[GamingNut]

Can anyone post any information on the mods that people have been successful in doing on their AUdigy 2 ZS to improve sound quality ? I noticed an article in this group but that was over 6 months old and the attached image no longer works.

I'd appreciate any info you may have..

 

[bg4533]

Pick up a Chaintech AV710 for ~$25. If you want you can still keep the Audigy installed for games.

 

[GamingNut]

How would I run both cards at once? Do I need to run my headphones into both cards?

 

[rayofsi]

replace the stock opamps with ad8620's thats what i did, and its great.

 

[jnewman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GamingNut How would I run both cards at once? Do I need to run my headphones into both cards?

If you do that, you'll want to install both and set the Audigy as your default card. A good media player (WinAmp or Foobar) allows you to select which card audio goes through - so when you're playing music through your music-playing program, you can set it to go through the chaintech, and everything else (i.e. gaming) goes through the audigy.

 

[robzy]

Windows itself allows you to choose the default soundcard yourself. And then you can tell individual apps (such as winamp) to just use the other soundcard.

 

[Garbz]

Searching around i've seen a few mods for this card. Amongst the ones I remember:

- Replacing output capacitors with something less daming to sound. But this showed little improvement for the Audigy's crap sound.
- Replacing the output opamps with some nicer chips also apparently improved the sound a lot, but this still didn't really turn the Audigy into a card that was describable as fantastic.
- I read something somwhere about someone replacing the entire analogue output stage by tapping the output from the digital chip, and this apparenlty made a massive difference.

In the end it might just be easier to pickup an M-Audio transit though

 

[GamingNut]

I want to keep using my audigy 2 since its fabulous for gaming.. I want the best of both worlds without having to slam two cards in my machine..

Ok, about the ad8620 where is a reasonable spot to get this (online or not) ? (I'm in Toronto)..

 

[superjohnny]

I modified my Audigy by removing it from my case and replacing it with an M Audio Revolution

 

[Sycraft]

Not sure the M-Audio is quite as good as the Audigy for games though. One thing I have to give the Audigy 2, it supports everything really well. It's calibration also works well and gives a convincing soundfield, given that it's all generated on the fly.

I personally opted for the dual soundcard solution, using a Firewire 410 externally, but I realise that not everyone can do that.

I've mulled messing with my Audigy 2 but I doubt I have the skills to desolder/resolder an SMD chip, and it's be an expensive toy to screw up.