[Mr.Radar]

Santa Cruiz by a large margin, though both are highly inferior to the AV-710's high rez output. The M-Audio Revolution 5.1 should be in your pricerange, and should also sound slightly better than the AV-710 on all 6 channels through the analog outputs.

 

[magnummafia]

i dont ever plan on getting 7 channels out of my system, at least for awhile, so i was wondering if there was much difference between the 7.1 and 5.1 versions of the revolution card?
thanks

 

[Mr.Radar]

The 5.1 version is cheaper, newer, and sounds better.

 

[magnummafia]

well it looks like the 5.1 it is then thanks for the help

 

[magnummafia]

if i just listen to 2 channel out of my soundcard and then let the receiver pod in my z-680s convert it to dolby, then wouldnt a card like the m audio be overkill? or would it sound a lot better if i ran the 3 seperate audio cables to my logitechs and let the soundcard do the conversion? this would eat up more cpu cycles i would think though and games wouldn't run as smooth right?

 

[Mr.Radar]

I'm not exacly sure what you're talking about, so I'll ussume you want to use the digital conneciton for surround sound in the following reply. If you're talking about something else then please say so.

Unless the game engine supports Dolby Digital encoding (I think that Doom 3 and Far Cry do, but most older games don't) you wont' be able to get surround sound over the digital conneciton with any card but nVidia's onboard SoundStorm technology in it's nForce 1 and 2 chipsets.

 

[magnummafia]

hey thanks for the reply, all i use is the green line out of my sound card to the green input on the back of my z680 pod. then i can select to convert it to dolby or simply leave it stereo. i cant use digital because i use my computer remote to turn the volume up and down, and with digital i would have to use my logitech remote to control volume.anyways it sounds pretty good for dvds and music. but if i got an m audio i would use the 3 cables in 6 channel direct mode and let the card process the sound, im just worried that this would eat up a lot of cpu cycles in games.

 

[magnummafia]

just to clear things up a bit i really dont listen to music much on pc. i watch dvd's more. i also have my directtv satelite audio run through my pc. so i mostly listen to my speakers in surrond sound but up till now i've just let the z680 receiver pod convert the 2 channel audio into surround sound. now obviously my speakers arent the greatest but they are nice for the price, and since i already have the dolby decoder built into my speaker system, wouldnt i be better of just getting a decent 2 channel out card. or would it make much differce if i let the card decode the audio and then used the 6 channel direct cables to connect to my speaker system. assuming i got a 5.1 card.
thanks

 

[Mr.Radar]

Unless your soundcard outputs Dolby ProLogic then your speakers aren't currently doing true surround sound (it's putting the 2+0 channels instead of 5+1 on to the 5 speakers + sub instead).

[size=xx-small]PS I'm really tired right now so I hope you can understand this reply.[/size]

 

[magnummafia]

so if i use the 6 channel direct cables into my z640 and just leave the effect off, then it will be true surrond sound? is this what you're saying?
thanks

 

[Mr.Radar]

Yes.