[Reck45]

I'm looking for a soundcard for games primarily, then music. What soundcard would you audiophiles recommend? I'm either going to be using the sennheiser 555s or the 595s unamped, depending on more of the reviews hopefully comming up around here. I'm not really familiar with the models of soundcards out other than the audigy 2. People have always complained about the cards upsampling everything to 48khz(loss of quality) but now you don't have to do that with a new driver update. My price limit is 100 bucks. I need a pci version. Actually my brother has a lower end a2 and with the 497s it sounds fantastic and I haven't tweaked anything on it(not even MAD or Direct Sound). I need a card that also has the abilty for at least 6.1 dolby, DTS. That's why the a2 seems the best bet right now. I know that some cards don't supprt eax(crucial for games) and have popping sounds(like my sb-live in GTA..). I know you can get the zs for 90 bucks. Is there anything better that does what I'm looknig for at that price? Thanks.

PS: Please no confusing 500 dollar equipment with consumer equipment!

 

[Asmo]

There is nothing better for gaming.

But there is also nothing stopping you from running 2 soundcards in your computer, one for music, one for gaming.

 

[Mr.Radar]

The Audigy 2 sounds bad for three reasons:
1) It uses a VERY bad resampling algorithm. It's a real travesty considering there are much better ones out there for free (SRC for example)
2) It's DSP processes audio at 16/48. Fine for games but not for music.
3) It uses poor quality DACs. The channel 7/8 DAC on the $26 Chaintech AV-710 (Newegg link) is better than the ones used on the Audigy.

For your situation I'd reccomend the following setup: Audigy 2 for games/movies and Chaintech AV-710 for music. It'll cost ~$116 but you should be able to notice a difference between the Chaintech and the Audigy while listening to music.

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reck45 People have always complained about the cards upsampling everything to 48khz(loss of quality) but now you don't have to do that with a new driver update.

A driver update won't fix this problem. The hardware is physically incapable of handling clock rates that are not multiples of 48kHz. Every so often there's a rumor that some new pricey variant of the Audigy 2 (e.g. Platinum ES) fixes the problem, but so far all these rumors have turned out to be false, and people have wasted a lot of money on it.

The suggestion that someone made to buy a $20 Chaintech AV-710 for music is a good one. If you need to stay under $100, get that card and an original Audigy 1 for gaming.

 

[Reck45]

Damn I don't have any spare pci slots now so I can't use a dual setup. My processor isn't fast(athlon 1.2) so I can't really use the chaintec for gaming. Psh I have to get something, It'd be a waste to get a really nice pair of headphones with such a crappy card. Going back and listening to my bros a2, I get the distinct feeling I'm really held back by my headphones, I know the card can sound better than that. Heh it has a lot more power output than my live... I really don't think you could honestly call it bad... if creative will release a new one it's always at holdiday season it seems. Isn't there any other models for around that much that do what I want? I can't be taking severe performance hits when my pc is outdated... oh and I very well might wanna get into DVD audio! Haha I've been wanting to hear that just to see what all the fusss is about.

So what you're saying is... even if I set to 44.1 and the driver to that, I will still be resampling? How could sound engineers be so stupid? What was the point in a design like that?

 

[Wodgy]

You can minimize the problem by using a music player like Foobar that can resample the music to 48kHz during playback, so you bypass the hardware resampling. That's not a bad compromise, and people have reported good results. If you find that it doesn't meet your needs, you can always add a USB sound device later for dedicated music listening.

By the way, if you set the hardware drivers to 44.1kHz, the signal gets resampled from 44.1kHz to 48kHz and then back down to 44.1kHz.

 

[tortie]

If you game first and its your top priority, the Audigy 2 is your best bet here, especially if you have a slower than average CPU. It is designed primarily to be the best PC gamers card, and in this aspect, it does not disappoint.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

To clarify all this:

The Audigy2 ZS series of sound cards and the previous Audigy2 Platinum eX does not resample audio, so long as no effects whatsoever are being used. (Their DACs are still mediocre in quality compared to those of other brands of sound cards at the same price points as those Audigy2 ZS cards.) But once you enable any effects at all, the audio gets resampled by the infamous Windows Kmixer that comes with most versions of Microsoft Windows, changing the bits in the process.

However, the previous-generation Audigy2 and Audigy2 Platinum (non-eX) resample everything to 32/48 at DSP level no matter what. And previous Sound Blasters (Live! and Audigy1) resample everything to 16/48.

 

[Piccolo Daimaou]

Eagle Driver is correct. I have an Audigy 2 ZS, and have heard the original Audigy and Audigy 2, and the ZS is a bit of an improvement, but it's still not great, at least for music, given the less-than-stellar DAC's.

 

[raif]

Eagle_Driver, where did you get this information? I am not doubting your credibility I would just be interested to read/hear the details.

 

[halcyon]

All Audigy cards including the ZS and Platinum lines, resample 44.1kHz output to 48kHz (by default), REGARDLESS of whether the card has any fx/CMSS/EAX/EQ in use.

Proof 1 - Udial testing
http://www5.head-fi.org/forums/archi...p/t-70836.html

Proof 2 - RMAA measurements
http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/2...audigy-09.html

Proof 3 - Message from Creative tech support
http://tinyurl.com/35jqu

Proof 4 - Audigy 2 (inlucing Platinum and ZS series locked at 48kHz by default)
http://www.driverheaven.net/showthre...ing+AND+audigy

http://www.driverheaven.net/showthre...ing+AND+audigy

This is a feature of the Audigy cards that has not been succesfully disabled. There exists a smal possibility that p16v chip mode can be used to bypass the resampling of 44.1kHz when using KX Project drivers. However, this feature is still experimental and may not work (audio distortions may result), because of lack of documentation.

In addition, Audigy cards clip and distort badly if you set the channel or main volume above 50% (when using full amplitude signals). This is clearly audible to the human ear (see proof 1).

Furthermore, Creative card's using Creative drivers can't even give out bit-perfect 48kHz 16-bit results, but re-quantisize due to bad resampling, causing the effective bit-depth to be truncated to 15.5. This problem can be fixed with KX project drivers.

I hope this finally puts the issue to rest.

If you think you can prove that Creative (any card, sans EMU variants) can output bit-perfect 44.1kHz/16-bit data, then record a 44.1kHz/16-bit sample with full amplitude digitally from the output of aforementioned creative card and do a file comparison between the original and recorded sample.

There's the final proof, if you don't believe me and the sources I quoted above.

regards,
halcyon

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon All Audigy cards including the ZS and Platinum lines, resample 44.1kHz output to 48kHz (by default), REGARDLESS of whether the card has any fx/CMSS/EAX/EQ in use. Proof 1 - Udial testing http://www5.head-fi.org/forums/archi...p/t-70836.html Proof 2 - RMAA measurements http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/2...audigy-09.html Proof 3 - Message from Creative tech support http://tinyurl.com/35jqu Proof 4 - Audigy 2 (inlucing Platinum and ZS series locked at 48kHz by default) http://www.driverheaven.net/showthre...ing+AND+audigy http://www.driverheaven.net/showthre...ing+AND+audigy This is a feature of the Audigy cards that has not been succesfully disabled. There exists a smal possibility that p16v chip mode can be used to bypass the resampling of 44.1kHz when using KX Project drivers. However, this feature is still experimental and may not work (audio distortions may result), because of lack of documentation. In addition, Audigy cards clip and distort badly if you set the channel or main volume above 50% (when using full amplitude signals). This is clearly audible to the human ear (see proof 1). Furthermore, Creative card's using Creative drivers can't even give out bit-perfect 48kHz 16-bit results, but re-quantisize due to bad resampling, causing the effective bit-depth to be truncated to 15.5. This problem can be fixed with KX project drivers. I hope this finally puts the issue to rest. If you think you can prove that Creative (any card, sans EMU variants) can output bit-perfect 44.1kHz/16-bit data, then record a 44.1kHz/16-bit sample with full amplitude digitally from the output of aforementioned creative card and do a file comparison between the original and recorded sample. There's the final proof, if you don't believe me and the sources I quoted above. regards, halcyon

Oh, I stand corrected about this. It is the 96kHz/24-bit data that I was posting about in my previous posts about the Audigy2 ZS/Platinum eX cards.

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle_Driver Oh, I stand corrected about this. It is the 96kHz/24-bit data that I was posting about in my previous posts about the Audigy2 ZS/Platinum eX cards.

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks Halcyon for such a great post. It's also probably true that these cards can't do 88.2kHz/24-bit properly. I suspect there is no PLL in one of Creative's custom chips and so it can only handle multiples of 48kHz internally.

The biggest mystery is whether the Audigy 3 will fix this. One would hope so, but the cynical side of me says why bother improving your product when you have no serious competition in your biggest market (gaming)?

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wodgy Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks Halcyon for such a great post. It's also probably true that these cards can't do 88.2kHz/24-bit properly. I suspect there is no PLL in one of Creative's custom chips and so it can only handle multiples of 48kHz internally. The biggest mystery is whether the Audigy 3 will fix this. One would hope so, but the cynical side of me says why bother improving your product when you have no serious competition in your biggest market (gaming)?

Yep, the ability to handle sampling rates in multiples of 48kHz is still 'better' than the Live!, the original Audigys and the non-eX/non-ZS Audigy2s internally strapping the sampling frequency to a fixed 48kHz even with 192kHz data. (But still not as 'good' as a soundcard that doesn't resample.)

Other brands of soundcards - even the really cheap ones - don't resample in hardware. However, most of the cheap ones come with or use drivers that will send all audio data to the Windows Kmixer (which itself resamples audio data, and changes bits in the process) no matter what - and ASIO and kernel streaming won't work at all with those cards.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle_Driver Yep, the ability to handle sampling rates in multiples of 48kHz is still 'better' than the Live!, the original Audigys and the non-eX/non-ZS Audigy2s internally strapping the sampling frequency to a fixed 48kHz even with 192kHz data. (But still not as 'good' as a soundcard that doesn't resample.) Other brands of soundcards - even the really cheap ones - don't resample in hardware. However, most of the cheap ones come with or use drivers that will send all audio data to the Windows Kmixer (which itself resamples audio data, and changes bits in the process) no matter what - and ASIO and kernel streaming won't work at all with those cards.

I stand partially corrected on the other brands of soundcards sending all audio to the Kmixer. That part is true - but I also forgot to mention that most cheap soundcards also resample audio to 16/48 and then back to your chosen quantization/sampling rate in their driver software.