PLEASE ADVISE! Need a Sound Card. 2.1 set up

[imported_tkkidd]

Current Set up : Nforce Ultra 2 w Klipsh 2.1

Goal: To upgrade my soundcard for a better quality in 2.1 setup

Limitation: Don't know crap about sound cards. Would like to speend less then $50


Hello please help me choose my next sound card.
I currently have nforce 2 ultra mb. ( shuttle a35n ultra)
My speaker is Klipsh 2.1. It takes a 3.5mm analog input.
I'm not a hard core gamer. I listen to music a lot. and Watch dvd once in a while.
I just want a nice sound card that does not make a hissing noise..
I read all the tread on the general forum and couple other site.

I'm thinking chaintech av710 / Santa cruz turtle beach / maybe a creative

Any suggestions? have anyone upgrade from nforce onboard 2 to soming and made a diffrence in the sond qulaity????

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME AND FEED BACK.

I would Like to Spend less as possible ( but i would like to hear the diffrence..)

 

[duragezic]

Any of those choices would do, and the AV710 seems quite popular. By getting a sound card the hissing shold be gone (my last parts were that same mobo, the hissing was bad with headphones). It was cleared up when I bought an Audigy.

If you have no intention to upgrade your motherboard/cpu anytime soon (NF4 Ultra integrated audio is pretty decent) then yeah pick one up. If you don't go with the AV710, try buying a Creative card or the TB used. I got my used Audigy Platinum EX for $30.


edit: As far as sound quality with your music and movies though, I'm not sure if you'd notice much of a difference. A sound card like the AV710 or Creative might have slightly better physical specs than your integrated like a higher SNR and better DACs, but I doubt you'd hear much difference with music which is often relatively low bit rate. I'm not sure of the Klipsch 2.1s but they are prolly fairly decent though I would've thought they had a digital input as well.

 

[Powermoloch]

AV710 is awesome man, just download the drivers @ via.com...the one comes from the CD is crappy @_@

 

[Luckyboy1]

Maybe an Audigy 1 card for sale on eBay? If you can break off a piece extra on the money deal, then this one...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102178

See, it has it's own APU, unlike the Soundblaster cards and as a result, it will give you stunning sound along with a few more frames per second while you are at it by freeing up the CPU for other duties.

 

[imported_tkkidd]

humm creative audigy 2 zs.. heard a lot about it...

 

[Luckyboy1]

And trust me, you've heard about it for good reasons! Worth every penny and will migrate nicely into your next build!

 

[fire400]

audigy 2 zs is 60 or 70 bucks on newegg.com

 

[johnnyMon]

AV710 is $23 on NewEgg. They're out of stock but are scheduled to get more on Friday.

 

[BOLt]

Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit FTW.

 

[MeltedPanzy]

audigy 2 zs check ebay awesome card, no complaints, features Like EAX for games, and 96hz sampling rate

 

[ribbon13]

Wait a minute... don't you have SoundStorm?

 

[Ghouler]

sound storm was not bad still it does not compare to a dedicated sound card IMO.
@tkkidd, as you say you do not have a clue about sound cards, you better off check howstuffworks sound card entry first">http://computer.howstuffworks.com/sound-card1.htm</a>.

When you compare various sound cards for music/movie playback and games,
look at their:
-dynamic range - roughly referred as SNR (music)
-distortion, noise and crosstalk values as meassured in reviews (music)
-hardware 3D sound and effects processing (games)
-scope of EAX support (games)
-software bundle and sound tweaking options <how good EQ is, is there e.g. parametric EQ for>
-presence of hardware DTS/Dolby decoding (movies)

 

[ribbon13]

A Creative card to rival SoundStorm as I remember on the A7N8X-E Deluxe would be no less than an Audigy 2 ZS, and that's $70. And if music is #1, one would settle for no less than digital output from the PC.

 

[Ghouler]

sorry about messy link above, could not edit :disgust:
here we go again:
link to howstuffworks.com entry for "a sound card" card

he has 2.1 Klipsch, that's analog.
Digital speakers are hyped anyway.

 

[ribbon13]

Speakers operate using coil in motor structure which makes them inherently analog. And I didn't say anything about digital speakers, only that for music purists, the output from the PC should be S/PDIF.

After looking, his motherboard has craptastic onboard: ALC650

Super cheap, and has optical out Drivers here

 

[Luckyboy1]

Soundstrom... some of them, were slightly better at reducing the load on the CPU than an Audigy card.

Audigy 2 cards at least and for all I know even Audigy 1 cards had better amping circuits.

Soundstorm died the death of many things gamers are too cheap to buy or lack the understanding to buy. Their technology already made boards cost more than Realthingy onboard sound and if they actually put some real money into the Soundstorm boards by making better amping circuits, then nobody would buy the boards do to a price perception. This was an unfortunate set of marketing circumstances for Soundstorm to end up in. The onboard sound with its own APU and a robust amping circuit was clearly the best solution for both sound and performance at the same time.

Problem is, and let's leave other PC builders out of this because the technology was of primary benefit to gamers!... if we as gamers were not collectively so cheap short sighted, we'd have a better technology than an Audigy card right now!