Zeruel the 14th
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2004
- Posts
- 70
- Likes
- 11
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.
~~~~~~~
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.