Just got a sound card, recommend me cool things to do with it.
Feb 13, 2013 at 5:07 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 12
Gyeg69

Gyeg69

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A friend of mine gave me a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy platinum eX. I couldn't get the external drive to work I don't know why, I think I plugged everything in right. I actually don't really know what it does if any of you guys know can you please enlighten me?
Anyways, I have Grado sr80i's and Klipsch Promedia 2.1 Speakers. So far their is a noticeable difference when listening to music through the speakers and with the headphones. I usually listen to the headphones through the speakers because I think they are pre-amped.
 
Do you guys have any recommendation for me to try out so I can see what this sound card can do?
 
this is the sound card and external module:
 
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/audigyplatinumex/index.html
 
Feb 13, 2013 at 7:59 AM Post #2 of 12
Man that is an old card... I am surprised it still works; Creative got a lot of stink for not providing good support for even the X-Fi series under Windows 7.
 
Anyway, I really am not sure what you are trying to ask...  For most lower-end, consumer-grade headphones, a modern computer sound card is more than capable of driving them to their full-potential, or close to it anyway. Unless you have headphones that are high impedance and hard to drive, just plug into your computer sound card and enjoy.
 
I would recommend plugging your headphones into the headphone port on speakers, though - it's an additional component in the signal chain and a lot of those volume control pods on speaker systems aren't very well-made. Could negatively impact your headphones' sound quality (though cheap headphones probably won't render any audible difference).
 
Feb 13, 2013 at 2:28 PM Post #3 of 12
The driver installation was a pain in the ass and took forever. It took me a while to find out which card was mine (forgot to get the serial number before installing) and I ended up installing the driver for the wrong card. Luckly, when I actually found out my cards name it was the exact same driver. I was surprised that it was better than my on board sound card.
 
I guess my main question is what does the external module do besides give me a bunch of connections?
 
Feb 13, 2013 at 8:35 PM Post #4 of 12
Quote:
gyeg69 said:
The driver installation was a pain in the ass and took forever. It took me a while to find out which card was mine (forgot to get the serial number before installing) and I ended up installing the driver for the wrong card. Luckly, when I actually found out my cards name it was the exact same driver. I was surprised that it was better than my on board sound card.
 
I guess my main question is what does the external module do besides give me a bunch of connections?
Click to expand...


It does exactly that. Give you a bunch of easy connections so you don't have to keep going behind your computer to plug things in.
 
Feb 13, 2013 at 9:11 PM Post #7 of 12
Quote:
caessa said:
Geez, you have an Audigy that still works? Put it in a museum =P
Click to expand...

That's what I wanted to say, but I didn't want to be mean. xD
 
If you are running Windows 7, the SoundBlaster X-Fi is a good and cheap PC sound card for gaming and music-listening alike (just make sure you avoid the XtremeAudio edition - that particular model is a re-branded Audigy and doesn't deserve the X-Fi badge).
 
The X-Fi has issues with Windows 8, however. If you don't game much, the Asus Xonar series are good sound cards for music. Otherwise, if you have a lot of dough, I hear the new SoundBlaster Z series is good. Do NOT get the SoundBlaster Recon3D series; those are crap.
 
Feb 13, 2013 at 9:40 PM Post #8 of 12
Aw, I wasn't trying to be mean.  Though I guess the Audigy is only one step behind the X-Fi series, which is just now finishing running its course.  I still remember my first Sound Blaster Live! card.
 
Feb 13, 2013 at 10:00 PM Post #10 of 12
That's a stripped down, half-size version that was overproduced to the point where you can still find it new from retailers.  That doesn't mean it isn't 12 years old.
 
Feb 13, 2013 at 10:31 PM Post #11 of 12
In terms of gaming features the Audigy simply cannot compare to the X-Fi. Of course, if you don't game, there are better sound cards than Sound Blasters for price/sound quality ratio.  The only reason to get any Creative card is for the EAX.
 
X-Fi does have better sound quality than Audigy, either way.
 
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