[10068]

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadtonowhere08 ...and please, no mp3's, they sound like crap on any good sound card.

What?!? My mp3s sound the best they've ever sounded.

If you're using inferior input plugins and other software settings, of course your mp3s will sound bad.

Please, don't turn subjective experience into truth when it isn't

 

[lini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by james__bean Why doesn't anyone around here recommend the Audiotrack Prodigy? From what I've read it's a little better than the Revo and costs the same.

Yup, the Prodigy 7.1 is a good idea. Just like the very similar (=almost identical board, just with optical instead of electrical s/p-dif i/o) Terratec Aureon 7.1 Space (or the 5.1 version Aureon 5.1 Sky) it's a nice Envy24HT-based card with modern Wolfson dacs and an onboard headphone amp, which - while not being as good as more expensive standalone headamps - at least helps driving high impedance headphones to proper levels. Personally, I'd go with one of the Terratecs, because optical s/p-dif seems preferable to me for computer audio purposes...

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini

 

[Asmo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek What?!? My mp3s sound the best they've ever sounded. If you're using inferior input plugins and other software settings, of course your mp3s will sound bad. Please, don't turn subjective experience into truth when it isn't

He does have a point, MP3, when downloaded from a unreliable source, you can get some very crappy music, even at higher bit rates, if you rip yourself, or know it was ripped the best way to rip a song into mp3, the quality is very good, but generally speaking, most mp3s you find are not very good.

Edit: Oh and to original poster, stay away from the creative cards, go with the m-audio revolution, it has a lot of good options and the SQ is great, it sounds like you would feel better spending the entire $100 for whatever reason that is, so just grab the revo and be done with it

I'd also highly recommend just working a overtime shift and paying the extra for the emu 1212m

 

[roadtonowhere08]

I used to be a diehard mp3 fan, but that was in the days when people actually distributed 320kb/s mp3's and cared about the sound. Now you have two camps: the people who rip and encode mp3's by the dozen with crap quality, and the people who encode their stuff on lossless like .flac and .ape. It is harder get a crappy sounding lossless file because there is no loss of quality. There always will be exceptions to what I said, but my general observations are that people really don't care about sound quality anymore, hence the mp3 explosion. Most treble blows on mp3's that are circulated. And besides, hard drives can be had for nothing these days, what is the point of mp3's for people who want to have a music library.

 

[jack963]

Thanks a lot for all the input. The decision does not have to made now, or even all that soon, so I guess I'll sit on it for a while, but it does look like I'll be going with either the Chaintech or the M-Audio. Thanks again.

 

[roadtonowhere08]

Question: do they even sell Revos or Chaintechs at Best Buy? I had to get my Revo online, there never was one at the Best Buy by my house.

 

[ixeo]

i want just wondering..being a nooby and all

the m-audio revo is based on the envy 24HT chip
and the chaintech av710 is based on the envy 24PT chip

seems that there is difference in its max resolution and max sampling rate for both analog i/o and digital i/o for both the 24HT & 24PT

reference: http://www.via.com.tw/en/multimedia/...ontrollers.jsp

and the million dollar question..whats max resolution and max sampling rate and how does if affect audio quality?

 

[jack963]

Roadtonowhere, no, they do not sell any of these at Best Buy. However, since they are rather inexpensive, I'm not concerned about buying at Best Buy or not.

 

[10068]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ixeo i want just wondering..being a nooby and all the m-audio revo is based on the envy 24HT chip and the chaintech av710 is based on the envy 24PT chip seems that there is difference in its max resolution and max sampling rate for both analog i/o and digital i/o for both the 24HT & 24PT reference: http://www.via.com.tw/en/multimedia/...ontrollers.jsp and the million dollar question..whats max resolution and max sampling rate and how does if affect audio quality?

I'm not sure about 20-bit, but 24-bit sounds a lot better than 16-bit, which is the standard for most things. I'd go with something that can support 24-bit over anything else, from my experience with how much better 24-bit sounds.

As far as sampling rate, some people don't like upsampled music, but there's a lot of others that say it sounds more "analog" or "smooth" or "natural". Normal CDs ar 44.1kHz, whereas with my current card I output sound @ 192kHz. Basically, if you look at the wave (signal) your card is producing, at higher sampling rates the "steps" it's made up of are smaller and smoother. But since PC's aren't fast or powerful enough yet, their algorithms used to smooth out the signal are imperfect and put some artificats in, so some people on some systems can hear said artifacts. So if you can't hear the artifacts, then higher is better. Currently i'm runng 24bit/192khz and it sounds great to these ears

Hope that helps

 

[lcachola]

Quote:

Originally Posted by james__bean Why doesn't anyone around here recommend the Audiotrack Prodigy? From what I've read it's a little better than the Revo and costs the same.

I don't know about it being better, but it does sound pretty good.

 

[lcachola]

Quote:

Originally Posted by roadtonowhere08 And besides, hard drives can be had for nothing these days

Oh, I could think of better things to spend my money on than hard drives ... food and a social life, for instance.

But I digress. My big issue with huge hard drives is backing them up - and I'm not talking about buying an external hard drive or second hard drive, I'm talking about an offsite backup. If the idea is to preserve your music collection, then an offsite backup is a must - and that isn't cheap by any means. The other issue is noise - the more drives you have, the louder your computer is. Unless you keep your computer in a closet or listen to etymotics, this kills using a computer as a source. Maybe I'm just too picky.

 

[10068]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lcachola The other issue is noise - the drives you have, the louder your computer is. Unless you keep your computer in a closet or listen to etymotics, this kills using a computer as a source.

Depends on how loud your comp is. Mine is only around 20-30dB so I don't hear it with my CD3000s on (those cans don't isolate well for closed cans, btw), even with quiet music. I could switch out my PSU fan since that's the loudest component, but i'm lazy. A big help was putting acoustic matting inside the case, that sucked up a lot of noise, vibration, and such. W00t for tweaks.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Now that I've got the Chaintech, and got it working right, I'd say it's definitely the card to get until you want to step up to the high-end card like the EMU. The Chaintech sounds very nice and clear, as I recall the Revo sounding, but without the high-end harshness I got from the Revo. Granted the Chaintech has its issues with drivers, but if all someone is using it for is music, then I'd buy it without a doubt. If someone wnated to use the card for many different purposes, like recording, gaming, music, and maybe something else, and switch between them a lot, the M-Audio's drivers are much better for that.

 

[Jasper994]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer Now that I've got the Chaintech, and got it working right, I'd say it's definitely the card to get until you want to step up to the high-end card like the EMU. The Chaintech sounds very nice and clear, as I recall the Revo sounding, but without the high-end harshness I got from the Revo. Granted the Chaintech has its issues with drivers, but if all someone is using it for is music, then I'd buy it without a doubt. If someone wnated to use the card for many different purposes, like recording, gaming, music, and maybe something else, and switch between them a lot, the M-Audio's drivers are much better for that.

That is something very annoying about the m-audio cards... the highs are way to harsh. Initially I just thought it was detail but between hearing the e-mu at home and using the audiophile at work where it is very quiet, the fact that the audiophile is harsh in the highs is abundantly clear.

 

[roadtonowhere08]

I've got a Maxtor 80GB SATA and a Seagate 160GB SATA and I have plenty of music on them, but I see what you are talking about. The noise is not an issue, but I wish they would last longer. I have two 80mm fans blowing air on them, so if they fail, not my fault. I only have a PC as a source, and when I want to get analytical, I just turn the fans down with my fan controller, otherwise it sounds like my PC will take off. Gotta keep it cool in the summer somehow. I love my Revo, but I am coming from a Audigy 2, so I have not heard the best there is to offer. The main point is that I am satisfied to a point that I am content, and that is all that matters to me. Sorry for the rant...

To the point we go: if you say that the Revo is cheap enough that you can get it anywhere, I would strongly suggest that you just wait a little longer and get the E-MU, like everyone is raving about. That way, you will not have buyers remorse.

I am listening to Opeth through my RB-5IIs right now and am loving every second of it. Go Revo!!! Spend your money how you want, but enjoying what you buy is paramount.