Good places to research sound cards?

[jamespetts]

I'd hate to be one of those people who posts a message at a hardware forum asking for absurdly generic recommendations in the form, "so what's the best sound card, then?". However, I am considering purchasing a sound card, and I should be grateful if somebody could give me some idea at least where to start looking for reliable reviews. Are there any websites that are to sound cards what www.storagereview.com is to hard drives?

For non-gaming applications, are there any sound cards that seriously compete with the Audigy series (and are, at least arguably, better than AC97 onboard sound)? If I have the names, then at least I can type, "[soundcard name] review" into Google.

In any case, thank you in advance for any assistance

James E. Petts

 

[breez]

For non-gaming applications there certainly are better sound cards than the Audigy series. Here are some for different prices (from expensive to cheap): EMU 1212M, M-Audio Revo 7.1, Chaintech AV-710. High quality on the Chaintech is however limited to 2 channel listening.

 

[stratcatprowlin]

I have had lots of problems with 2 different Audigy LS cards.They sound good when there are no driver problems but I could not recommend this card to anyone because of the that.

 

[Azzkiller]

I reccomend hydrogen audio's audio hardware forum

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showforum=21

 

[jamespetts]

Thank you all for your replies. The Hydrogen site was most useful. The M-Audio Revalation seems to be a good non-gaming card at a sensible price. One slight question mark is its inability to deal with the DVD-A format, although I am aware that the acceptance of this format is not widespread and is not (yet) an important issue. Is lack of DVD-A support something that would put any of you off?

 

[Azzkiller]

Thank you all for your replies. The Hydrogen site was most useful. The M-Audio Revalation seems to be a good non-gaming card at a sensible price. One slight question mark is its inability to deal with the DVD-A format, although I am aware that the acceptance of this format is not widespread and is not (yet) an important issue. Is lack of DVD-A support something that would put any of you off?

It wouldnt put me off. I have a DVD-A, but I just listen to the Dolby Digital tracks that are also on the disc. Sounds pretty good to me.

IMO there isnt enough media even out there to justify it.

 

[batboy]

I was considering the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 until I noticed it didn't have a way to plug in an audio cable from a CD-ROM and that it didn't have a digital input port. Seems awkward that the headhone jack is shared with the front channel output too. If you don't need these features, the sound is excellent though.