[Puppysmith]

The C media oxygen chip is meant to be the answer to Creative.

For years creative dominated, however, have been criticized for the drivers, compatiblity, poor service, the website is a mess, and the documentation is also poor, etc.

C media do a number of chips, this is the result of a small amount of research when I was looking for a new soundcard.

The top of the range chip is the 8788 chip.

A number of companies do soundcards using this, they are:

* Auzentech
* Sondigo
* Bluegears
* HT Omega
* And ASUS do one, now.

All do the same things, may be different in add ones and connectivity, however, its the software and sound we are interested in.

The Sondigo is the pick of the bunch, an absolute steal at less than $90 half the price of the HT, asus and auzentech and 1/5th that of a high end 7.1 amplifier.

It sports 4 AKM AK4396 117dB SNR DACs, six JRC 4580 dual channel op-amps, the same ones found in the $1000 Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player, plus a Wolfson WM8785 ADC.Review

NewEgg for $79.95

Driver software is actually written by the chipset maker, not the individual board makers/brands, afaik, and is identical, and is meant to work very well.

Not happy with creative, so I am going there myself in my new build.

 

[Arainach]

Surely it can't best the AV-710 for the money.

 

[Behemot]

At least with Creative you know what you are buying

I checked the newegg page you linked to: a few thousand people gave X-Fi 4-5 rating on newegg while altogether 19 people bought and reviewed sondigo. Not that newegg reviews are that reliable. But I guess they are less prone to BS if they come in numbers.

Sondigo website returns "500 Internal Server Error" for quite some time, that speaks for itself and the company.

In all fairness:

I have been buying Creative since 90s - they specialize in digital sound - ZEN mp3 players, PC speakers and sound cards and I was never let down.
I have no problem with their website or service, do you, really?
Creative X-Fi is fully compatible with Vista, it is all well on my XP and I read Creative was even bothered to come up with Linux drivers (beta only, though dunno if they are any good but at least they offer them).

Sure you should research before you buy and I guess anyone does and knows
8788 chip is impressive but its implementations are limited to meet HT requirements. So - if you are going to use a receiver then a $80 sound card is an overkill anyway. There are cheaper transports that are good enough for digital passthru if that's all you need (AV-710 as mentioned by Arainach^)

And if you do some gaming 8788 does not come close to sound blaster. 128 voices each with separate EAX HD effects versus 32 voices with no or basic software EAX. How about a thunder and a fart?

 

[Puppysmith]

I think you can get the VIA VT1721 chip on newer motherboards if you are building new and at $25 it is an excellent value.

It is a good, inexpensive audio solution to upgrade from an old Soundblaster or if you are still using motherboard audio.

Don't be fooled into believing any claims of 192 KHz audio. Only the more expensive cards support 192 KHz on two channels and 96 KHz for multi-channel.

Of course, I am not an expert, but wanted to move away from my experiences with Creative onto something else. The more I researched cards, the more this card looked like the best one for the price.

Plus I don't see any reason in paying 2x for the 8788 chip and Len Layton, the CEO and Founder of Sondigo, used to be Senior VP of NA Marketing for C-Media and CEO of Lake Technology Limited, the company that developed Dolby Headphone technology, so I know the CEO knows a few things about sound.

 

[Behemot]

Was there any mention of any 192kHz claims here? I don't follow you Puppysmith, I do not see a point you make... Is this that, as you said, you do not like Creative and just wanted to share a newegg.com link for Sondigo stuff with people here? That's great, thank you very much, I'll be clicking on it every morning and will be sending it to friends, sure, no matter Sondigo website is down... Say hello to CEO and VP of NA, v-ce mambo jumbo DR hc oops What..
whatever

 

[Puppysmith]

Do you have a better suggestion that uses the 8788 chip for less than $79? I would love to know? All the ones I have reviewed cost $100+ more while the difference in sound is debatable.

BTW, I do believe Chaintech makes those 192kHz claims on their website, the Sondigo card is distributed by Auzentech thru NewEgg, which is the only place I know you can buy it, I have no affiliation with Sondigo, and I expected nothing more from a Wal-Mart employee.

Distributed by Auzentech

 

[Drewpy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Behemot /img/forum/go_quote.gif At least with Creative you know what you are buying

That all depends on WHAT you know.

Quote:

I have been buying Creative since 90s - they specialize in digital sound - ZEN mp3 players, PC speakers and sound cards and I was never let down. I have no problem with their website or service, do you, really? Creative X-Fi is fully compatible with Vista, it is all well on my XP and I read Creative was even bothered to come up with Linux drivers (beta only, though dunno if they are any good but at least they offer them).

Creative and service? Surely you jest. Lets look back on the Audigy line of cards that were falsely advertised as being 24bit/96kHz. How about their horrible record for driver releases.

As for "specializing" in digital sound... I won't even touch that comment.

X-Fi and Vista... There's nothing "fully compatible" going on there. EAX doesn't work (not really Creative's fault here, MS changed the audio stack), and so is no longer a basis for comparing gaming audio quality. At least not until Creative can create an OpenAL wrapper for EAX (I'm not going to hold my breath).

 

[Joeywhat]

I love my Auzentech X-Meridian's analog outputs. Great sound. Certainly beats on the Creative cards.

I only use digital for single cable connections for surround sound (i.e. movies).

 

[John64]

i have had an Auzentech X-Merdian for about 8months and 2 X-Fis previously. First off, the X-Meridian sound quality is INSANE compared to both x-fis. It is now supported on linux with an OPEN SOURCE driver that is 32bit/64bit. It has DTS Connect, DD:Live and 192KHz/24Bit on all 7 main channels. The X-Fi sounds worse than Intel HDA Onboard, gets very hot, has a closed source 64bit only linux driver (as good as no driver), has NO realtime DD/DTS encoders, stupid output scheme that is only compatible with Creative speakers and a $100 creative cable, doesnt even work properly on my computer and has had crackling and poping on every computer i have tried it in. The X-Fi is total junk for the money, the Auzentech X-Meridian is incredible for the money.

On the topic of website quality, i am buying a soundcard not a website. It may not project a great image, but i couldn't care less how bad their site looks. As far as support goes, creative is horible!

For vista compatibility, the X-Meridian is very nice, though i havent tried x-fi in vista (as both of them died!). The driver for the 8788 is slightly anoying, but it is 100000% functional, it is my daily work/music station.

Before you talk about how bad the CMI-8788 is, try owning one!

ps. trusting any review is a bad idea, but basing your opinion on the star ratings of a product on a vendor's site??? come on!!!

 

[Kaluminati]

Quote:

Originally Posted by John64 /img/forum/go_quote.gif i have had an Auzentech X-Merdian for about 8months and 2 X-Fis previously. First off, the X-Meridian sound quality is INSANE compared to both x-fis. It is now supported on linux with an OPEN SOURCE driver that is 32bit/64bit. It has DTS Connect, DD:Live and 192KHz/24Bit on all 7 main channels. The X-Fi sounds worse than Intel HDA Onboard, gets very hot, has a closed source 64bit only linux driver (as good as no driver), has NO realtime DD/DTS encoders, stupid output scheme that is only compatible with Creative speakers and a $100 creative cable, doesnt even work properly on my computer and has had crackling and poping on every computer i have tried it in. The X-Fi is total junk for the money, the Auzentech X-Meridian is incredible for the money. On the topic of website quality, i am buying a soundcard not a website. It may not project a great image, but i couldn't care less how bad their site looks. As far as support goes, creative is horible! For vista compatibility, the X-Meridian is very nice, though i havent tried x-fi in vista (as both of them died!). The driver for the 8788 is slightly anoying, but it is 100000% functional, it is my daily work/music station. Before you talk about how bad the CMI-8788 is, try owning one! ps. trusting any review is a bad idea, but basing your opinion on the star ratings of a product on a vendor's site??? come on!!!

I appreciate your thoughts on this sound card. I was definitely interested in this thread until I saw this

Quote:

First off, the X-Meridian sound quality is INSANE compared to both x-fis

Kinda ruins it for me there. Although it is subjective, saying the audio quality diff between the x-fi's and that card is "INSANE" is... well... imo, insane and is sign of obvious bias. Not that you'd care or anything

And really creative's cards are gaming cards primarily, and atm they still own that with EAX 5.0, CMSS etc. as far as surround placement in games especially with a good pair of headphones. Dolby headphone just isn't as good.

 

[Joeywhat]

No, the difference in sound between the two really is quite amazing. Insane might be a bit overstated, but it's certainly not over the top...

The card overall is just much better then the Creative cards at the same price. More features, better analog outs, S/PDIF outputs directly on the card (without the "flex jack"), and amazingly better drivers.

 

[Shahrose]

hmm good timing, i just ordered the sondigo inferno yesterday, should be getting it by monday. i'm hoping for a decent upgrade from my audigy 4. (dolby headphone also sounds interesting)

 

[John64]

i definately overuse the word insane, but i went from dull and boring sound with crackling and poping to crystal clear audio when i switched cards. The Inferno looks really nice, the only problem i see is that Auzentech is becoming a creative shop, which is disappointing.