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Im not trying to suggest a SB16 as the solution to an audiophile quest. rather that the SB range offers a competitive edge that should not ignored. The Audigy, Live and 16 are all reference cards in their respective heydays. These cards are installed on more systems than all other cards combined, and is most often supported by softwares too.

Rather than dismissing a very well reviewed card like the audigy, a serious bang-per-buck should be applied. Dismissing the SB range purely because of its market appeal would be lunacy.

only someone who owns a soundblaster would say that....

Ok, put it this way;
For $90AUD the Sblive is a full-featured card that is pretty widely supported.
For $140AUD you can get a Turtle beach that has superior sound quality, better features and a much better control interface.
For ~$600AUD you can get the SB Audigy, which is NOT a true 24/96 card, or for the same price you can get an Audiophile card that IS a true 24/96 card.

It's not a matter of who's best, it's a matter of bang for your buck. The SBlive cards are de-facto cards, it doesn't make them the best.. another example: Hercules GTXP ~$300AU with breakout box, Creative equivalent ~$600 !!
Please explain to me why creative add ~$450 just for a breakout box, when Hercules can offer a soundcard WITH breakout box for less?


Creative have ALWAYS been behind other vendors, they're constantly playing catchup and me-too and consumers gobble it up like Creative can do no wrong.
It took Gravis to release the Ultrasound before Creative implimented wavetable on a card, hence the AWE32 - people were amazed, yet it wasn't as good as the GUS and it came out later.
The Awe 64 is virtually identical to the AWE32, yet people paid full retail price to "upgrade" from their 32 to the 64.
It took Aureal to release the Vortex1 with "proper" 3D sound support before Creative decided it might be time to do something... then the Vortex2 came out, and is STILL a better card than the Live, despite the company no longer existing and drivers being a little hard to come by.
The Audigy is basically a Live-and-a-half, not offering any ground-breaking new features, but having a big lot of marketing hype behind it - people still lap it up.

And yeah, Sony are the same
No company makes de-facto "best" products, there are ALWAYS alternatives. Far to many people have misconceptions regarding brands - Sony DON'T make the best everything (not even TVs), Sennheiser DON'T make the best headphones (in every price bracket) and Creative most certainly DON'T make the best soundcards!
Of course it's a little more difficult with headphones, but this is the place to get advice on a pair of headphones to suit you, just leave your brand loyalty at the door and be prepared to buy stuff you've never heard of

I'd never heard of Beyerdynamic before visiting a few forums, I always assumed Sennheiser made the best headphones in all ways, yet now I have around $600AUD worth of Beyer headphones and intend on increasing the collection.

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LOL, I didn't think linux was much of a gaming platform.

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That's right, this proof that Linux is NOT a toy .

Linux always being used in a very useful and not wasteful ways, such as
game developments it self, rendering Hollywood's blockbusters and high
performance computing. And also making sysadmin less headaches, so he can
listening to his favorite songs peacefully .

well, I didnt get much help out of that... The Sound Blaster Audigy is 99$ and I'm planning on only using headphones.. I jst wondered if it was better than the Santa Cruz and the Acustic Edge. Not what everyone's personal preferences are

just think of creative as the bose of soundcards....

no clue what the usual street price is, but at turtlebeach.com they are having a sale on the santa cruz, 79.99 instead of 99.99, again i have no clue whether that is cheap or not, just thought somebody may be interested