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High quality stereo output

S

stardrek

Senior member
Does anyone have any experience with any of Creative?s Professional line of audio output cards? I?m not really interested in anything that has to do with recording, but I would like the best possible reproduction of sound that I can send to my amplifier. I have looked at the X-Fi, and it looks great, but I don?t really need anything for surround, only high quality stereo playback. Any input would be appreciated, thanks.
Creative Pro Stuff
 
Check out hydrogenaudio.org. The forum you want is here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showforum=21

They specialize in computer audio. You'll find a bunch of threads on there on this topic. I bought a sound card for audio playback but didn't have a large budget, so I chose the Chaintech AV-710. It's about $30 delivered from Newegg or ZipZoomFly. The benefit of this card is that on channels 6/7 (maybe 7/8) there is a Wolfson DAC that's very good. You have to know how to set up the card so it's using this DAC, which by default feeds the rear speakers in a surround setup, for whatever reason (there are set-up instructions on Head-Fi.org's Computer-as-Source forum). But not only was I on a budget, I am feeding a 2.1 Monsoon computer speaker setup with this Chaintech card. It's much better than the integrated sound on my mobo, and as good as anything under $100. But if I were feeding my amp with my computer, I would probably go for a higher-end card.

If by any chance your audio system is not in the same room as your computer, I would seriously consider using a Squeezebox 3 instead of a sound card, just for the convenience of it. My Squeezebox outputs to a stand-alone DAC, which goes to my amp. It's a really nice way to integrate computer and audio, there's a remote control and a nice display. The quality is very good, and can be excellent with some mods.
 
I'm using the EMU 0404. It's a big step up from the likes of an A2/X-Fi, and sure enough it's no more expensive than an entry level X-Fi, if not cheaper.

I had the misfortune of having to send the card back twice for RMA... it was probably just me 🙂

The AV-710 is a good choice if on a budget, it's alternate stereo output quality is respectable. If you can spend a reasonable bit and have quality speakers to match, you'd want to drop a bit on an entry level professional card, perhaps even one with balanced output if you have active monitors.
 
Are you setting up a high quality 2xchannel system for music?? If so stay away from the sound cards like X-fi or Audigy, you pay for alot of extra sorround sound crapop that you wont use and the 2 channel quality of the card is pretty poor. I would reccomend the Maudio Audiophile 24/96 or 24/192 if you want a sound card. But I would reccomend even higher to go for an external DAC since your not looking for recording capabilities just good sound. An external DAC is an audio component that takes the digital audio data and changes it to analog so you can send it to your amp and speakers. An external DAC almost always sopunds better than a sound card because you are getting it away from the electrically noisy pc enviornment, you are also giving the Dac chip its own clean poiwer supply and higher quality parts than you will find on a sound card. ou can spend anywhere from about $100 all the way up to a few thousand, so it really depends on your needs and what the rest of your stereo system is made up of. Here are a few ideas.
Scott Nixon usb dac
Firestone Fubar2 usb dac

I would check out the Firestone Fubar2, if you like it they sell for $100 an upgraded power supply which will make the sound even better with more powerful bass and better dynamics. You can even get yourself a 24volt rechargeable batter and use it to power the DAC, I am currently using this setup in my system which is pretty high end(Naim, Epos) and it sounds great.
 
BTW what does the restof your audio system look like? Im currently running the following
Naim Nait5i integrated amp
Naim cd5i cd player
Firestone Fubar2 dac
Epos m12.2

The system sounds great, the little firestine dac is a great bargain, while not quite as good as the Naim cd5 its pretty close for 10x less money and lets me play all my music files from my computer instead of loading them one at a time into the cd player.
 
I did a lot of tests with this awhile back, and found the 24/192 DAC in my $200 Panasonic digital A/V amp blew the crap out of anything made by Creative.

Unless you have native 24/96 source files on your PC, using the cheap onboard 16-bit SPIDF and kicking it out to a home reciever will sound better. Like he said, it's all in the DAC, and you have to spend more money for a dedicated PC sound card than external one.
 
Originally posted by: spikespiegal
I did a lot of tests with this awhile back, and found the 24/192 DAC in my $200 Panasonic digital A/V amp blew the crap out of anything made by Creative.
Click to expand...

Doubt it.
Regular Creative Emu cards use AK5394 and CS4398.
M series uses PCM1804 (BB) and CS4392.


 
"This Page was Created 5/11/2000"
They say they revised it later but in fact no sound cards from last 5 years were added.
It all ends on TB Santa Cruz and Live (not even 5.1.)
No M-Audio, no EMU and no X-Fi card here
 
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