What soundcard do you Use...

SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS. Next will likely be the SoundBlaster X-FI Fatal1ty Edition. The idea dedicated memory on my sound card gives me wood.
 
Chaintech AV 710 coming in the mail tomarrow. First soundcard away from onboard ever!

I only have a nice receiver 2.0 setup... so this is perfect.
 
Eva_Unit_0 said:
Original Audigy. Great card...I still see no reason to get anything better.
LOL so you think. If you listen to music and have any decent amp + speakers...there is big difference. I just found it couple days while upgrading to pro card. If i had known, i would done that way sooner! :D
 
Chaintech av-710. I need an amp. Which means I need money...

 
johto said:
LOL so you think. If you listen to music and have any decent amp + speakers...there is big difference. I just found it couple days while upgrading to pro card. If i had known, i would done that way sooner! :D
Sometimes I wish I was that guy. I probably would have saved about $2000 in audio equipment ;)
 
johto said:
LOL so you think. If you listen to music and have any decent amp + speakers...there is big difference. I just found it couple days while upgrading to pro card. If i had known, i would done that way sooner! :D

well see that's the thing. I DON'T have a crazy amp + speaker setup. I just have a regular ~100 watt 5.1 speaker setup. It's good enough that I can definitely tell a quality difference between the integrated and the audigy...but anything more would be overkill.
 
Eva_Unit_0 said:
well see that's the thing. I DON'T have a crazy amp + speaker setup. I just have a regular ~100 watt 5.1 speaker setup. It's good enough that I can definitely tell a quality difference between the integrated and the audigy...but anything more would be overkill.

I believe you would easily hear the difference still even over the audigy.
I have qiute avarage amp+speakers, actually just 2x50 stereo amp, which is build like a tank back in the 80-90's, and 140w sony's floorspeakers. So thats not very high end lol. Still i think its so easy to hear the difference. Here is a comparison between these two cards:

Audigy:
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB: -5.00, +0.00 Poor
Noise level, dB (A): -86.5 Good
Dynamic range, dB (A): 84.4 Good
THD, %: 0.003 Very good
IMD, %: 0.049 Good
Stereo crosstalk, dB: -88.8 Excellent


Esi Juli@:
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB: +0.02, -0.04 Excellent
Noise level, dB (A): -107.9 Excellent
Dynamic range, dB (A): 107.7 Excellent
THD, %: 0.0005 Excellent
IMD, %:0.0019 Excellent
Stereo crosstalk, dB: -106.7 Excellent

:cool:
 
I'm not doubting that the card you mention is an amazing card, but in all honesty there are other upgrades I could do to my box that would make a much more noticeable difference for the price.
 
upgraded from Audigy 1 to X-Fi into klipsch 5.1 ultras. Real nice change. Crystalizer is a nice addition. :D
 
AV-710 > Electric Avenues Pocket Amp 2 > Audio-Technica ATH-W1000. Sounds damm good :)
 
I am using an EMU 0404 and an Audigy 2 ZS Digital Out to the EMU to use the EMU's superior DAC.

Today I was going to order a Channel Islands Audio VDA-1 DAC but the guy is out of town. :( Within the next few days though :)

http://www.ciaudio.com/vda_1.jpg
 
SB live 24Bit, why do I need more with "computer" speakers (I'm using B&W LM1's). Now my stereo....is valves!
 
I use a hercules Fortissimo III 7.1

hercules has dropped almost all support for their soundcards, so the newest drivers for this card are approaching two years old I think. and despite a few compatibility problems with some games (mostly older games!?) forcing me to turn down sound hardware acceleration two notches...I love this card! it sounds really great, much brighter (not too bright) with better seperation that a lot of others, has its own equalizer built in (which works awesomely) and just overall, it works and sounds well in any situation. and for those that care (i don't really) cpu utilization is great, around 1 fps lower than audigy 2 zs. also, two years ago I only paid like 45 bucks for it brand new on newegg! good card.
 
nForce2 Soundstorm

My last actual soundcard was an SBlive that I'm still using in my internet box for TeamSpeak. With Windows Vista scrapping audio hardware acceleration I doubt I'll ever invest in a "good" soundcard again.
 
3 boxes. One uses Audigy 2 OEM. 2nd uses onboard ALC-850, 3rd uses a CMI 8738 PCI card. Not much difference in any of them audio wise. A2 is better but not enough to justify the cost. EAX 3-4 support with the Audigy 2 is entitrely overblown.
 
right now, i have HDA Mystique 7.1 Gold connected to my Denon receiver

---

had an audigy 2 zs and before that i had a hercules GTXP
 
Up untill last year, my main sound card was the bitching SB16 from 1992. Serious, this thing kicked ass. The card was huge, you could slap someone upside the head with it for self defense.

4W build in amp, so I can use headphones on it. headphones on my Steaming pile of AC'97 would only work if the room is dead silent, and If I were wearing a hearing aid.

The SB16 had Very high micophone gain. None of this screaming with the mic in my mouth BS on the realtec ac97. Yes, With the shittiest microphone I could be across the room talking and it could record my voice. My ac'97... I can SCREAM into the mic and it barely registers anything.

And it had one of them MIDI plugs on the back, you know, just incase..

Yeah. Im using an AC'97, only because my s939 board has no ISA slots.

AC'97 Sucks big donkey wang.
 
bob said:
Up untill last year, my main sound card was the bitching SB16 from 1992. Serious, this thing kicked ass. The card was huge, you could slap someone upside the head with it for self defense.

4W build in amp, so I can use headphones on it. headphones on my Steaming pile of AC'97 would only work if the room is dead silent, and If I were wearing a hearing aid.

The SB16 had Very high micophone gain. None of this screaming with the mic in my mouth BS on the realtec ac97. Yes, With the shittiest microphone I could be across the room talking and it could record my voice. My ac'97... I can SCREAM into the mic and it barely registers anything.

And it had one of them MIDI plugs on the back, you know, just incase..

Yeah. Im using an AC'97, only because my s939 board has no ISA slots.

AC'97 Sucks big donkey wang.
I have 1 of those in my collection of obsolete sound cards.
SB16
SB64
SB Live 5.1
TB santa cruz.
AC97 is really not that bad it depends on the board makers implementation. The 1 on my MSI nf3 board sux its terrible. But I until recently had a ASUS nf2 (not soundstorm) and the onboard realtech chip had better sound quality than SB live 5.1 .
 
sblive-->a2-->soundstorm(the true DDL)-->a2zs-->montego(pretty buggy DDL nothing compared to my ss)-->X-Fi Xtreme Music (i'm liking the x-fi and the superior matrixing, it does a pretty good job)
 
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. I've had it for about 4 years and never thought of any reason why I should ever get another card. I've thought about using the soundstorm audio on my Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe but I need some optical thing from a receiver right to get the real soundstorm right? Is it even worth using the soundstorm over the Santa Cruz?
 
Audigy 2 Original, got it to replace my old onboard sound, its been a while now, but I still see no reason to upgrade
 
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