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which via envy card?

S

snowwie

Gawd
Joined
Aug 6, 2002
Messages
881
well, i just simply cannot go with the realtek ac97/alc650 crap

i've dumped both the realtek and a soundblaster live! 5.1 in favor of a 6.5 year old aureal vortex 2 card....better drivers, better sound quality, and less interfering with my gaming experience. you would think the chips that support all the EAX crap would be better for gaming, but they were more a hassle....i'll take miles fast please

so anyway, my sound card of preference now, is, well over 6 years old, and it seems the sound chip to get is the via envy. I see three cards that strike my fancy:

the cost effective chaintech - i hear good things about this thing - 25 bucks
the turtle beach catalina - i like the brand, and this card seems it may be more solid than the chaintech, i don't know - 50 bucks
and, of course, the m-audio revolution 7.1 - almost 100 bucks though

which makes me wonder...they all feature the same chip (although upon close inspection, the chaintech and turtle beach each have the ENVY HT-S while the m-audio has the ENVY HT -- but that could mean nothing) and they all seem to have similar board layouts, so are you just paying for the brand, or is there something deeper between these cards?

the turtle beach and m-audio both mention hardware support for dolby digital 5.1 and DTS and the chaintech doesn't say anything
and only the turtle beach mentions anything about EAX
but honestly these things i'm least worried about.....and i will never get an audigy, nope, sorry, the thirty bucks i dished out for their craptastic SB live is the most they'll get from me ever

so sorry for the long blurb, but can anyone educate me about these three cards? is the m-audio REALLY better sound quality than the chaintech?
 
Chaintech for a two channel setup.
The codec that services the 6 primary channels reduces it's multichannel performance to the same level as many on board solutions, but the DAC that services the 7th and 8th channels is what makes the card a good deal.

Revo for a mulitchannel setup.
It doesn't have the same limitation that the AV-710 does but it does feature pretty crappy drivers.

The Catalina is a card that shouldn't even exist.

Another card to consider is the Audio Track Prodigy.
Great drivers.... it does not have the same quality level as the Revo though

Edit: 6 not 5
 
okay, so i guess the chaintech it is

these are my speakers, i really like them, good highs and lows, as loud as i'll ever need them

I like music and games, if i want to watch a movie, i have a 20+ inch tv and playstation for that. I don't understand the place for multi-channel in a desktop...but whatever

drivers are important to me, i like them to be effective but unintrusive
why shouldn't the catalina exist? i think i just like the brand because i've been using their card with the aureal chip for so long now

the audiotrak seems just as pricey as the m-audio though
thanks
 
I just got the Chaintech for my headphone setup (HD 580s) and absolutely love it. I'm running it in tandem with an Audigy 2 ZS, although as MisterX pointed out in another thread aparently you need to separate them by at least two PCI slots for this to work properly, not to mention you need a media/music player that lets you select a specific input, which I would hope is most of the popular offerings out there.
 
Mister X said:
Chaintech for a two channel setup.
The codec that services the 5 primary channels reduces it's multichannel performance to the same level as many on board solutions, but the DAC that services the 7th and 8th channels is what makes the card a good deal.

Revo for a mulitchannel setup.
It doesn't have the same limitation that the AV-710 does but it does feature pretty crappy drivers.

The Catalina is a card that shouldn't even exist.

Another card to consider is the Audio Track Prodigy.
Great drivers.... it does not have the same quality level as the Revo though
Click to expand...

what is wrong with the Revo drivers? i'm using the Revo 7.1 now and having no issues with the drivers. i've seen people complain about the Revo's really plain control panel but it does the job.
 
I too have no problem with my Revo drivers. However, I know that some don't like various asio issues, line-in monitoring, and some other stuff. For my limited use, I have had no problems.
 
Revo! the original drivers were buggy, but the updated one is pretty good - no problems.

However, if you do get a revo, I'd suggest a 5.1... a little cheaper, and it has newer drivers.

The revo7.1's driver hasnt been updated for quite some time now - a whole year, maybe??
 
The Revo uses Wolfson DACs on all channels and the Chaintech on just the output for channels 7 and 8. Hence the Chaintech's a better idea for stereo use only, as it's cheaper for identical quality. For surround use, the Revo is better. There are Envy24 cards with better quality than either (they use even better DACs), like the ESS Juli@, but when you get above Chaintech / Revo sound quality it generally makes more sense to go to an E-Mu card.
 
snowwie said:
these are my speakers, i really like them, good highs and lows, as loud as i'll ever need them
Click to expand...
I've got the same speakers and the Chaintech AV-710. Sounds great and didn't cost much at all.
 
FanZ said:
Revo! the original drivers were buggy, but the updated one is pretty good - no problems.

However, if you do get a revo, I'd suggest a 5.1... a little cheaper, and it has newer drivers.

The revo7.1's driver hasnt been updated for quite some time now - a whole year, maybe??
Click to expand...
if less than two months ago is a year than yeah
 
corrosive23 said:
if less than two months ago is a year than yeah
Click to expand...

as per M-audios webpage

latest XP drivers are:

Revolution 7.1 February 13, 2004 1.0.2.8 10.16 MB Revo_1028_sf.exe
So yes, it has been over a year since m-audio has released anything for the revo 7.1. Even the 5.1 drivers haven't been updated in a while.
 
corrosive23 said:
But still if the drivers work great, which they do, what's the point of updating them?
Click to expand...


hehe, true. I have had 0 problems with the drivers. They work great and in the end that's all that matters.
 
yes i guess it works fine for me, and they fixed most of the pesty bugs from the cd driver version (like ASIO bugs). Some of my games do get crash errors because of sound though unless its on Game Mode - i usually leave it on no surround processing so its a bit of a hassle to doubleclick on an icon and singleclick once more :) to select sensaura.

whats the difference b/w maudio's revo and via's envy drivers? i'm guessing just the surround sound tab and speaker setup? do they even work with each other or is it just for integrated envy24PT's?
 
I was wondering the same thing because VIA released new drivers today. And trying to get any info on viaarea.com's forums is like talking to a kid with downs
 
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