[Cookie Monster]

What is the ranking of the cards in a SQ competition?
How about for gaming?

 

[[L]es]

although i haven't heard the other 2.. i'd put the emu up up there

 

[JackeShan]

I have the Asus Xonar D2X and it's amazing. It works perfectly fine for games as it does support EAX 5.0 through GX 2.0 so you don't miss anything from Auzentech Prelude in games. What it is best at is music and movies (which is it's purpose). I haven't heard the Auzentech Prelude but I would not switch my Asus Xonar D2X because I'm so happy with the sound of it. The mids are one of the best I've heard from a soundcard.

I would say the Auzentech is more for gaming and Asus more for Music and movies but I still recommend the Asus Xonar D2X for games because you wont miss anything over Auzentech.

 

[moonboy403]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JackeShan /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have the Asus Xonar D2X and it's amazing. It works perfectly fine for games as it does support EAX 5.0 through GX 2.0 so you don't miss anything from Auzentech Prelude in games. What it is best at is music and movies (which is it's purpose). I haven't heard the Auzentech Prelude but I would not switch my Asus Xonar D2X because I'm so happy with the sound of it. The mids are one of the best I've heard from a soundcard. I would say the Auzentech is more for gaming and Asus more for Music and movies but I still recommend the Asus Xonar D2X for games because you wont miss anything over Auzentech.

Auzentech's entire line up is targeted at "audiophiles", hence music is their priority. They have swappable op amp too. The prelude has always been considered as one of the best "audiophile" soundcard you can get for your money.

 

[pompon]

X-Meridian is better than the new prelude.
If you find x-meridian on ebay , skip the prelude.

 

[slowfreight]

I have the Prelude and I am extremely happy with it. I've used the 0404 and enjoyed the crisp sound it provides; however, it has several functions that I will never use. Music and games sound just fine on the EMU IMO. Nevertheless, the prelude offers 7.1 sound which the EMU does not support. I'm thinking about auditioning an HT Omega Claro Plus+, but we shall see...

JakeShan: The Xonar does not support EAX 5. The following comes straight from the ASUS site.

" Other Effects
10-band Equalier/27 Environment Effects

3D Gaming Sound Engines/APIs
Vista: DirectSound3D® GX 1.0, EAX®2.0&1.0, DirectSound® HW, DirectSound SW, A3D®1.0, OpenAL generic modes, 128 3D sounds processing capability
XP: EAX®2.0&1.0, DirectSound® HW, DirectSound SW, A3D®1.0, OpenAL generic modes, 128 3D sounds processing capability"

Are you referring to an updated driver?

 

[Enthusia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pompon /img/forum/go_quote.gif X-Meridian is better than the new prelude. If you find x-meridian on ebay , skip the prelude.

How is the X-Meridian better? I am very interested since the Prelude is their current top of the line card.

 

[moonboy403]

I would like to know why the X-Meridian is better also.

 

[taso89]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowfreight /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have the Prelude and I am extremely happy with it. I've used the 0404 and enjoyed the crisp sound it provides; however, it has several functions that I will never use. Music and games sound just fine on the EMU IMO. Nevertheless, the prelude offers 7.1 sound which the EMU does not support. I'm thinking about auditioning an HT Omega Claro Plus+, but we shall see... JakeShan: The Xonar does not support EAX 5. The following comes straight from the ASUS site. " Other Effects 10-band Equalier/27 Environment Effects 3D Gaming Sound Engines/APIs Vista: DirectSound3D® GX 1.0, EAX®2.0&1.0, DirectSound® HW, DirectSound SW, A3D®1.0, OpenAL generic modes, 128 3D sounds processing capability XP: EAX®2.0&1.0, DirectSound® HW, DirectSound SW, A3D®1.0, OpenAL generic modes, 128 3D sounds processing capability" Are you referring to an updated driver?

Xonar cards use DirectSound3D® GX 2.0 now, which supports up to EAX 5.0.

If you're looking for a PCI Express card, then I would recommend Xonar DX because the differences are tiny between the D2 and DX, besides almost HALF the price tag. If you don't believe me, look up reviews for the Xonar DX.

 

[Ricey20]

I've read that the X-meridian's SQ is better than the Prelude as well. The main thing being because no matter what the Prelude is still using a X-Fi chip which isn't known to have the best SQ since it was made for mainly games. Its the best sounding X-Fi but the Meridian still beats it by a bit. Also the Meridian has fully swappable opamps where Prelude only has for the front L/R channels.

As for the Xonar, the DS3d GX 2.0 is basically software emulation of EAX5 so it can't exactly mimic the 128 voices that the X-Fi is able to do in hardware. You still take a slight hit in CPU performance with it as its not hardware accelerated EAX but its only very slight so if you have a dual core or better you should be fine. The biggest advantage of the Xonar is of course the PCI-E x1 slot that it takes up instead of PCI, although Auzen has said they have a PCI-E in the works that should be out later this year. And I'm not trying to defend Creative as I hate their guts. Even with hardware EAX you would be lucky if it even works correctly or isn't buggy as hell (and you better pray there aren't any incompatibilities with your motherboard or with Creative's crappy drivers), and the number of EAX 5 supported games is laughable.

To be honest, I don't use a sound card at all anymore lol. I had the Elite Pro then the Prelude but eventually just started using my external DAC full time. I notice only maybe 5fps drop compared to the Prelude but the SQ is leagues ahead of both.

 

[lo_noise]

a bit of a necro
just to throw in my 2 pennies

x-meridian was built around c-media oxygen chip.
since then asus made a deal with c-media, and now they've got exclusive rights to oxygen for their xonar soundcards.
auzentech had to find a replacement which came in a form of x-fi, and thats how prelude was born.

imho, x-meridian is great for music, x-fi based cards work a bit better with games.

the differences are so minimal that you should go with your preferred company =]

 

[jonnymk]

Can't comment much on the 0404 USB, most people around here really like it so I'm sure it's great but I have only had an X-Fi xMusic, Stereo-Link USB DAC and now own a Xonar D1; I must say the Xonar is the most hi-fi out of all of them IMO - it simply sounds cleaner across the whole frequency range. Remember, even though the x-fi's DAC is quite capable, it's stock op-amps are pretty lame - for music listening I think the op-amps are more important than a feature packed DAC.

Personally I believe there is nothing wrong with internal sound cards as the frequencies inside a computer, for example the CPU (2.4Ghz) and FSB (400Mhz), are far above the normal 20Hz-22kHz music range. The graphics cards RAMDAC's running at the monitors refresh rate (~60hz) may interfere slightly but I don't know if using DVI illuminates that either because I certainly don't hear and problems at those frequencies. This is just my opinion though, the stereo-link may have put me off USB DAC's that much - it sounded that crap

You certainly won't be unhappy with the Xonar D1/DX or D2/D2X!

Regards,
J

 

[pompon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enthusia /img/forum/go_quote.gif How is the X-Meridian better? I am very interested since the Prelude is their current top of the line card.

Peaple have trashed the X-Meridian because no EAX5.0 support ... and when they play with a FPS game, the X-Meridian was a tad more cpu intensive.

Peaple who buy a soundcard are mostly gamers ...

They introduced the Prelude with the creative chip to make gamer happy.
The new design have an effect on soundquality.


Another thing, a good friend of mine have Xonar D2X and the X-Meridian + LM4562 ... he prefer his X-Meridian to the D2X. He told me they share the same general sonority but the X-Meridian is more musical and lovely. His X-Meridian have dc decoupling and caps upgrade. I will probably test my stock x-meridian +lm4562 opamp against his D2X one day ...

For sure, he told me, D2X is very good. Anyway, the X-Meridian 7.1 is not in production anymore and for the future, we don't know how long we will be able to have a working driver. The Beta driver don't work with Vista ... and I don't want use the new one for the sound quality issue I found.
The driver I use is : 5.12.01.0008.17.8 ... this one don't degrade the sound.
(the latest driver hurt the soundquality and my beta driver is better to the latest in term of soundquality). I can swap between them in 20 sec without need reboot. It's like comparing directsound to asio/kernel streaming ...

What I read, the D2X seem to be a tad better to the Prelude. It's hard to know without have compared them together.

I tried different DAC like Citypulse, Oritek OMZ4, Fubar III, Predator ... and the soundcard DESTROY in soundquality all those EASILY. Oritek dac is about 900$ now ...

I own a high end cd player (6000$ unit) and this X-Meridian match it almost in soundquality. Exactly same sonority ... and I have difficulties to know if it's the soundcard or cd player playing ... I look a DAC ... I look toward 4000-5000$ unit because I am convinced below that, soundcard will probably be better or same range.

Nothing bad using a soundcard. I am sure Prelude, Xonar are probably the best quality/price you can have. They will probably be better to pretty expansive dac or cd player.

 

[pompon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enthusia /img/forum/go_quote.gif How is the X-Meridian better? I am very interested since the Prelude is their current top of the line card.

I love Jessica Alba BTW! She is my favorite period!

 

[Bongtastic]

I went from a X-fi Gamer to a X-fi Prelude and the difference was
Astonishing. The x-fi prelude is a real nice soundcard except for that annoying flashing greenlight on it. The thing I am liking about my x-fi prelude is Auzentech is constanting updating drivers for it for vista x64 and its rock solid stable.