[Zeruel the 14th]

Here is the gist of my situation. Will try to be brief. Will most likely fail abysmally in attempt. Theft of valuable 'living time' may occur. Will apologise later.

~~~~~~~
I felt the need to finally give 'puter a nice hefty overhaul (influenced by new job, hopefully a keeper). This was 'The Plan'. At some point i decided "Maybe i can just use headphones instead of speakers." So I began looking around the 'net for a big can of worms called 'decent headphones'. Quickly discovered 'juice' or lack thereof might be a problem. Bugger. So began looking at 'amps' in the strict definition of the word ie "Something that serves it's purpose will do, i just need to get past that impedance bull****." Not long after that i discovered the 'importance of source'. Bugger Again.

I figured "Get the 'phones and amp sorted out first, then worry about the source." Ok, that made sense. 'Puter upgrade wasn't gonna be for a while, I had intended to spend more money than one should to get the gaming back up to scratch. Getting an Audigy 2 ZS as apart of it seemed like the logical idea. Immersion in my games was important to me and the primary motivation for some canned goodies, and i only had a SBLive.

So here comes the big 'ol magic spanner of blessed kick arse to screw things up for me.

A few days ago. As best as i can tell, the Sblive died. Just died. Windows said it was functioning...yet clearly it was not. ****ing Bugger! Messed around, no progress. Pro: It didn't smell funny or give off toxic fumes. Con: Still didn't work, chants had no effect ('Rites of Activation' if you're curious). So I took it out, and managed to get the onboard mobo sound up and running (it seems to register as a 'Creative Audio PCI') much to relief of a sonically deprived Zeruel.

So here I am. I've made absolutely squat all progress on Amp and 'Phones and am stuck with what is probably a well rooted soundcard (Will try it again later).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So headphone & amp issues aside. I need a new soundcard. I figured i'd have months to make a decision. No so it seems. person!
I've done many searches in this place and have read much that is worthy of 'weighty tome status'. i've come across the following.

Audigy 2 ZS - Cheap-ish, solid game performance, sounds good / sounds crap / sounds quite acceptable / Isn't that bad / buying one is a sin. Apparently dodgy khz upsamping jazz that makes no sense to me.

Chaintech AV-710 - Probably cheap, maybe sounds better, possibly dodgy gaming performance. Suspect Drivers / issues. Have no clue where to get one in Australia.

E-MU 0404 - Pricy, reminds me of a certain Giant bird, Has weird **** hanging off the back, maybe sounds better, Possibly no good for games, apparently geared toward the production of music, Unknown state of drivers.

E-MU 1212M - Like the above, only Pricier , Same big bird magic, No weird **** hanging off the back, bigger number. Twice as large stealer of slots.



I think you see my problem here. If not...<deep breath>...I'm a gamer who cares about immersion and who enjoys his music, listens almost exclusively to compressed audio of varying bitrates and has aspirations of actually owning something aurally sex related. Can you help?

Also, apologise for the length.

 

[ooheadsoo]

audigy for games, chaintec for music. Get both.

 

[Enverxis]

i have an EMU 1212M => Creek OBH-11SE => Alessandro MS-2

I dont care if the card doesnt support EAX or any of that crap ass technology for games. Sounds better and has better positional audio than any Audigy card imo.

Call of Duty + Miles 2D Fast Positional Audio + My Setup and bam, i can hear where anything is coming from and it sounds fine.

Although I might want the Beyerdynamic DT770Pro-80 instead of the MS-2

 

[sgrossklass]

I don't see any of the better quality yet still decently priced Envy24HT cards in the list. Prodigy 7.1 / 7.1 LT, Aureon 5.1 Sky / 7.1 Space, Revolution 5.1 or 7.1 and such. Pretty universal stuff, though not as good in gaming since 3D positioning is done via Sensaura or QSound (i.e. software). The ideal setup would probably be something like a 2ZS for gaming and a 0404 for the rest, if only their drivers got along peacefully. Possibly also consider a 2ZS used with kX Project drivers instead of the Creative bloatware (the 2ZS is most certainly better than the old Live!).

 

[zhoufang]

The australian price really sucks...
If you have any friends who's a university student from Singapore (there are thousands in australia) you can ask them to help you buy one from the Creative HQ here.
The 0404 and 1212M are selling at S$189 and S$369 respectively

 

[dogday]

if music is your first priority, buy an 0404 or 1212m. my 1212m was a big step up from the previous AV-710 (which was a big step up from onboard sound). if you want to play games, 0404/1212m is still good as long as it works.. as Enverxis said, they're great for CoD (for example), but mine refused to work with Half-Life 2. I tried changing PCI Latency, SQ, speaker mode; nothing worked.

if gaming (and compability with games) is more important, I'd suggest first buying an Audigy 2 of some kind (I bought an A2 Value for its 5.1 sound and HL2 compability) and then buying an E-MU when you get the money for it. then again, with the 5-6 games I played using the E-MU, only HL2 had problems.

the AV-710 is very good for its price (and I never had any problems with it), but if you know that you'll want better performance in either gaming (the chip on the AV-710 uses the CPU to a small amount and doesn't support EAX 3 or 4), or music (AV-710 is great for it's price, the E-MU is simply great) later on, don't waste your money on sidetracks. save up and buy what you'll end up buying sooner or later anyway.

 

[Zeruel the 14th]

Ok, so it seems two soundcards will be the end result. (or the only one that produce 'decent' results)

Some new questions.

1) Won't two soundcards present some new issues? Information seems conflicting on this as to what to expect exactly. I'd imagine there is frequent cable swapping and disabling/enabling of cards in device manager, right? (Never had more than audio / video adaptor installed at any one moment. Hadn't even considered it until now)

2) Apparently (as stated here) that E-Mus's and A2's do not tend get along peacefully, if at all. Is this rule or the exception and would kX project drivers 'make it all better'? (Found the site, giving it a look over.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgrossklass I don't see any of the better quality yet still decently priced Envy24HT cards in the list. Prodigy 7.1 / 7.1 LT, Aureon 5.1 Sky / 7.1 Space, Revolution 5.1 or 7.1 and such. Pretty universal stuff, though not as good in gaming since 3D positioning is done via Sensaura or QSound (i.e. software). The ideal setup would probably be something like a 2ZS for gaming and a 0404 for the rest, if only their drivers got along peacefully. Possibly also consider a 2ZS used with kX Project drivers instead of the Creative bloatware (the 2ZS is most certainly better than the old Live!).

3) I was wondering about other Envy24 powered cards. There seem to be 'revisions' (I think) on the chipset (MT, DT,GT,PT, HT-S). I did some looking around and i can't tell what card uses which and what the difference is. What makes these other cards 'better quality' as you say? Is it the DACs in use on each card?

4) Where am i supposed to aquire these bits of hardware exactly? I can't seem to find any Australian sites that sell Chaintechs or more accurately Envy24 based cards. I'll look over some manufacturer sites again and see if they have any useful links, nonetheless a site that will ship internationally would be a big plus. Certainly adds to one's options.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dogday the AV-710 is very good for its price (and I never had any problems with it), but if you know that you'll want better performance in either gaming (the chip on the AV-710 uses the CPU to a small amount and doesn't support EAX 3 or 4), or music (AV-710 is great for it's price, the E-MU is simply great) later on, don't waste your money on sidetracks. save up and buy what you'll end up buying sooner or later anyway.

Sound logic, i'm still unsure at this stage. The AV-710 appears to be cheap enough to be worth 'experimenting' on. Assuming of course i can aquire it or one of its Envy24 cousins. I'm still a little unsure about the E-mu offerings, especially if they're gonna play up on me. (and i have no friends from singapore either!)

Thanks for your help and any other answers you may provide.

 

[luukas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeruel the 14th 2) Apparently (as stated here) that E-Mus's and A2's do not tend get along peacefully, if at all. Is this rule or the exception and would kX project drivers 'make it all better'? (Found the site, giving it a look over.)

Well, I for one got the A2 ZS and 0404 working fine, after getting the drivers installed properly. Windows kept forcing a general Audigy driver on the 0404, but simply updating it to the E-Mu driver and then installing Patchmix worked fine. Notice that the E-Mu driver packade installer might seem to lock up in the end of the process - shutting it down from the task manager may be needed, but at least the installation finished properly (for me, anyway...).

Likewise if you're getting an A2 and 0404 you may wish, for convenience, output everything from the Audigy to the 0404 in S/PDIF. You will need a digital coaxial cable for this, with an RCA connector in one end, and a 3.5mm plug in the other. Or just get an RCA->3.5mm adapter instead...

I could go into more detail, but you should first decide if you want to use this kind of setup.

 

[sgrossklass]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeruel the 14th 2) Apparently (as stated here) that E-Mus's and A2's do not tend get along peacefully, if at all. Is this rule or the exception and would kX project drivers 'make it all better'? (Found the site, giving it a look over.)

Since the conflict arises from the Audigy and E-MU driver sets sharing some files (same company, remember?) but potentially requiring different revisions of them, there most likely would not be any problems using the kX drivers. I don't know, however, how well these are suited for gaming (my last Creative card was an AWE64 Value, and arguably an AudioPCI 64V which is more of an Ensoniq beast, plus the newest game I have must be around 5 years old).

Quote:

3) I was wondering about other Envy24 powered cards. There seem to be 'revisions' (I think) on the chipset (MT, DT,GT,PT, HT-S). I did some looking around and i can't tell what card uses which and what the difference is. What makes these other cards 'better quality' as you say? Is it the DACs in use on each card?

The HT-S is basically the same as the PT (only differing in intended use, separate card vs. onboard). MT and DT are irrelevant when it comes to standalone cards. 5.1 cards with 24/96 output on all channels typically use the GT, with 7.1 setups for 24/96 or 24/192 being restricted to the HT. Cards that have more than one stereo input typically use the "old" Envy24 (I think a successor with 24/192 support was announced recently). VIA's list of Envy24 variants.

What cards use: Revo 7.1: HT, Revo 5.1: GT, Philips PSC721: GT, Terratec Aureon 5.1 Sky / 7.1 Space / 7.1 Universe: HT, Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 (LT): HT.

Better quality has to do with both the DACs/ADCs and the analog path. As long as you do not catch a ground loop - now I know why pros prefer balanced connections - , cards like the Prodigy 7.1 (and the very similar, but somewhat sucky driver-wise Terratec Aureon 5.1 Sky / 7.1 Space) are also well suited for recording (for consumer stuff); I've obtained a noise floor of -98 dB with a pretty much clean spectrum on my Aureon using 32/96 in loopback (when measuring this, do not turn up the output volume too far, it'll increase noise and distortion), which is quite respectable given the ADC is only spec'd at 96 dB S/N in 96 kHz (and 102 dB in 48 kHz). On the AV-710, shielding does not seem to be that good (I know that problem from the old ISA Aztech I used to have in years gone by), and quality of the VT1616 ADC itself is also likely to be noticeably worse (don't have a datasheet to confirm). Also, AV-710 and relatives don't have any output opamps for the better-quality DAC on channels 7/8, so better keep cables rather short / good quality and don't try to drive 'phones directly.

 

[dogday]

Quote:

1) Won't two soundcards present some new issues? Information seems conflicting on this as to what to expect exactly. I'd imagine there is frequent cable swapping and disabling/enabling of cards in device manager, right? (Never had more than audio / video adaptor installed at any one moment. Hadn't even considered it until now)

no. if you go for A2 + E-MU, use the A2 as default sound in Windows. then all of your games and winsounds will play through that. then configure Foobar (or Winamp; iTunes and WMP can't be told which card to output to, IIRC) to output to the E-MU. then use a switchbox (if you want to go hardcore, search for quintête (sp?), it's a switchbox made by fiddler on head-fi) or whatever is needed to choose which source should output to our speakers or head-phones/amp (I have a Gilmore V2 which has 2 inputs, makes things very easy).

Quote:

2) Apparently (as stated here) that E-Mus's and A2's do not tend get along peacefully, if at all. Is this rule or the exception and would kX project drivers 'make it all better'? (Found the site, giving it a look over.)

I had no problems getting them to cooperate.

1. turn off your computer. install the A2 in your comp. turn on comp.

2. install the software for the A2 (I installed everything but bloaty, unnecessary Creative MediaSource)

3. restart and update drivers if necessary. make sure the A2 works.

4. turn off comp. install E-MU. turn on comp.

5. install E-MU software, but make sure you say "no to all" when the installer wants to overwrite files.

done!

Quote:

4) Where am i supposed to aquire these bits of hardware exactly? I can't seem to find any Australian sites that sell Chaintechs or more accurately Envy24 based cards. I'll look over some manufacturer sites again and see if they have any useful links, nonetheless a site that will ship internationally would be a big plus. Certainly adds to one's options.

go for the E-MU, you won't regret it!

 

[Zeruel the 14th]

Obviously i've still got a lot of thinking to do. I haven't yet settled on a set of phones / amp yet nor a final cost (I'm willing to pay for something that will last a good long while. Is 5yrs+ too much to ask?). I am pretty hung up on getting good 'value for money' and Trying to avoid whatever rapidly diminishing returns there may be and I suspect there are many.

I can always afford a new soundcard...but i can't always afford a good set of phones and amp. So at the moment i still have strong leanings toward getting the obvious stuff first, the initial investment that will, hopefully, outlast everything else PC related.

I did find a local site that sells Chaintechs (not much luck with other offerings

) and the price is acceptable. I've blown more money on more frivolous crap! It is a start i believe. Afterall, i just want to get started, I don't want to empty my bank account all at once.

The 0404 does come across as one very good item, but the inclusion of a apparently better source now, vs later. Will be too much of a strain on the finances. Atleast the useful life for soundcards is greater than other PC parts, thats a plus.

As much as i want to, as much as i'd like to. Getting a 0404 now pushes the limits of how much expenditure i can justify to myself. I'll break it down for later, baby steps first seems the best way to go. I'll get that Emu later!

Anyway, I thank you all for your time and help on this matter. I have a much better idea now as how to pursue things from here on. Take care.