From Soundstorm to Audigy 2 ZS

[SniperWulf]

I'm curious about everything from sound quality to CPU utilization. LMK what you think guys

 

[JBT]

I have Sound Storm it is pretty nice. the ZS's are spose to be the best. Would I spend 100 or so bucks to get ZS instead of Sound Storm?

NO

I don't think you will notice that much of a difference unless you have some really good speakers or are an audiophile. I use analog SS and it is pretty good. With digital it is supose to sound that much better.

If you have the money to spend and really like excellent sound even though SS puts out good sound too go for it. you won't be unimpressed with the clarity and crispness the ZS has to offer. Both options are great though.

 

[SniperWulf]

thanks man

The reason I asked is because the upgrade I had done over the past few weeks didn't quite turn out the way I planned, SO i decided to sell it all and go a64. I had SS in my SN45G and I liked it alot, but since nVidia (in it's infinite wisdom) decided not to put SS in nforce 3, I had to buy a PCI card again since the onboard codec just ain't gonna cut it

 

[jdogg707]

I could tell a difference between the SoundStorm on my NF7-S and my Audigy2 ZS Platinum, but not a big enough difference for me to buy a card to replace it. I kept the Audigy, and in your case recommend it since you are going with a new motherboard, but if you already have a SoundStorm chip, no since it getting a new card.

 

[jm0ris0n]

How are creative's drivers today ? I have a Santa Cruz and am thinking I might get rid of it after faithfully serving me these past 3 years. I am looking to the audigy 2. Games like thief 3, etc really take advantage of the audio processor and the one in the Santa Cruz totally bogs down my system performance in modern games while using the newer eax based games.

 

[jdogg707]

Creative's drivers are pretty good, they have a lot of crap bundled with them, but you can choose just to install the drivers and you should have no problems. I have been using various Audigy models for about two years now and have had absolutely no driver issues.

 

[Brian48]

Since the original A2, I think Creative's drivers have been great. The number of updates has been incredible as well when compared to previous years.

 

[MDE]

I just got an Audigy2 ZS Platinum a couple days ago ($99 AR at Circuit City this week) and I noticed a slight difference between it and my NF7-S's onboard SoundStorm on my Logitech Z-640s. Don't know about CPU usage but the sound is a little better and the breakout box and remote are cool extras. It wouldn't be worth the $99 to me except that I'm slowly assimilating enough Hot Deals parts to hopefully piece together a system by August. The drivers were my worst fear as well as my biggest (good) surprise. Installation was painless except for the fact that you have to install the drivers from the CD, then install the updates from Creative's site, which happen to all be separate files.

 

[will889]

I'll give you my best take. While it is true that you need the CD for full install, there is a "workaround' for(install from device manager) for OEM verions or those without the CD. First, the Dac on the ZS is different than the one used with the regular Audigy 2 - it's slightly clearer and has a tad more oomph. Generally the better your speakers or cans the better incrementally the card will sound. CPU utilization is second only to (ironically) soundstorm (meaning only soundstorm through the RCA out or optical). It will have you covered when EAX 4.0 spec is brought to full fruition and actually ready in games (providing creative covers it reliably with drivers on their end). For sound positioning, analog is where it's at too over digital in games. DAC on the ZS is superb for left/right/center/rear in games. Also the ZS puts out a nice signal for non amped Grado, or Senhieser cans. It's a great card . I'll get another one some day-

 

[SickBeast]

From Soundstorm to Audigy 2 ZS

Now why would you want to go out and do that???

The $99 would be much better spent on speakers/headphones IMO.

 

[Addikt]

For those of us who have already invested in audiophile equipment, in my case...

Denon DRA-395 Receiver
Denon DCD-910 CD Player
Monitor Audio S2s

I would recommend the Audigy 2 ZS. I tried my friends' with a direct out to my receiver and you can really notice a difference with a good powerful receiver and speakers. If you are thinking about jacking into your existing home stereo system then I would recommend the extra money. If not, or if you are using one of those PC surround sound or high end PC speakers the quality of the card does not matter as much, or at least that is my experience.

Cheers. Hope this helps.

 

[SickBeast]

Yeah but if you use digital it's irrelevant, isn't it?

 

[Addikt]

Well all signals now are digital. I mean music is rarely recorded or playedback in waves (i.e. records, tapedecks, older techs). Really what matters most now is the level of reproduction quality. I mean like comptuers certain things limit quality like the quality of the recording first. Also the quality of the receiver, and perhaps one of the most important quality of the speakers. Good quality products are able to keep a steady stream of current to speakers, receivers, etc. So if you have a good stable current going from the receiver to the speakers you want a good steady current going from the computer to the receiver. The better quality sound card gives you this as well as better higher bit reproduction. Better quality, freqency, separation, pitch changes, etc. That is why you hear a lot about the quality of the DAC (digital to analog converter) on a lot of high end equipment. The newest tech is a dual ring DAC, really good but really expensive that allows for the best reproduction to date. You will notice that I kinda conflited myself by saying analog, but what this refers to is converting a digital signal (data i.e. 1's and 0's) to an analog electrical current sent in puleses to the amplifier/receiver. Hopefully this answers your question if you require further clarification, or find this hard to understand don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers.

 

[will889]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

From Soundstorm to Audigy 2 ZS

Now why would you want to go out and do that???
The $99 would be much better spent on speakers/headphones IMO.

Depends on who the person is and what his/her tasts in sound are. I have seen literally hundreds make that exact switch in other forums. For one thing, not all soundstorm runs the same. The way a paticular mainboard manufacturer shields the APU is absolutely crucial. Think about the Asus A7N8X Deluxe rev 1.2 horrible shielding problems. The sound for a long time would chirp, and crack, and sqeal enlessly after about 30 min of gameplay. The Asus was not the only board to exhibit this, It happened to thosands of people, and still does. Right now I can literally point you to enormous threads about this and it's still ongoing. However, having said that there are also many boards that run soundstorm well. Rev 2.0 Asus, Abit NF7-S always did, the Albatron runs SS very well, and the problems not only started to go away with new board revisions but better nVIDA drivers. I know alot of people that just went ahead and go the TB Santa Cruise right away - even with the Abit nforce2, because they didn't want to hear any skips or pops, or sqeals. But most of thos problems are gone for rhe majority of nVIDA APU users. Also not installing the nVIDA IDE sw driver helps alot for thos problems.

Having said that - MCP_T soundstorm is about equal to the Audigy series. the Audigy 2 on the other hand is a cut above nVIDA soundstorm, and the ZS certainly is. For normal gaming though with regular run of the mill cans I think soundstorm is very good - and on par with Audigy. Certainly also if you have an external AMP Reciever you can run your optical out to and use Home Fidelity speakers to then what you would have is a superb Digital solution with soundstorm. But for gaming imo Audigy 2 ZS owns all comers.

 

[jeece]

Interesting thread here... I'm in the process of buying an Audigy 2ZS myself. The Soundstorm on my A7N8X-E Deluxe isn't that "bad", except some occasional skipping. :frown:. I don't upgrade for sound quality, but for quality sound. I don't really expect a noticeable quality difference, coming out from my Creative Inspire 5100 speaker set... But I sure hope to get rid of the skippings.

 

[will889]

What board revision do you have and what drivers do you have (nVIDA),and did you install the IDE SW drivers when promted? Also when you install the nVIDA chipset I found it was best to use 3.22 International mix, say no to SW IDE, and driver order goes like this_

Format/OS install
Lan only
Sp1/No device drivers from MS
Chipset/Defrag HDD with Diskeeper boot time
Direct-X
Chipset/Say "no' to nVIDA SW IDE
ATI drivers
Direct-X again
Sound/other apps
Defrag HDD

*I got this routine from building many nforce2 MCP-T equiped rigs. Didn't always work but usually did, and usually stopped the skipping and popping. Also disabling APCI in the bios before installing helps. On notch back on hardware accell also helps. On the other hand, the Audigy 2 ZS will stop it immediately . To me, I can't/wont accept
any skipping or popping with sound. Im not gonna have it. The early Asus boards have known APU shielding problems with soundstorm.

 

[yhelothar]

SoundStorm should have lower CPU utilization than Audigy 2. Search google, tomshardware should have a good article comparing the two, soundstorm was a bit faster in games than audigy 2.
I agree with the above to spend the money on speakers. Definately give you a bigger impact on sound. Unless you have really nice headphones, I doubt you would hear much of a difference between the two.

 

[will889]

If you can dial it in, soundstorm is great. Only up to EAX 2.0 though, and you must use optical out or RCA out. if you use the analog connectors on the back of the mobo it's not utilizing soundstorm at all, in that case you would be running AC97 ALC 650 Realtek DAC only. Best to run it with Logitech or Creative, or other digital speakers though. It only sounds good in digital mode.

 

[SickBeast]

Are you sure about that, Hoot? Because I get nice 3D audio in games even with my analog connection...

Not only that but the hardware EQ and all that work fine, and in movies I get 5.1 Dolby Surround.

I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. All that digital/optical does is reduce distortion by bypassing the DAC.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Are you sure about that, Hoot? Because I get nice 3D audio in games even with my analog connection...

Not only that but the hardware EQ and all that work fine, and in movies I get 5.1 Dolby Surround.

I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. All that digital/optical does is reduce distortion by bypassing the DAC.

No, he's right. Soundstorm is bypassed when you use the analog outs. You're just unaware of what you're missing, and happy with crappy realtek sound.

 

[SickBeast]

Grrrrr....so then what can I do about it? My NF7-S only has "optical" out. I have never seen PC speakers that use the optical connector. Do any of you know of any good sets that do? Grrrr...LIKE A DOG.

 

[will889]

Am absolutly certain. After contributing to countless threads, and actually calling and emailing nVIDA on this. Im sure. However. I will say this, depending on what board you have,and revision, the analog ALC650 is actually quite good in some cases. The soundstorm panel and EQ working doesn't actually mean anything because I can load that up on my Shuttle AN35N Ultra too, and it's not MCP-T. I had loaded it just to show someone else a while back. The control panel will function just as if it were in digital mode (almost). Now - here is a pic of an A7N8X-E (just like rev 2.0 deluxe). Look at the connectors. If you are using green/blue/pink. Your not getting any benefit of soundstorm. Not at all. Not watered down - nothing. It totally bypasses Dolby Digial encoding that qualifies it as Soundstorm Tech, which is an and of itself just a certification for the nVIDA APU's handling of the digital stream in real time. Try some Logitech digital speakers with your digital connections on the motherboard, and you will hear a big difference in calrity.

Pic


http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=13-131-478-02.JPG/13-131-478-03.JPG/13-131-478-04.JPG/13-131-478-01.JPG

 

[SickBeast]

Yeah but what speakers can use my NF7-S optical out?

Why couldn't they just invent a standard digital output format? Grrr...it's worse than DVD-R's!!

 

[SniperWulf]

So when i was using the analog outs from my old SN45G to my Logitech Z-540s, I wasn't reaping any of the benefits of MCP-T/SoundStorm at all???? Would that be the equavalent of using the plain old MCP with a decent set of analog speakers????

 

[will889]

Here is a thread for your speaker needs. No worrries. Look in the bright side - you now have a great soundcard you can upgrade to that you didn't use before-


http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=314470