Audigy 2 or A7N8X Sound?

[Resh]

Hi All!

Now that everyone with A7N8X (standard and deluxe) versions have had some time with their boards, I'm hoping you can give me your views on the sound quality? Would it be realistic to expect Audigy2-class sound and mic performance from the Asus on-board sound? Is there a diff between the quality of sound on the Deluxe version vs the standard version?

Thanks for your input?

N

 

[boyRacer]

if you have the audigy2 already you might as well use it... the onboard on the deluxe is great but only if you use the digital out... otherwise you're using the realtek DAC if you go analog... and sound quality isnt comparable to the audigy.

 

[ViRGE]

And if you're gaming, you definately want to go with the Audigy; its 3D sound abilities and quality are definately better than that of the nForce.

 

[SKORPI0]

Read on... Battle of the Gaming Audio Titans: Creative Labs vs. NVIDIA

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: SKORPI0
Read on... Battle of the Gaming Audio Titans: Creative Labs vs. NVIDIA

I'm not a very big fan of that comparison really, it disreguards anything reguarding gaming. The nForce is good(better than anything before it), but having an Audigy and an nForce2 board, I can't stand the nForce's sound when it comes to gaming, as its both lacking in features(EAX3/HD/4) and compatibility with games(the Audigy being the standard card means that it has near 100% compatibility with recent and new games, not to mention that this means that it won't suffer the wierd sound problems in some games that the nForce still has). As the review also notes, the HRTFs for the nForce are still lacking, so even in situations where the nForce isn't outright doing things incorrectly, it's still failing to create as good of a soundsphere in 2 speaker/headphone mode as the Audigy does. But then again, I'm just a little bitter, I had higher expectations for the nForce than what it delivered(I didn't buy it for the sound, but I was still expecting more out of it).

 

[mrgoblin]

Regardless of what people might think, soundstorm is TERRIBLE. Audigy 2 however is equally terrible (if youve had driver problems you know what i mean) Id go with either the maudio 7.1 or if u just want a good sound card for the money, circuit city has the turtle beach card for 40 after mir.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
Regardless of what people might think, soundstorm is TERRIBLE. Audigy 2 however is equally terrible (if youve had driver problems you know what i mean) Id go with either the maudio 7.1 or if u just want a good sound card for the money, circuit city has the turtle beach card for 40 after mir.

shut up.

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

I like the soundstorm sound on my A7N8X Deluxe just fine. I'll keep the money in my pocket instead of buying an Audigy 2 and probably not noticing much of a difference.

 

[Sideswipe001]

My A7N8X had tons of issues. I got repeating sounds, corrupted sound, all kinds of crap. I was never happy with it. I don't know what it's problem was - no one else seemed to have nearly as many issues (and I tried many drivers). Eventually I just disabled it and bought an Audigy2 ZS. Much better sound in my opinion. Much cleaner than the other was (when it was working).

 

[boyRacer]

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
Regardless of what people might think, soundstorm is TERRIBLE. Audigy 2 however is equally terrible (if youve had driver problems you know what i mean) Id go with either the maudio 7.1 or if u just want a good sound card for the money, circuit city has the turtle beach card for 40 after mir.

the only thing terrible i can think of is the realtek DAC... otherwise... if i'm using the digital out... i'm not plunking down $50-100 for a new soundcard.

 

[boyRacer]

Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
I like the soundstorm sound on my A7N8X Deluxe just fine. I'll keep the money in my pocket instead of buying an Audigy 2 and probably not noticing much of a difference.

Thats what my brother did... no problems so far.

 

[jdogg707]

I tried this with the Audigy 2 I had vs. the Soundstorm on my Abit NF7-S, playing games and listening to DVD's, I could definately hear the separation better with the Audigy 2, and the high's were a bit clearer. With music both sounded equally as good. I have never had a driver problem with any Audigy series card, on an Intel or AMD based system, so I usually enjoy the Creative cards because of their excellent sound, especially when gaming.

 

[mrgoblin]

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
Regardless of what people might think, soundstorm is TERRIBLE. Audigy 2 however is equally terrible (if youve had driver problems you know what i mean) Id go with either the maudio 7.1 or if u just want a good sound card for the money, circuit city has the turtle beach card for 40 after mir.

shut up.

Have you ever heard soundstorm and audigy 2 next to each other? You shut up

 

[jdogg707]

Originally posted by: mrgoblin

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
Regardless of what people might think, soundstorm is TERRIBLE. Audigy 2 however is equally terrible (if youve had driver problems you know what i mean) Id go with either the maudio 7.1 or if u just want a good sound card for the money, circuit city has the turtle beach card for 40 after mir.

shut up.

Have you ever heard soundstorm and audigy 2 next to each other? You shut up

I have heard them side by side, Audigy 2 is much better for gaming, I ended up using the Audigy 2 over the soundstorm, and haven't regretted it a bit.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: Sideswipe001
My A7N8X had tons of issues. I got repeating sounds, corrupted sound, all kinds of crap. I was never happy with it. I don't know what it's problem was - no one else seemed to have nearly as many issues (and I tried many drivers). Eventually I just disabled it and bought an Audigy2 ZS. Much better sound in my opinion. Much cleaner than the other was (when it was working).

I had driver problems with the sound too where the sound would corrupt for no reason. The Asus drivers and the new nForce 3.13 drivers fixed that.

 

[yhelothar]

yeah nforce had a lot of bugs with soundstorm... mine was fine though on my rev 1.2 abit nf7-s.. never had one problem.. but one day that board decided to stop working.. so I rma'ed it and got rev 2.0... and my sound started to get crackling and repeating after a 30mins - 1hr in a game...
well I use digital out and the sound is great... the EAX works great in prince of persia....
music is crisp and clear... only except when I use my HD497 headphones on analog, the very high pitches were not clean and was bright, though when I had my altec lansing ada880 hooked up to analog, I did not notice the sound quality degrade.
I suggest you to try it out first and see if it works fine for you

 

[MDE]

I did notice that the sound was louder, clearer, and my subwoofer was actually doing something when I moved from an A7N8X Deluxe 1.04 to an NF7-S 2.0 (Logitech Z-640 analog speakers). I've used an Audigy2 (with Plantronics Audio .90 headphones) and wasn't impressed. Could have been the headphones, but to me it wasn't all that great.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Well, plantronics .90 are veeery low end headset headphones


Mike

 

[Brian48]

Originally posted by: mrgoblin

Originally posted by: nick1985

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
Regardless of what people might think, soundstorm is TERRIBLE. Audigy 2 however is equally terrible (if youve had driver problems you know what i mean) Id go with either the maudio 7.1 or if u just want a good sound card for the money, circuit city has the turtle beach card for 40 after mir.

shut up.

Have you ever heard soundstorm and audigy 2 next to each other? You shut up

Well, speaking for myself, I have. Audigy2 all the way.

 

[Resh]

Thanks everyone. The reason I ask is that I have an Audigy 2, but I'm about to get an A7N8X and was wondering if I could send the Aud2 to the my brother, along with my KR7A-133.

Since I use analog headphones 100% of the time, I think the Aud2 had better stay in my system. Wish I knew where that spare Audigy was at? I could have sworn I had it on the shelf!?

Other suggestions, welcome.

N