Good soundcard besides Creative?

[Rainsford]

I currently have a Creative Labs Live MP3+ that has worked fine for me, but lately it's started behaving odd. I have a VIA mobo that didn't give me any issues with the Live until I got an Athlon XP, then suddenly it wouldn't boot up all the time. After doing some research on various message boards, I found a post on Ars about the Live having issues with the PCI 2.1 standard on VIA boards and some BIOS settings needed to be turned off. I did this and it worked, but now I get snaps and pops and stuff, not cool.

So...what would be a good soundcard to get that isn't made by Creative? I really don't look at sound cards very much, so I don't even know what's out there. I mostly play games, watch DVDs and listen to MP3s. I don't really want to spend more than $70 or $80 or so. Any good suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Mem]

Philips AE,Santa Cruz,Hercules Fortissimo II,all good cards and all in your price range.

 

[NFS4]

Santa Cruz. Nuff said, end of discussion

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: NFS4
Santa Cruz. Nuff said, end of discussion

What's so great about it the Santa Cruz? Not that I doubt you or anything, just wondering what makes this card so fantastic?

 

[brunswickite]

1 more for Santa Cruz

 

[MasterHoss]

A lot of people just love the Santa Cruz. It's a nice, solid, sound card with fairly stable drivers (and it frequently retails for under $70 at CompUSA). Check out the reviews by 3D Sound Surge on the Santa Cruz, Acoustic Edge, et. al.

 

[brunswickite]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: NFS4
Santa Cruz. Nuff said, end of discussion

What's so great about it the Santa Cruz? Not that I doubt you or anything, just wondering what makes this card so fantastic?

my santa cruz cooks, cleans, and does circuit theory!

 

[Kingofcomputer]

What so great about SC? It uses CS4630 chip.

From www.cirrus.com:

The CS4630 is a high-performance upgrade to the CS4624 PCI audio accelerator. The CS4630 supports legacy compatibility modes, enables real mode DOS compatibility within PCI-only audio subsystems. This device, combined with application and driver software, provides a complete system solution for hardware acceleration of Microsoft's DirectSound, DirectSound3D, DirectInput, and Wavetable Synthesis. WDM drivers provide support for both Windows '98 and Windows 2000?.

The CS4630 is based on the Cirrus Logic Stream Processor (SP) DSP core. The SP core is optimized for digital audio processing, and handles complex signal processing tasks such as Sensaura 3D, 4-channel output, and hardware wavetable synthesis. The SP core is supported by a bus mastering PCI interface and a built-in dedicated DMA engine with hardware scatter-gather. These functions ensure extremely efficient transfer of audio data streams, between host-based memory buffers, for maximum performance and minimal host CPU loading.

Product Features

420 MIPs SLIMD DSP architecture with more memory
Hardware acceleration for Microsoft DirectSound® and DirectSound3D positional audio
PC '98 and PC '99 compliant
Sensaura 3-D, 2 or 4 channel audio
EAX 1.0 enhanced environmental audio standard
Unlimited-voice wavetable synthesis with effects + DLS
Acoustic echo cancellation for NetMeeting?
10-band graphic equalization
High-quality hardware sample rate conversion (90+ dB)
Legacy support PC/PCI, DDMA, and CCLS
PCI 2.1 compliant PCI interface
Full duplex, 128-stream, DMA interface with hardware scatter/gather support
PCI power management APM 1.2, and ACPI 1.0
Power Management Event (PME#) generation: D0-D3cold
Dual AC `97 2.1 CODEC interface
Asynchronous digital serial interface (ZV Port)
S/PDIF digital input/output support for PCM/AC3 5.1
DirectInput joystick and MPU-401 MIDI in/out
3.3V / 2.5V power supply (5V tolerant I/O)

 

[NFS4]

The SC was $50 at CompUSA last week with no mail-in rebates.

The sound is awesome, performance is great, drivers are solid in Win9x and equally so in Win2k/WinXP. They frequently update their drivers and throw out beta versions as well.

It's simply the BEST value out there IMHO and everyone else will tell you just the same.

Just do a search for Santa Cruz on the forums and you'll see what the dealio is.

 

[aswedc]

Link

 

[Rainsford]

After reading all the good things people are saying about it...I think I need to go get myself one of these puppies. Thanks guys, I hope CompUSA still have 'em for $50.

 

[bulldawg]

Originally posted by: NFS4
Santa Cruz. Nuff said, end of discussion

Uhhhhhh, yeah thats what I wanted to say

 

[Wingznut]

It's true... The Santa Cruz is an awesome card.

But so is the Audigy. I've been using an Audigy for about four months now, with no issues. (Although of course, that's on non-Via platforms.)

Both cards are miles above the Live series.

 

[Mem]

It's true... The Santa Cruz is an awesome card.

But so is the Audigy. I've been using an Audigy for about four months now, with no issues. (Although of course, that's on non-Via platforms.)

Both cards are miles above the Live series.

Yep my Audigy rocks!!...even on my VIA board ,btw Rainsford ,Newegg have a good deal on the Philips SEISMIC EDGE II 5.1 retail for $39 another very good sound card.

 

[Insane3D]

No offense to you all, but I woud take a AE or a Seismic Edge II (same Thunderbird DSP of the AE) over a Audigy or a Santa Cruz anyday. The Thunderbird DSP is a much more featured packed DSP than the Crystal based SC or the Audigy, IMO. None of those other cards can output 6 distinct channels of sound from any stereo source that the Philips can...they just copy the front information to the rear channels, and mix in a little low frequency for the sub. DVD's with QMSS is also extremely pleasing, and I find myself preferring it over true 5.1 DD (AC-3) in some movies.


$39 shipped is a hell of a deal on the Seismic Edge II.

 

[Wingznut]

Too late... I'm offended! :|

Actually, I've never used the Acoustic Edge or new Seismic Edge, so I can't comment one way or another on those. But Insane3D has a real good opinion of most things (hardware related, anyway), so I wouldn't hesitate to use his recommendation.

 

[cmdrdredd]

If you can spare a few bucks you can get the same soundchip as the Santa cruz but also have a breakut box for digital connections and MIDI with a USB hub and gameport. This all in the hercules gametheater XP.

 

[vash]

Philips AE is a GREAT card. The OS support is pretty good for Win32, but it's not Linux friendly. ALSA may support it in the future, but not yet.

vash