Is a SB Audigy 2 an upgrade?

hoorah · 02-01-2013, 01:04 PM

Hey all,

Recently had a decent find at a recycling center that I use to drop off old eletronics (wife gets mad when I come back with more than I dropped off).

It was a dell dimension 8400 that sacrified itself to be a nice RAM upgrade for my mother's PC and donated its copper heatpipe cooler for a project passively cooled video card. It also happened to have a SB Audigy 2 audio card.

I don't know much about modern audio cards, I've always just used onboard sound. Would this be an upgrade for my HTPC? Any higher audio quality? If I remember correctly there was some issue where, around the transition from XP to Vista, the SB Live 5.1 (that I have several of sitting in a closet) would not work at all with Windows 7, the drivers were incompatible. Not sure if thats the case with the audigy 2.

Is it worth messing around with? Right now I have HTPC audio going over HDMI to the TV, but for music/movie nights, I switch it to the analog signal which goes into my ancient 5.1 reciever.

thestrangebrew1 · 02-01-2013, 02:51 PM

I haven't used an Audigy SC in years, but from what I remember, Creative's drivers were complete garbage. Only way to find out if it's an improvement for your setup is to plug it in and give it a whirl. I've got a spare Audigy Platinum that's been sitting in a box for at least 3 years now.

crashtestdummy · 02-01-2013, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoorah

Hey all,

Recently had a decent find at a recycling center that I use to drop off old eletronics (wife gets mad when I come back with more than I dropped off).

It was a dell dimension 8400 that sacrified itself to be a nice RAM upgrade for my mother's PC and donated its copper heatpipe cooler for a project passively cooled video card. It also happened to have a SB Audigy 2 audio card.

I don't know much about modern audio cards, I've always just used onboard sound. Would this be an upgrade for my HTPC? Any higher audio quality? If I remember correctly there was some issue where, around the transition from XP to Vista, the SB Live 5.1 (that I have several of sitting in a closet) would not work at all with Windows 7, the drivers were incompatible. Not sure if thats the case with the audigy 2.

Is it worth messing around with? Right now I have HTPC audio going over HDMI to the TV, but for music/movie nights, I switch it to the analog signal which goes into my ancient 5.1 reciever.

How old is the computer you're using? Most likely, it's not going to make much of a difference. The DAC (digital-to-analog converter) might be better when you're going out to the receiver, but that's really about it. As above, you can just plug it in and give it a shot.

hoorah · 02-04-2013, 10:18 AM

Well, the computer its going into is an AM2/AM3 (can't remember) Athlon XII 250 (in my sig). However, in thinking about it, I realized that I moved that system over to a nice new Silverstream low-profile case. Thus - I couldn't even put the card in if I wanted to. I win the DURRR award.

I guess the only other thing to do with it would be to plug it into my desktop. I use analog audio on the desktop to send sound/record from a headset. Not sure if it would be noticeable there. I don't game all that much anymore so the project will probably be moved from the back burner to the never pile.

Thanks for the help guys! If I do put the card in, I will report back how it works.

Zaap · 02-08-2013, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoorah

However, in thinking about it, I realized that I moved that system over to a nice new Silverstream low-profile case. Thus - I couldn't even put the card in if I wanted to. I win the DURRR award.

I had that issue once when a client had me build a system to a half-height spec, but then needed a full sized PCI card. Just an FYI, I used one of these to adapt a PCI slot so that the card I needed could still be used:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-32-Bits-...item35bf0f27ea

Granted, it took some serious fiddling to 'mount' the card so it was usable, but it did solve the problem.