Best Soundcard for under $100

[wdn2k]

I'm looking for the best soundcard I can get on my budget ($100 or less). I want to try some hard disk recording, so I will be stressing it a bit. I want a card that doesn't depend on the CPU at all if possible. I'm also looking for a card that I can walk into Best Buy/Comp USA and buy today. I love a bargain as much as the next guy but some next to impossible to find card isn't going to help me. Also, just in case it might be important, it will be going into a P3 1Ghz 256MB RAM win2000 machine. Thanks in advance for any advice you can share.


wdn2k

 

[SirChadwick]

I prefer the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card for under $100! Actually it will run you about $70 retail in a store. The sound is crisp and clear from everything I've heard...not one complaint. I've heard the new SB Audigy, which is impressive but you'll pay about $100 or more for it. As of right now I have a SB Live 5.1, but i'm getting crackling problems even with the most updated driver. I plan on getting the Santa Cruz in a couple days. I'd look into the TB SC a little more if I were you. You may be able to get one for $55 or so online if you can wait.

 

[Mem]

You can now pick up OEM Audigy pretty cheap now which is great for gaming,for best sound quality go with the Philips AE or SE ,which can be found for under $50 which is a great price.

 

[wdn2k]

Thanks guys. I did some research after I posted and came to the conclusion that the Turtle Beach SC and the Audigy MP3+ were the best bets. Anyone with experience with both out there? My motherboard has the VIA chipset, does anyone know if either of those cards have a problem with it?


wdn2k

 

[Mem]

My motherboard has the VIA chipset, does anyone know if either of those cards have a problem with it?

The Santa Cruz will work fine with VIA boards,as for the Audigy well I`m using one at the moment in a VIA board with no problems(8 months now), so the Audigy should work fine.

 

[Evilmage]

does audigy have problems with drivers in win2k and xp?

I have a sb live value right now and I can say it sucks to the core in terms of drivers. Windows automatically detects the card and plays sound and stuff, but I can't install drivers for it or anything. It always says, card not detected. I've tried a few things, but god, it wasn't worth it.

 

[Dan]

I'm using an OEM Audigy with WinXP and have no problems with drivers.

 

[Zim Hosein]

Now, I'm not sure if I should install the Audigy I recently got [<--WinXP user].

Wish I could help wdn2k, as I would have suggested the SBLive series, but I don't think they are available at retail locations anymore

 

[wdn2k]

Update: So, I bought the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (I liked the software bundle better and it was $20 cheaper), and have been trying to get it working for about 4 hours now (feels like 4days though).

When installing the drivers everything goes fine until I get a blue screen that mentions a problem with tbcspud.sys

So I check out the website, it says some users have reported this problem with older versions of the drivers, but anything newer that version 4142 should work fine. So I d/l the latest for win2k which is 4161, and I get the same problem.

I have/did everything they recommend: service pack 2, directX 8, latest drivers, disabled onboard sound in the BIOS. I even tried different PCI slots.

Anyone else have these problems, or have any ideas (personally I'm leaning toward taking the whole thing back and laying down the extra $20 for the Audigy...) ?

Any advice appreciated.

wdn2k

 

[Doh!]

Have you tried a complete removal of the older drivers (in registry, windows .inf & .dll folders)?

 

[wdn2k]

Yes, I did all that.

I finally got it working, but I'm not really sure how (don't you love when things mysteriously start working?). A lot of things happened on my road to success so I doubt I could list them all (at least accurately), but I finally got to a point where whenever I tried to run the driver setup program it would hang at 40%. So I tried to uninstall, and it let me, but everytime I tried to re-install after that it would only give me the option to uninstall again. I uninstalled (successfully it said) about 4 times. I went into hardware manager and saw there were 3 things that said Santa Cruz in there, and 2 of them had the "!" icon. So I got rid of the 2 that were broken, and re-ran the driver install program and everything went in and it worked. Of course, I've probably left out about 200 inbetween steps.

Thanks to all that read this/tried to help.


wdn2k

 

[Dogsbody]

Thanks for the step by step on your install! I just ordered a Santa Cruz and your information may come in handy. Sorry you had to suffer through "install hell!!"

 

[wdn2k]

The best part was when I called Turtle Beach's customer support to let them know that they still had the blue screen issue, and the guy I talked to couldn't have cared less. You'd think they'd welcome user comments, or at least say sorry you had problems, but all he kept saying was "There's no problem installing the card on windows 2000," over and over.


wdn2k

 

[TheWart]

i personally recommend the Phillips Acoustic Edge from experience.

 

[boi]

I am using the audigy and it sounds pretty good with my logitech z560 speakers. The drivers that come on the installation cd work like a charm. =)

 

[ceZium]

I am also using the Audigy card with Z560's and the sound is amazing.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: wdn2k
The best part was when I called Turtle Beach's customer support to let them know that they still had the blue screen issue, and the guy I talked to couldn't have cared less. You'd think they'd welcome user comments, or at least say sorry you had problems, but all he kept saying was "There's no problem installing the card on windows 2000," over and over.


wdn2k

Guess some of those "tech people" get tired of people calling complaining that the card broke their VCR or something like that.

Another sound card recommendation for anyone looking for one: The Philips Seismic Edge can be had for around $25, at least on eBay - lots of them there. For a "budget card," it sure produces some very nice sound.

 

[AndrewPaulNet]

I'd have gone with the Audigy if I was in the market for sound. They sound so good.
It's like, you think - how much better can you make stuff sound? Get an audigy and find out.

My board comes with sound - so I didn't bother. Have a Live too though.
I'd like to check out the Phillips to see if they are any good.