• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Need Sound Card Opinions

P

Punisher007

Senior member
I recently bought a Santa Cruz online for about $55 shipped. However, I'm kind of chaning my mind and leaning towards a Phillips Acoustic Edge. Would it be worth the hassle to return the SC and exchange it for the AE...the net cost is neglible.

BTW: Incase you're wondering why the hell I changed my mind so late...it's because I've been planning on building a new system for the past 1-2 years. This is the sound card I was planning on getting back then...and didn't really think into reviewing anything else 🙂

Thanks

 
You won't gain or lose much. The Santa Cruz and Acoustic Edge both have a following, but in the end, they are both of almost the same sound performance and quality. Just because it hasn't had any real competition for the past 2 years hasn't changed its quality.
 
Well speaking as someone who's owned both, I would say that if you're a gamer, the AE is a definite improvement over the Santa Cruz. Music and .mp3 playback is without a question excellent with the Santa Cruz, but gaming has never been it's strong point. You will notice the difference immediately, even more so if you have a 5.1 setup. Music reproduction is also more prominent depending on your speaker setup.

If I was in a situation where I didn't already have the SC and had to choose one over the other, I'd pick the AE, however the AE is not without some detracters. CPU overhead is more heavier than the SC when it comes to gaming. Depending on the game, the performance hit can be as low as 1-2% or as high as 30% when 3d HW audio is enabled (ie. UT2003). Also, the Philips drivers are not as completely bug free as those put out by Voyetra. There are some occasional stuttering problems with some select games, these are normally fixed with a restart of the game.

In terms of driver support, Voyetra has not released any in almost a year and they've certainly not upgraded the license for the newer Sensaura build. This, and some of the rumors circulating in the audiophile newsgroups of them getting out of the sound card business "might" be cause for concern. Philips on the other hand seems to be marching right along. Although they haven't released any new drivers in almost 7 months, the fact that they've recently introduced their new line of Seismic and Sonic Edge cards indicate that they haven't gone by the waist side just yet.

I posted some more comments about both cards over at this thread.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top