Hi all, I hope no one minds me giving my honest opinion.
I have an Audigy, and have been very very happy with it for a long time. When DFI started sending me boards, they asked me (basically made me lol) to give the SoundStorm audio a try on the NF2. I've always hated onboard audio, and for a good reason: its always been total crap (mostly).
Skeptical, I decided to load up the first time with my Audigy (its like cigs for me...near impossible to let go as I have never had a problem with it, and its always sounded awesome). Perfect on the DFI NF2, no special settings or such to make it work properly. I had it on for about a month.
Then it was time to run RAID0 on the board for a customer (this is my personal machine btw, and there is ALWAYS winamp running something). Plus I had a question about the SS audio and how good it was, so upon a fresh install of XP, I used the onboard audio. It took me a minute to get the speaker setups going the way I wanted (I don't use the SPDIF but have 5.1's with the 3 plugs). To get the 5.1 properly configured, I had to use a PCI slot bracket thing with the extra C/Sub and Rear jack, but otherwise was no problem (btw, if you use the 5.1 analog instead of digital, and you need one of these brackets for your DFI, just ask, ill ship one for free).
so what does this have to do with sound? Well, amazingly, the SS audio was as good if not better than my Audigy. I play things loud and long, usually cranked while im building/destroying a machine in the comp room. Very clear, high quality audio. Im maybe not an expert on sound, but it truly sounds as good. Just as a reference, I put the Audigy in the KT400A LanParty and ran the same songs and just switched speakers from one to the other during songs and did this for a while. Sounded the same to me.
But
the one thing that the onboard apu does that the Audigy NEVER did, was 'skip' through mp3's. Its hard to explain, but I get these random stutters like the cassette is being eaten up lol. Sometimes its a short quick 'squelch', and other times the song starts to skip so bad that I have to hit 'next' to change songs and all the sudden its ok again. Its very random, but often enough to anger me =). Its not the crackling/popping of normal crappy VIA onboard audio. Again, its very much equal to an Audigy. But these random patterns of squelching and noise are irritating. I've reloaded XP once again, just to make sure, and before I loaded any other programs (after all updates of course), i put winamp on and some music. Within an hour it started up again. I've asked other SS Audio users if they encounter weird random issues like this, and most have. Most also like their SS onboard audio more than their Audigy so they put up with it. I must also as I have not put my Audigy back in.
In games, the onboard SS audio doesn't cause a performance hit that I can see. I always play with 3d audio or EAX enabled and such, and I can't notice any performance loss, and when I hear footsteps in Urban Terror coming in from the upper left on the ledge above me in my blind spot, I can tell thats exactly where its coming from...so that tells me that its got excellent 3d again very much on par with the Audigy.
Bottom line:
use the onboard SS audio that comes on the DFI LanParty 2. I think you will like it. If not, pop the Audigy back in and see if you can tell the difference. Its a user choice, and one way or another you will be satisfied with the audio if you already like your Audigy1. Im not such an expert in sound that I can tell the difference in the Audigy and Audigy2 either (I've heard them side-by-side).
sorry it was a novel. =)
Travis
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