Just bought santa cruz card. What can I do with it?

[theplanb]

Frankly.. I don't notice much sound quality improvement over AD1885 On-board sound unless I pump the volume up..
I really need to find a way to justify this purchase on sdound card quickly.. 🙁
I presume it can't cook..? 😉

 

[MasterHoss]

play some games..what speakers do you have hooked up to the card? Mess with the equalizer.

 

[RedShirt]

Well... hey no one else has said it yet, and it always has to be said whenever one of these questions are asked... so here goes...

Give it to meeeeeeee!

🙂

 

[Imdmn04]

it really depends on what kind of speakers u have, if u got some cheap 15 dollar labtec speakers, then no matter what soundcard u hook it up to, it will sound as crappy as the speakers because the sound is only as good as your weakest component and the speaker here might be a limiting factor.

 

[millsy]

<< it really depends on what kind of speakers u have, if u got some cheap 15 dollar labtec speakers, then no matter what soundcard u hook it up to, it will sound as crappy as the speakers because the sound is only as good as your weakest component and the speaker here might be a limiting factor. >>



Imdmn04 is completely right. Get an amp and speakers and you will notice the difference.

 

[Alex]

quite frankly id get an audigy if ya wanted to hear better sound! 😛

 

[Mem]

The SB Audigy & Santa Cruz are both very good sound cards, as already stated it`s very important that you have some decent speakers to get the best out of them.



<< Just bought santa cruz card. What can I do with it? >>




Apart from having good speakers etc to get the best sound, the Santa Cruz will reduce the load off the CPU compared to the onboard sound,which means better FPS in gaming.

🙂

 

[Beatles]

<< quite frankly id get an audigy if ya wanted to hear better sound! 😛 >>


The Cruz is a far better sounding card than the Audigy.

 

[RanDum72]

The Cruz is a far better sounding card than the Audigy.

I agree. The Audigy looks great in paper but in actual use, the SC has better sound quality.

 

[Hellblast]

which soundcard is better was not an issue in this post!

I ran my onboard sound so long that I got used to it and then decided to switch back to my soundblaster because of line-in and such. Bottom line, sounded much better and also pumped out more volume at the same speaker-volume setting.
The guys are right about the CPU utilization.

Hellblast

 

[theplanb]

actually the max volume has decreased quite a lot I mean.. a lot after the upgrade.. 🙁

 

[MulLa]

I've noticed quite a dramatic improvement in sound quality when I upgraded from SBLive to SC.

 

[AA0]

If the sound volume is reduced, I'm guessing you have one of the many volume controls in windows set low.

If you have mulitple speaker configurations, you can try using the versajack. And headphones should sound much better.

 

[Brian48]

The reduction in volume is normal. I noticed that also when I originally upgraded from a SBLive to a Santa Cruz. There is nothing wrong with the card. Just turn the volume up on the speakers.

 

[BigNeko]

I think he means something like this

Making music.

 

[MrBond]

The versa-jack is one handy feature. I really like it, allows me to switch from 4 speaker surround mode to headphone only with a couple clicks of the mouse .

I've had the following sound cards in this system with this same set of speakers (Altec Lansing ACS54's)

SB AWE 64 (ISA card). Decent sound quality. Nothing to write home about

Xitel Storm Platinum. Good sound quality. Games sounded better as well.

Santa Cruz. Supurb sound quality. I can definatly tell a difference when I listen to "Lateralus" or DSOTM. Games are amazing, especially Half Life (for some reason). There can be the sound of dripping water in front of you, and as you walk past it, it moves behind you. DVD movies sound supurb as well.