Cheap, good QUALITY sound card?

[LS20]

I went from ECS mobo with the cmedia to Epox with the AC97 and the ac97 sounds terrible...

i dont need any multichannel soundcard with fancy doo-dads (using 3-piece speakers)


i just need something that sounds clean for my mp3s


Sorry, please move to main hardware forum

 

[bwass24]

Any of the 3 sound cards from Philips are really good. IMO, better than the competition. You can get a them on ebay at amazingly good prices.

 

[klein297]

Another vote for the Philips.
Not sure about them being better than anything else.
Although I only run Win98SE,
I've found them to be a totally painless install in a variety of chipsets.

 

[oldfart]

Herculese Fortissimo II is a good one.

 

[holdencommodore]

Another vote for Philips. The PSC703 Rythmic Edge can be had fairly cheaply... got the same chipset as the Acoustic Edge.

Another good cheap card is something with a C-media 8738 chip.

Cheers

 

[LS20]

well, Pine Tech has a 6-channel CMI8738 card for cheap... how is its quaility versus the philips card(s)? any audible differences?

 

[holdencommodore]

Yes there noticeable differences b/w the 8738 and the Philips. The C-media is slightly more noisy, there are no tone controls and the sound can be a bit "flat" at times. But is't by far the best value soundcard in terms of price/performance.

Cheers.

 

[LS20]

thank you... i think i will be getting the rhythmic or seismic edge from ebay. again, thanks to all =)

 

[holdencommodore]

Note: There are two versions of the Rythmic Edge and Seismic Edge. There is the PSC702 & PSC703 Rythmic Edge. There is also the PSC704 & PSC705 Seismic Edge. ***Make sure you get either the PSC703 or PSC705.*** These are based on the newer ThunderBird Avenger chip, as opposed to the older ThunderBird 128 in the PSC702 and 704. The older ThunderBird 128 chip lacks proper support in Win2K and WinXP.

Just thought I should mention this.


Cheers.