[joeri]

My motherboard came with an onboard soundcard. i think it's called AC'97.

How good is it ? How good is it at playing music compared to the audigy 2 zs pro (that everyone hates) ? I need the Audigy for games, and i'm thinking about buying another card for music, unless you guys think my AC'97 is good enough for that.

What do you guys think ? Thanks in advance

 

[Mr.Radar]

AC'97 is a specification from Intel for onboard audio. The quality varies based on the actual chip but it generally sucks (the A2ZS should actually be better for music than most chips).

 

[joeri]

Yeah i noticed my music doesn't sound very good when i plug in my sennheiser hd25-1 wich i usually use for my ipod.

Would a cheap chaintech card be much better ?

 

[proxops-pete]

Quote:

Originally Posted by joeri Would a cheap chaintech card be much better ?

[size=xx-large]Yes![/size]

 

[OniVerde]

When I switched the soundcard to the Chaintech on my old desktop, there was a major difference. The sound was much clearer and the "dirty" noises were eliminated. Keep in mind this desktop was 3 years old.

Last week I bought a Toshiba A65 Laptop which has the AC97 onboard sound. I decided to compare the sound quality of both the AC97 and the Chaintech. I used Foobar to play the same 190kps mp3 on both systems and listened to them on PortaPro2's.

Conclusion? The Chaintech sounded [size=xx-small]slightly[/size] cleaner than the Toshiba onboard. The difference was small enough that I wouldn't notice if I was just listening. I guess my ears are tin.

Has anyone ever done a comparison between the M-Audio Transit and the Chaintech?