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creative audigy sound card

R

rookie1010

Senior member
Hello

I wanted to buy a nice sound card and came across the audigy series, should i go for the

Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum PCI
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Video Editor USB2

or the
Creative Audigy 4 Pro
 
What are you doing with it? Just regular gaming?

I'd suggest Audigy2 zs for ~$40 or an X-Fi on sale for less than $100 unless you need special connecitons.
 
gaming

actually at some point i wanted to do some pod casting with sound editting.

what special connection are available with the expensive ones

if it is realy worth it, i will invest a part of my bonus in the sound card

dabs in the uk dont seem to do audigy 2zs pci

i can see audigy 4 oem for 37.56
audigy se 7.1




 
I'd definitely avoid the Creative line if you're looking to do anything advanced with music. They're a standard for gaming, but they upconvert the 44.1kHz source to 48kHz which prevents bit perfect playback of music. At this time I'd recommend the Revolution series instead.
 
I would say figure out your budget, they have a range of cards from that mfr, and purchase the one that fits it. That one's a little pricey.
 
Originally posted by: Slammy1
I'd definitely avoid the Creative line if you're looking to do anything advanced with music. They're a standard for gaming, but they upconvert the 44.1kHz source to 48kHz which prevents bit perfect playback of music.
Click to expand...

True with Audigy that indeed resamples audio at fixed clockrate, but not true
with X-Fi.

Resampling as such is not bad thing if you consider that in some situations your source material might have been recorded at 2 different sampling rates.
Which may be the case when preparing a podcast using material on CD (44.1kHz) and MD (48kHz) Then you will actually have to convert sampling rate. X-Fi does it very well, with no audible noise being introduced.

X-Fi can also be set to work at source clock: it has bit perfect playback.

EDIT: it's all down to budget, how much you are going to spend

 
thanks for the reply

is the x-fi the latest addition to the creative stable? with the audigy being phased out?
does the x-fi not resample then?

can i do audio editing with the x-fi?

i was wondering if i do voice recordings, will the x-fi be good enough to use with voice recordings?


i can afford upto 150 pounds which in buying terms is equivalent to 150 dollars if the card is a decent audio card
 
Well, how much MD material really is out there? First, don't get me wrong I love Creative as a company, but depending on usage I have trouble recommending their product esp for music applications. I haven't really researched the X-Fi too much as I went to their forums to try and resolve some A2 issues I've been having and there were so many threads discussing driver issues. You can check them out here:
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board?board.id=soundblaster

Creative has had driver issues as long as I've owned their cards, and my first was an Awe32. I really do wish they would come out with a good card I could recommend for apps aside from straight gaming.
 
@slammy1:
there is plenty of MD material if you were recording stuff for years yourself 😛
Whatever you say about how crappy sonic stage is, Sony's MD is still the best option for in-field recording (interviews etc).

Well, I was just giving an example why you actually may want your card to resample audio. Most people comment on resampling but had never had any issue with that. So my point was that resampling may be a bad thing but is not always a bad thing. Resampling that does not deteriorate signal is not a bad thing. It's is good.

And if you wish to switch it off, off you go, you can set X-Fi clock to 44.1 or 48 or 96 kHz or whatever. There is standrad core clock setting for that in the Creation Mode.

You say you love Creative as a company - I don't .
But I love this card. Creative really did the homework this time.

EDIT:
@rookie1010
X-Fi is a brilliant piece of hardware with its support for 128 simulanous channels in games (multiply that by 4 effects that can be assigned to each voice)
I was playing Quake 4 last night and can tell you that the voice count matters and makes an audible difference in audio quality.

But its also the best non-professional card on the market. Creation mode that allows you to flexibly assign effects to every signal while recording even multichannel.
(what about a podcast in 5.1. ? 😉

Bundled software will allow you to produce a podcast, too (e.g. there is a parametric EQ and a compressor) but I would rather recommend Soundforge.

And for voice recording: make sure you get a decent mic. Good Luck!
 
thanks for the replies

what do you mean by MD material?
what is the sony MD?

so it does 5.1, i suppose there is not much difference between 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1?

soundforge is 250 dollars OMG

can you suggest a decent mike
 
I haven't really tried above 5.1 for gaming, but for movies at least above 5.1 mainly gives a bit more ambiance vs 5.1

I went 7.1 to 5.1 and don't really miss it. I'm sure I'll add a couple more rockets eventually, but it's not a big deal.

 
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Video Editor USB2 like i suggest is not a sound card but a video
capture device.

 
The X-Fi still resamples in analog but like the Audigy 2 ZS is capable of bitperfect in SPDIF mode. One of the main selling points of the X-Fi was the sheer amount of horsepower that was mustered for resampling this time around to improve 44.1->48KHz resampling. Creation mode is for music you record yourself, it doesnt' affect X-Fi's playback.

Audio theory wise, resampling should be done in multiples of the original source sample frequency. If you resample at a higher but not a mutiple rate, you get the effect of "empty samples" which can induce distortion.
 
Anytime you resample you're changing the audio from what it was designed to play at, whether that's a good thing I guess just depends on preference (and playback equipment). I resample 48->96kHz, but I'd prefer bit perfect. The best playback I have is my SA player optically connected to my receiver. You really don't hear much difference with a lossless compression, but anything lossy is significantly improved IMHO. As mentioned, integral multipliers, it's actually pretty CPU intensive.

The purist would argue that there shouldn't be any resampling nor filtering, but when you take an analog source (human voice) and express it digitally it seems to me all interperative on some level.
 
0roo0roo,

What makes you think Creative would make one card that resamples and one that doesn't? BTW, the Xtreme Music is the lowest model.

The important thing when resampling is that you affect Impulse Response minimally. Minor changes to IR will affect everything in the sound--frequency response, dispersion, attack and decay and tonality.
 
thanks for the replies

i checked out the soundblaster website and came across the four amkes
X-Fi Elite Pro
X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS
X-Fi Platinum
X-Fi XtremeMusic

they all seem to support audio editing, could not really make out the difference especially between the fatal1ty and the elite. the price difference is considerable 220 pounds vs 150 pounds in the UK?

you guys think i should go for a m-audio revolution or a X-Fi Elite Pro/x-Fi Fatal1ty FPS?

i came across this link
http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/creative_sb_xfi/index.shtml

are the x-fi's 7.1, 6.1 or 5.1, i ame across a reference to them being 7.1, is that correct?

comparing the elite with the fatal1ty

elite pro has an external console, headphones(?), what kid of headphones

no SPDIF in the elite pro

you guys think the creative x-fi's are going to fall in price and if i hold out for a bit longer i could get a bargain?

on this link
http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/creative_sb_xfi/page_6.shtml

it says
All of that being said, the price will come down, compatibility issues will be solved and performance will increase once developers begin to code games to take advantage of the X-Fi. Doom 3 and Quake 4 already have patches out for limited X-Fi support and more games are sure to follow suit.

there are also references to quicktime, dolby digital live, what are these?

will compatibility issues be solved by releasing firmware upgrades or will it be solved by coming out with new hardware elitepro-II
 
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