sound cards

[Big Woof]

Just read a very good report on the Turtle Beach Montego DDL. It scored a 7.
I run XP2 with a Realtek AC97 sound card. Mini plug cable from pc to Panasonic digital stereo receiver. 2 channel stereo with Klipsch speakers.
If the Montego is a 7, what's better for my purposes. 98% music. 2% whatever.
Hope somebody can help with this. There's just too many cards out there for me to make an educated decision.
And I'm new to pc's too.
Thanks,
Big Woof

[Rob Williams]

If you are willing to spend money, the X-Fi may be the way to go. I use the Chaintech AV-710, which is almost a budget card but does music extremely well. Can't say the same for some gaming though.

[madmat]

The Montego most likely scored a 7 due to having no hardware acceleration for gaming. The sound is every bit as good as the Envy 24 based cards and better than a first generation Audigy.

[Jag]

I use an Audigy 2 ZS card, you can get them at a very decent price. Not top line but very solid and an excellent quality, especially if you primarily just need it for music.

[Rob Williams]

I prefer the Chaintech AV-710 over the Audigy 2 ZS because they are half the price and offer near the same performance. That's just me though.

/me wants an X-Fi :\

[spiffyp]

The problem with almost all of the add-on cards, I've found, is the amount of CPU load they add.

I'd rather use a built-on card (playing MP3s while gaming).
Or, buy an X-Fi. If you have the $$$.

/me drools... X-Fi...

[fussnfeathers]

You've got it backwards, Spif. PCI cards use less CPU, as long as they have onboard decoding for surround sound. Most add-in cards at least have regular audio processing built into them, whereas the onboard chips rely on the southbridge to process the stream, which in turn loads up the CPU.

Big Woof, if you're just listening to music, and super-high quality isn't an issue, your setup is actually just fine. I might ditch the Panasonic stereo for a good set of PC speakers, but I find 5.1 and 7.1 excessive for pure music.

If you want an add-in card, give the M-Audio Revolution a look, or just an Audigy 2. Both perform well, but I find the Revolution does a better job at music reproduction. The trade-off is the surround decoding for games and movies isn't done onboard, it's passed off to the CPU. For you, I don't think that will matter at all.

[Flipi]

If you want a card for music I would choose the M-Audio card, but beware of the 5.1 card, go for the 7.1 model. It does a better job than the Audigy series. The only problem with this card is that is not quite suitable for games.
Btw I am into music too and have Altec mx5021 wich is a 2.1 system and I love it. For true lovers though classic systems are of no comparisson to active speakers.

[PUTALE]

most onboard sounds are good for music hearing unless you are looking into heavy sounds that has a lot of ranges.

[anibalX]

I have the Creative Soundblaster live 24, it's a cheap card but has a good quality

[Tech-Daddy]

I have an X-Fi Music... Fry's has these baby's for sale pretty cheap right now with a mail in rebate. They really are great sound cards.

Highly recommended....

[sbrehm72255]

On-board is good enough for my dead easr........;) It only has to play basic sounds and low volume games on my system. So I really don't have a need for anything special.

[fussnfeathers]

On-board is good enough for my dead easr........;) It only has to play basic sounds and low volume games on my system. So I really don't have a need for anything special.

Even you can benefit from a PCI based card. The main reason is most PCI based cards move the positional sound processing from the motherboard and CPU to a dedicated processor on the soundcard. This translates to a few FPS in games, and cleaner sound at low volumes. I go a step farther, my soundcard is an external FireWire based unit, so I'm completely removing not only the processing, but any potential crosstalk and noise.

[sbrehm72255]

I know this about the FPS in games, a few FPS isn't going to make or break me on the games I play one way or the other.
I have a few Soundblaster cards around the house and opted not to use them. I hate the creative drivers along with the extra crap in my case, it just gets in the way of my water cooling. .................;)

[Drew]

I have to agree with Rob. I use the Chaintech and absolutely love it and the price was good too.

[CoolZone]

x-fi xtrememusic is the card to chose

[RazorBack]

Can anyone here suggest a new sound card for me? I have a mixer with two phono outputs and I would love to connect it to a decent sound card, rather than just through an adapter to a 1/8" jack. The quality really isn't good. I have recorded a few bands in the past, and the onboard sound really doesn't cut it. I don't have that much money lying around... maybe up to £70, not sure.

Thanks

[jadegato]

As far as soundcards go, At the moment i use a Auzentech X-meridian. I just came from an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and the sound quality for music and movies is incredible on the X-M is way better. There is a definite difference between the two.

The x-fi is excellent for eax enabled games though definitely the way to go. The x-fi platinum ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102189 ) has phono inputs i believe so you might want to try that one.

However now that i moved away from creative. The X-Meridian is definitely worth a look you could also buy other variants of this card such as the Blue Gears Enspirer ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829127002 ) and the HT Omega Claro (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271002 ) . Those two are the same chipset as the Auzentech and not as expensive. Again though its up to your personal preference i barely play games but when i do it sounds amazing on DTS.

[b1lk1]

Another sound card to look for is the Sondigo Inferno. It uses the same chipset as the X-Meridian but is half the price. If you plan on using the Optical S/Pdif then the Sondigo is just as good as the X-Meridian.

[JacKz5o]

You could look into the Razer Barracuda, TechGage did a great review and detailed review of it too :)

http://techgage.com/article/razer_barracuda_ac-1_sound_card/

[Rory Buszka]

I have to say, I'm extremely happy with the way the Razer Barracuda performs (as I'm still using it). Its audio performance was at least as good as the Audigy 4. I'm not totally sure why it scored lower in my RMAA 5.5 loopback testing -- I think my test methods need more refinement. As I think I mentioned, I don't really trust my ears in every case to tell me the difference between two sound cards that are very close to one another in sound quality -- I'd rather use actual measurements to quantify the difference.

[b1lk1]

In my opinion, Creative has nothing that comes close to the sound quality for music and movies that the C-Media 8788 Oxygen based soundcards has. I have tried so many Creative cards and they do sound good, but they just don't compare to the really good C-Media based cards. That Razor has the same chipset as my card so I can readily assume the sound quality. My Logitech Z-680's sounded decent with a Creative card. I really thought it was as good as it got as far as dedicated PC sound speakers. Once I added this soundcard, I was simply blown away. The one important factor for me is digital abilities since I have the sound system that can use it too.

Taterworks, your review was very good, and reviewing a soundcard is really subjective based on the quality of your ears and the quality of your sound system. It is nice to see that you took alot more time trying to mechanically distinguish the differences as well as using your ears. Too many other guys trying to review soundcards should as well. There are a great many of us that could care so much less about EAX than a quality sounding card.

[NicePants42]

X-Fi's are getting cheaper for those of you who're interested.

Newegg Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102006) courtesy of AT Forums.

[Rob Williams]

$80 seems like a great price. Would that card make much of a difference with headphones? That's strictly what I use on my gaming PC, thanks to lack of room.

[NicePants42]

$80 seems like a great price. Would that card make much of a difference with headphones? That's strictly what I use on my gaming PC, thanks to lack of room.
Assuming that you're asking about the X-fi, it does have great DACs, and would probably make a huge difference in games IF you have 5.1 headphones.

If you're using stereo headphones and want to improve the way games sound, I would have to suggest that you spend money on 5.1 headphones before buying a fancy-schmancy sound card.

I'll be getting some Medusas in about a month.

[Rob Williams]

Yeah, I don't have 5.1 headphones on the gaming rig. I use Turtle Beach HPA 5.1 headphones on my primary PC, but I don't game on it at all. Maybe I should move those headphones over to the other PC, heh.

[g-sixty]

I have to say, I'm extremely happy with the way the Razer Barracuda performs (as I'm still using it). Its audio performance was at least as good as the Audigy 4. I'm not totally sure why it scored lower in my RMAA 5.5 loopback testing -- I think my test methods need more refinement. As I think I mentioned, I don't really trust my ears in every case to tell me the difference between two sound cards that are very close to one another in sound quality -- I'd rather use actual measurements to quantify the difference.

Probably because the barracuda and the creative sound cards are almost identical

[Merlin]

I have the Audigy 2 ZS on the other machine, going to my Kenwood surround system, I use the machine to play movies on the 42" Plasma in living room.
Also record movie/shows with ATI Wonder TV card

Merlin/Deckard