Cheap soundcard

[smp]

I'm looking at getting a cheap PCI soundcard for my moms so she can listen to stones MP3's on her computer .. that and like, "ding" .. "beep" and so on .. anyways, I'm looking at picking up a soundblaster 16 PCI for her machine .. just wondering about CPU utilization on cards of this nature, her machine will feature a lightning quick PII350 .. anyways, what would your lowest recommendation on a cheap soundcard? How low can I go with these requirements? (low as in model)

 

[PliotronX]

Take a look at the Hercules Muse LT. It goes for around $14 and has decent quality with pretty good CPU utilization.

 

[smp]

You know much about that soundblaster 16 PCI? .. how bout the soundblaster AWE? is that okay? My shopping centre is FS/FT ..so I buy what is available🙂

 

[WarCon]

AWE 64 is a great soundcard and she probably has a few ISA slots available so that won't be an issue............🙂

 

[PliotronX]

My first soundcard was the SB16 ISA, and it served my gaming well (the then-DOS/Win3.1 stuff). It was used with a DX4-100@120MHz and ran pretty well, but I've no idea how well it will work in more modern operating systems. It should function at about the same level as most integrated soundcards, but I really don't know. My second sound card was an AWE64 ISA, which also served my gaming well. With it was a Pentium 200MMX @ 250MHz running Win95. It worked very nicely, stable, a small improvement in sound quality over the SB16. A small quibble with it was that it wasn't full-duplex, meaning that it would only play one sound at a time and would not play sound while recording. So after about a couple years with it, I finally got my first PCI soundcard, the Diamond Monster MX300. It was running with a Celeron 300A @ 464MHz under Win98SE and later Win2k. It again offered an improvement in quality over the previous card, was stable, and best of all was completely full duplex. I could record, listen to MP3s, and still hear the various Windows sounds. All with very little CPU utilization. Not to mention the A3D support in games kicked ass.

I'm not sure why I'm sharing my soundcard history, but I would think the SB16 PCI is fine (if it's full duplex) for this application. Hope this helps.

 

[smp]

So you think diamond MX300 is okay? I can get that for cheap too .. support in win2k?

 

[Yvo]

Don't get cards made by bankrupt companies especially those that I remember causing some sort of havok under Windows 2000.



Shell out $16 for your mom on a Hercules Muse LT or any CMI 8738 based soundcard... its your mom were talking about, not some stranger...

btw you can get these cards pretty cheap if you do a search on pricewatch

Yvo

 

[spanky]

i say go for an isa awe64. seen them go on FS/FT for $10 shipped. i'm sure u can haggle them down to $10 shipped 😀

Edit - hey smp... u like the way i am pimping my own stuff? 😉

 

[PliotronX]

I really liked my MX300, it has surprisingly clean sound and is very reliable. Using the 2559 beta drivers under Win2k (from here), I never had any problems with it under Win2k. There was one time when sounds from the mouse moving and hard drive accessing was carried over to the soundcard in a form of various buzzing, but that was remedied by moving it to a different PCI slot. The beta drivers are only half finished in the featureset, so there isn't any way to mess with the built-in equalizer and whatnot. But for your mom, it would be a very good soundcard IMO. Though if possible, it would be better to get the Muse or a SB card because they have the added support from their respective companies.