'd just consider putting your money into that instead of a fancier sound card..

Pete
 
GuyClinch said:
That seems like overkill if your getting a reciever. I'd check on the unix stuff but my bet is that the Striker would be good enough for now. The advantage of something like that is its based on a rather generic sound chip (C-Media)..which I'd bet Linux supports. Something like the Forte or Xonar stuff uses more obscure chips and might not play as nice with Linux..

Remember if you get a reciever you can send digital out and the DACs on the reciever will do the work. With a reciever alot of motherboards don't need a sound card at all - as they might have crappy analog sound but they are fine digitally..

But if your getting a reciever I'd just consider putting your money into that instead of a fancier sound card..

Pete
Click to expand...

Xonar uses C-Media as well...

honestly you just gotta check some list of supported hardware, Creative boards generally aren't high on the list of considerations, VIA based solutions are good, but only a few vendors still bother (M-Audio and Onkyo), C-Media seems to be a decent bet as well, or Realtek onboard
 
Yeah Xonar uses a C-Media but I don't think you can run it with a generic C-Media driver.. I don't believe its a straight forward implementation of the chip.
 
GuyClinch said:
Yeah Xonar uses a C-Media but I don't think you can run it with a generic C-Media driver.. I don't believe its a straight forward implementation of the chip.
Click to expand...

idk, its 1:1 features wise, so it may work, or has been made to work with minimal modification to the C-Media generic drivers

basically, get away from Creative, and you've taken a huge step forwards, I've honestly never had issues with non-Creative boards and at least getting audio in *nix, but neither my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum nor my X-Fi Prelude seem to play very nicely with Ubuntu or Solaris
 
If you plan on using digital connections to the receiver a sound card will make no difference at all, put the money towards the receiver.
 
Sold.

Question then is: I need to directly connect my PC to the receiver via an ultra long toslink cable if, say, my PC is on the other side of the room? ;)

Is there bluetooth capability here?
 
Tanatz said:
Sold.

Question then is: I need to directly connect my PC to the receiver via an ultra long toslink cable if, say, my PC is on the other side of the room? ;)

Is there bluetooth capability here?
Click to expand...

how long is ultra long? something like 5-10m is the limit for S/PDIF

bluetooth isn't the best idea, mostly because it compresses everything due to bandwidth limitations, and range isn't much better than 5-10m
 
Tanatz said:
Sold.

Question then is: I need to directly connect my PC to the receiver via an ultra long toslink cable if, say, my PC is on the other side of the room? ;)

Is there bluetooth capability here?
Click to expand...

Never seen a good bluetooth audio setup. Doesn't mean they aren't out there, but I don't know of any. TOSLink can get plenty of range, however it is often expensive to do so. Normal TOSLink cable is plastic fibre. That's nice because it is flexible, durable, and cheap. However it is extremely lossy and thus not good for long distances. For long runs, you have to go with a glass fibre optic cable, which costs a hell of a lot more.

Coaxial S/PDIF cable is generally cheaper for longer range connections. It does have to be quality cable (in particular the impedance much be properly matched) but that costs less than glass fibre optic normally. Spec limit is like 30 feet but with a good cable like Belden 1694A you can do 100 feet without problems usually.

However at those really long distances, a cheaper option is usually a balun. Those convert an unbalanced coaxial connection in to a balanced twisted pair connection, specifically one that uses Cat-5/6 cable. Well that is, of course, extremely cheap not to mention easy to do in custom lengths.

For that you get something like this for each end and plug the Cat-5 cable in to it. Only down side is you need 2 baluns (one for each end) so you have that cost up font. That is why it only makes sense for longer connections.
 
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