Topic: What's everybody's opinion on the best sound card? (Read 2962 times)

BigMike · « **on:** July 07, 2002, 08:44:07 am »

I'm still using a Sound Blaster live card like many other MJ users, but wondered if anybody thinks there are better choices out there nowadays. Do any of the newer cards improve sound quality, or just add more features. Thanks for your opinions.

nivw · « **Reply #1 on:** July 07, 2002, 09:33:53 am »

Using Santa cruz:
*5.1 support (I am using a 4.1 setup)
*effects and equalizer implemented on card
*no high price tag
*support for digital input (but I don't use it, My rio takes mp3)
*really sounds good and doesn't load my cpu

bernard: Well I guess that if I had the dow to get a HK system I wouldn't bother with mp3, and straight to ogg.

One thing I understood during my electronic high school studies is that whenever someone doesn't known how to explain something, they will contribute it to electrical noise.

To the best of my knowledge and experience the "electrically noisy CPU environment" will not cause any harm to the sound card output. Once we had a Yamaha sound card in the lab that was used to test radio equipment in comparing the sent and received sounds. That card was the ONLY one I have ever seen that was shielded (the card was covered with a steel case).
I've seen sound cards with three DSPs onboard that do not have any covers.
I reckon the mp3 format can't supply the fidelity in a measure that the sound card's DAC my cause noticeable harm.
In the old days lower fidelity was contributed to mechanical problems (cassette hais and afterwards cd turning motor) now the mp3 format is to blame.

Niv

peleton · « **Reply #2 on:** July 07, 2002, 10:18:48 am »

nivw is correct.
the mp3 format itself provides more noise than you'll get from your cpu.

I also use a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card and would definately recommend it for the best price/package ratio.

It actually does have onboard Cirrus DSP and DAC's for (amongst other things) MP3 decoding.

Check some reviews of various cards.
For the money I couldn't find anything to compare with the Santa Cruz.

peleton.

Michael Horton · « **Reply #3 on:** July 07, 2002, 10:38:47 am »

I use the Santa Cruz and the Altec Lansing Digital 400 watt speaker system, and I'm very happy with it. I just sold on eBay:Monsoon MM-1000 speakers, Klipsch Pro-media v2-400 speakers, Klipsch Pro-Media 5.1 speakers, Sound Blaster Audigy MP3 soundcard and Sound Blaster Extigy soundcard--I wasn't happy with the sound quality of any combination of these. The icing on the cake? The sale of these used items paid for the Turtle Beach/Altec Lansing setup, a luxurious night on the town for my wife and I, a $50 gift certificate from Best Buy for a friend's birthday, filled gas tanks on my car and truck, multible-year subscriptions to half a dozen magazines, and several used CDs from Half.com, with a little left over.

Michael

johnC · « **Reply #4 on:** July 07, 2002, 11:27:46 am »

mphorton,

I have read reviews that claim that for classical and perhaps soft jazz listening that the MM-1000 is the most accurate high fidelity speaker of those you mention above. What kind of music do you listen to? Do you disagree with reviews about accuracy of MM-1000? Thanks for sharing your experiences.

zevele1 · « **Reply #5 on:** July 07, 2002, 11:47:35 am »

VERY GLAD to see you back mphorton
or roadrunner or miles per hour orton

BigMike · « **Reply #6 on:** July 07, 2002, 12:27:03 pm »

I use to own a pair of Monsoon MM-100 speakers myself. My complaints with the system were three things. First, under-powered. Second, the single polymer diaphragm in each speaker did a good job, but lacked the detail of a good 2 speaker box with a dedicated tweeter. Last, the sub was good, but rolled off fast below 60 hz. I bought a set of Bostons, and gave the MM-1000s to my son. I notice the trend lately seems to be toward higher powered computer speakers with meaningless wattage claims, as opposed to higher quality speakers with accurate wattage claims. Remember the 70s?

Dave · « **Reply #7 on:** July 07, 2002, 03:11:27 pm »

Santa Cruz here as well. If you got money to blow, go get a Creative Labs card.

TURBO · « **Reply #8 on:** July 07, 2002, 03:22:39 pm »

Santa Cruz, connected to a litle toy called DENON.

Niv Vaizer · « **Reply #9 on:** July 07, 2002, 04:06:36 pm »

That said, may I get an update of what is the current favorie format, in terms on fidelaty verses size?

Niv
Hay gang Im from Israel

pbnyc · « **Reply #10 on:** July 07, 2002, 04:16:18 pm »

Santa Cruz. No doubt.

BigMike · « **Reply #11 on:** July 07, 2002, 08:16:15 pm »

Are you guys saying that the Santa Cruz is a better card than Creative Labs offers? Or is it just a better value?

JaredH · « **Reply #12 on:** July 07, 2002, 08:52:32 pm »

Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy here. Hands down the best card ive heard. Clear, crisp, and extrmely accurate. And really tends to make any set of speakers you have sound high end. And the $100 price tag in my opinion is not bad at all.

peleton · « **Reply #13 on:** July 07, 2002, 09:34:23 pm »

for soundcard/dsp comparisons checkout:
http://www.pcavtech.com

I would say the Santa Cruz is better than any card in it's price range, include those more than double the price.

On the topic of quality vs file size there is no question:
Ogg Vorbis.
(this is especially th case with the latest versions (Pre-RC4) which have comparable quality to 128kbps mp3's at it's LOWEST setting (q0 or avg.64kbps)

For top end quality it is between Ogg Vorbis and MPC. With Oggs being slightly smaller in size, but MPC being considered slightly higher quality.

Hope this helps.

peleton.

zigguratt · « **Reply #14 on:** July 08, 2002, 01:26:42 am »

M-Audio Delta DiO here. Flawless digital output (S/PDIF) for DVDs and amazing stereo output. This card is used in recording studios to digitally manipulate recordings. The stereo out is used to monitor the music as it's being manipulated and therefore must be extremely accurate.

Of course this comes at a price: last time I checked at Digital Connection it had come down $10 to USD$189. Got mine on eBay for considerably less.

PhatPhreddy · « **Reply #15 on:** July 08, 2002, 02:15:25 am »

Well whats your budget....

The M-Audio series of cards are very very nice sounding (compared to mega buck Lexicon and Theta equipment... I am currently with one of thier cheaper offerings the 410 (from DC as reccomended above) but am really waiting for some High Resolution dust to settle in the HTPC world... After that I will be looking at the M Audio 1010 or the Ego Sys 192 rackmount (fully 24/192 compatible) as I hear rumours of DVD-A players being developed for the PC... The rackmounts of course get the soundcard out of the EM and RF problems inherant inside a pc case...

I have heard rave reports on the Lynx Two soundcard but this is then as much spent on the soundcard as the rest of the PC together....

I think these cards may not be what you had in mind but you asked for the 'best' soundcard not one that was 'value'

!!

To be fair it is not as mad as it sounds for these high end exotic cards... My soundcard outputs to 5 nOrh marble 9's often reviewed as the best 2 way speaker in the world and I am planning a amp upgrade to monoblocks to imporve the signal to noise floor of my midfi Onkyo reciever... With that much invested in audio cheating at the source is foolish... Ohh and BTW none of my rips go to MP3... Thanks to Matt and monkeys audio we can have lossless compression...

zigguratt · « **Reply #16 on:** July 08, 2002, 03:03:41 am »

Hey, Phat's back!

Another excellent card that's a little more within budget is the Philips Acoustic Edge. Gets great reviews and is used by many AVS people on a budget. I got a Philips Rhythmic Edge on eBay for $18. The Rhythmic is only 4 channel analog out, but I was only interested in the S/PDIF out, which on this card is a direct RCA (coaxial) connection.

JNKH · « **Reply #17 on:** July 08, 2002, 04:49:05 am »

I'm using the Creative Extigy, an external device for MP3 decoding. A few points:

a) Although the device supports only USB 1.1, but when I upgraded by PC to USB 2.0, it sounds so much more neutral and clearer. Don't ask me why.

b) The Extigy is away from the noise of the PC, which helps, when it is connected to an HiFi.

c) Invest in a very good pair of cables. It really helps- connecting from the Extigy to your Preamp.

d) The Media Jukebox sound beautifull when I re-encoded all my MP3 using MJ, with high quality settings.

e) The HiFi system is quite good quality- tube preamps, good power amps, and a good pair of stereo speakers.

f) Connecting the PC using the ATI graphics card (8500), I can also view the MJ on my TV. Hence I can control the MJ from a music chair. It is very convenient, with the control from a wireless mouse/keyboard.

nivw · « **Reply #18 on:** July 08, 2002, 12:30:47 pm »

Well since a lot of us use the santa cruz, I like to ask something.
I am looking for a program that could be run from a shell that would switch the sound output from four speaker to headphones (the versa jack ).
That would allow quicker transition to my headset when using video conferance.
and also when I like to switch to my headphones from the remote.

Any clues, concerning SDK for this card are also appriciated.

Niv

Larry · « **Reply #19 on:** July 08, 2002, 03:15:36 pm »

I have a Soundblaster Live Platinum (the one before the 5.1 and Audigy). I had problems with the MJ recorder and Win98 (along woth a lot of other music software problems). When I upgraded to Win2k, the drivers for the soundcard didn't work. The same was true of the new drivers I downloaded from Creative's website. It took me over 2 weeks to fix the problem, and the funny thing is that I am not sure how I did it. Futrher, the Creative people were not helpful at all. I racked up some big long distance time on their help line and it took them quite a while to reply to my e-mails. To make matters worse, their solutions did not help. I really like the way they asked what OS I was using when I yold them the I was having problems after I upgraded form Win98 to Win2k. Also, the settings on the creative mixer sometimes change when I open MJ, making the Media Scheduler sketchy to use, as if it chnages the mixer settings, I might not get my line-in recording. I have been very unhappy with the card in general, but I bought it for the Live Drive with the front inputs, otherwise I would have bought the Santa Cruz.

PhatPhreddy · « **Reply #20 on:** July 09, 2002, 03:57:35 am »

Well Phat is only partially back... Having a nightmare getting my computers / audio / home theater / CD's / DVD's and everything else out of south east asian customs... Basically being ransomed at this stage...

Just got off the phone with a very funny (and corrupt) local lawyer who laughed at the problem and explained that my efforts to pay customs duties is not the way to go about this problem and that a single payment to the correct official is far more likely to get results... We shall see....

Back to the topic at hand... Re santa cruz and changing settings on the fly... If the switch has an effect in the registry then Girder has a reg compare function... What you do is take a snapshot of the registry with setting A) then change the audio setting to setting B) and change nothing else... Take another snapshot of the registry and the reg compare function will work out what changes have been made and then girder can be programmed to perform this action... Also if the setting can be hotkeyed or even exact mouse coordinates used all of these are options within girder... The reg compare is the cleanest though...

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Author Topic: What's everybody's opinion on the best sound card? (Read 2962 times)

BigMike

nivw

johnC

zevele1

BigMike

Dave

TURBO

Niv Vaizer

pbnyc

BigMike

JNKH

nivw

Larry