Which is the best sound card?

[vampiro]

Hi guys,
About a year ago, I purchused an SBLive! X-Gamer, but so far have been disappointed with its quality. So I was wondering which sound cards you would reccomend to replace my SBLive! I have been looking hard at the Phillips Acoustic Edge, but I am a little worried since Phillips is so new to the soundcard biz. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Shadow ÒÓ]

strange you don't like that card. Are you using the digital out as well as a 5.1 speaker system?

I'd be happy to take it off of your hands as I'm extremely impressed with it's quality.

 

[Zuck Gou :)]

I agree with shadow full-heartedly... the SB Live! series really impresses me.

You can try that Turtle Beach card thats getting all the rave reviews.

 

[vampiro]

It may just be my crappy speakers, but audio seems to be fuzzy and playing CDs or MP3s REALLY slows down my system. And obviously with the hardware I have, it shouldn't. I would be open to suggestions as for which speakers to try, I am willing to spend somewhere around $60 to correct this problem.

 

[Zuck Gou :)]

Altec Lansing ACS54 (4 satellite spkers and a sub) are really brilliant for the price. I use em with a SB Live and the quality is amazing. They are about 90 canadian, so that should fit in your price range.

Have you installed all the newest drivers for your Live! ?

 

[vampiro]

Zuck Gou (Jul 05, 2001 04:32 p.m.):
Altec Lansing ACS54 (4 satellite spkers and a sub) are really brilliant for the price. I use em with a SB Live and the quality is amazing. They are about 90 canadian, so that should fit in your price range.

Have you installed all the newest drivers for your Live! ?

Yeah, but I couldn't tell any difference. Just the same old problems. Thanks for the info on the Altec Lansings, I will give them a look.

 

[Cowtown]

Nothing can touch the Hercules Game Theatre, having come from a Live! the sound quality improvement is quite noticable. I am hearing more of the music if you know what I mean. I only have a set of Altec Lansing ACS48's (Kick *** speakers tho) so I don't have a high buck speaker rig. I did notice though right off the bat that the Hercules was a better sound than the live. the external rack is really cool and if you ever need to plug something into it it is nice, especially for headphones and joysticks. (I think the Phillips is a similar card but with a slightly older cyrstal chip, although I may be wrong).

Also I observed a noticable drop in CPU Utilization in Windows 2000 using the Hercules. With my live! just playing MP3's in Winamp would run between 2-4% utilization, with the Hercules it's 0-1%. It also supports all the major Sound codec's except Aureal 2.0 (does 1.0 though so that's cool). The price is certainly more than a Live! value or MP3, but it should be cheaper than the SBLive! Platinum 5.1 and I think it makes a nicer card overall.

Shawn

 

[Pinky]

I've heard good things about the Turtle Beach 'Santa Cruz' card.

I personally use the soundblaster and have few issues with it, which is why I haven't bought the Turtle Beach (yet).

Creative's got a good hold on the market, but that isn't to say it's the best card.

 

[machine]

Hercules Game Theatre XP, if you have money burning a hole in your pocket.

 

[Eil Atan]

The Hercules is a good system, but its pretty expensive, and unless you are lacking the space in your case, I find the Live! Drive to be better because it is right there, right in the front with all the plugs in the front. You still have to reach behind the Hercules box itself. Because I do a lot of stuff on MiniDisc (for recording audio for film) I find the Live! Drive really easy, although it costs even more than the Hercules if you get the Platinum card, which is kind of at a ridiculous price. However, I have no complaints about the card itself, which is giving me excellent performance from the Creative 5.1 Surround Speaker setup I have as well (i can crank this thing wayyyyyy up and get no fuzziness or distortion). My friend has the Altec speakers mentioned above and they perform quite nicely as well...

 

[FerrariF50]

Yeah I'm talking about geting the Game theater Xp too

Nothing can touch the Hercules Game Theatre, having come from a Live! the sound quality improvement is quite noticable. I am hearing more of the music if you know what I mean. I only have a set of Altec Lansing ACS48's (Kick *** speakers tho) so I don't have a high buck speaker rig. I did notice though right off the bat that the Hercules was a better sound than the live. the external rack is really cool and if you ever need to plug something into it it is nice, especially for headphones and joysticks. (I think the Phillips is a similar card but with a slightly older cyrstal chip, although I may be wrong).

Also I observed a noticable drop in CPU Utilization in Windows 2000 using the Hercules. With my live! just playing MP3's in Winamp would run between 2-4% utilization, with the Hercules it's 0-1%. It also supports all the major Sound codec's except Aureal 2.0 (does 1.0 though so that's cool). The price is certainly more than a Live! value or MP3, but it should be cheaper than the SBLive! Platinum 5.1 and I think it makes a nicer card overall.

Shawn