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Razer Barracuda AC-1 sound card

jlee

jlee

Lifer
http://www.woot.com

Same price / higher shipping for a refurb at directron - $99.99 at Gateway, and $149.99 at Newegg.

I'm going to stick with my Audigy2 for the time being, but this is still a good deal, IMHO.
 
Beat me to it... Picked this up when it was $59.99. Amazing to think this was a $200+ card a year ago.

This is a great card imo. Works perfectly for me in Vista 64, the software is easy to use, and it sounds amazing: heads and shoulders above onboard or even Audigy. Paired with the HP-1 headphones, they provide excellent 5.1 gaming (I've tried quite a few soundcard/headphone combinations). There aren't a huge amount of connections, but enough for a general surround speaker and headphone setup + optical.

I went from a Xi-Fi Gamer to this due to Creative's garbage Vista drivers and will never go back.
 
Anyone have any comments on how this would compare with a OEM Audigy2 card? Probably go to Vista next month from Win2K if it make a difference.

Thanks.
 
Well the drivers work a whole lot better in Vista from what I can tell vs. Creative, so that's a big plus right there.
 
Originally posted by: isekii
how does this compare to an X-Fi in Windows XP
Click to expand...

Sound quality slightly better than a X-fi for music. X-fi(working properly) should best this card in games, but that's less critical IMO.
 
Originally posted by: PurdueRy
Sound quality slightly better than a X-fi for music. X-fi(working properly) should best this card in games, but that's less critical IMO.
Click to expand...
And that's always a conderation, I never game but use my sound card for music.

 
Originally posted by: linuxwannabe
Anyone have any comments on how this would compare with a OEM Audigy2 card? Probably go to Vista next month from Win2K if it make a difference.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Had an Audigy2 two builds ago. It was ok, but not spectacutlar in XP. I think AC-1 has much cleaner sound in both music and games and I believe supports more formats (DTS and Dolby II Headphone for example). All in all, a much higher-quality card. Unless you're an audiophile you may not be able to tell the difference however...

Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to compare the Audigy2 vs. AC-1 simultaneously. But like I stated above, I was able to hear a big improvement with the AC-1 right away vs. my Xi-Fi.
 
I'll be primarily using the sound card for flight simulation and want the best possible (most accurate) sound for the engines, etc. I suspect this card would be as good as an Xi-Fi in thie area, but what about losing a few FPS? Would the Creative card offload the CPU any better and be "faster"...?
 
Originally posted by: Caveman
I'll be primarily using the sound card for flight simulation and want the best possible (most accurate) sound for the engines, etc. I suspect this card would be as good as an Xi-Fi in thie area, but what about losing a few FPS? Would the Creative card offload the CPU any better and be "faster"...?
Click to expand...

These claim to increase FPS by not using system memory like other card (creative, onboard, etc). I saw some benchmarks and the difference was like 2 fps in Doom 3. So in theory this would be faster/better/cooler.

I picked one of these up last night. I've been using a creative live 4.1 for the last few years and figured this would be good for the new computer I'm (slowly) putting together.
 
How do you make drivers to work?! So far the only way I can get sound is to press F8 and disable driver signing enforcement
 
Received mine from Woot Tuesday and although it took some time getting things setup I'm happy with it. Unless my ears are deceiving me, I can hear things in mp3 files that I couldn't hear before with my Audigy 2 ZS. Not shabby for $55.

Originally posted by: Morro
How do you make drivers to work?! So far the only way I can get sound is to press F8 and disable driver signing enforcement
Click to expand...

You're stuck until Razer releases whql drivers for the 64-bit version of Vista. You might look around for another solution but don't get your hopes up.
 
Originally posted by: JasonSix78
Received mine from Woot Tuesday and although it took some time getting things setup I'm happy with it. Unless my ears are deceiving me, I can hear things in mp3 files that I couldn't hear before with my Audigy 2 ZS. Not shabby for $55.

Originally posted by: Morro
How do you make drivers to work?! So far the only way I can get sound is to press F8 and disable driver signing enforcement
Click to expand...

You're stuck until Razer releases whql drivers for the 64-bit version of Vista. You might look around for another solution but don't get your hopes up.
Click to expand...

I don't get why people are having issues with running the card in Vista 64. The updated Vista x64 drivers on the razer site work absolutely perfectly for me (no F8 required) and the software initializes on boot.

The only compatibility issue I've had with this card was actually due to the Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows. For some reason, the Receiver's driver tries to replace my AC-1 as "Headphone". It then cuts the sound out and I need to disable the headphones for the sound to return. Strange...
 
Originally posted by: Harmattan
Originally posted by: JasonSix78
Received mine from Woot Tuesday and although it took some time getting things setup I'm happy with it. Unless my ears are deceiving me, I can hear things in mp3 files that I couldn't hear before with my Audigy 2 ZS. Not shabby for $55.

Originally posted by: Morro
How do you make drivers to work?! So far the only way I can get sound is to press F8 and disable driver signing enforcement
Click to expand...

You're stuck until Razer releases whql drivers for the 64-bit version of Vista. You might look around for another solution but don't get your hopes up.
Click to expand...

I don't get why people are having issues with running the card in Vista 64. The updated Vista x64 drivers on the razer site work absolutely perfectly for me (no F8 required) and the software initializes on boot.
Click to expand...

Unless you have removed the updates that require forced driver signing and then run the workarounds, you dinitely need to boot from F8 with any of the most recent drivers for this card. I have verified directly with a Level 2 Razer CS agent that the drivers are unsigned. For whatever reason a few people here and there claim to be able to boot normally, and I assume they would know whether they have Vista 64 or not, and I can't explain this, but nobody should expect to be able to use them without booting from F8 in order to enable this driver.

Also, I have had this card for a few a couple months now and I finally re-enabled onboard sound because I got really tired of sound intermitently not working whenever starting a game, you tube, windows media player, VLC; it didn't matter what the application was, about 1 out of 5 times there would be no sound and I would have to stop and restart the application to get sound. After a while it got annoying. I don't know if the problem is with the card, the drivers, or Vista, but I am hoping a future driver release will fix the problem.
 
I am in the market for a new sound card. Does this razr sound card output 5.1 AC3 in games?

For those auzentech users out there, does DDL really work for games like true 5.1 sourround in games? The only way I can get 5.1 out of my audigy 2 is to use the analog outputs. I want a sound card that can output 5.1 thru spdif for games using coax or optical to my z5500.
 
Originally posted by: Psynaut
Originally posted by: Harmattan
Originally posted by: JasonSix78
Received mine from Woot Tuesday and although it took some time getting things setup I'm happy with it. Unless my ears are deceiving me, I can hear things in mp3 files that I couldn't hear before with my Audigy 2 ZS. Not shabby for $55.

Originally posted by: Morro
How do you make drivers to work?! So far the only way I can get sound is to press F8 and disable driver signing enforcement
Click to expand...

You're stuck until Razer releases whql drivers for the 64-bit version of Vista. You might look around for another solution but don't get your hopes up.
Click to expand...

I don't get why people are having issues with running the card in Vista 64. The updated Vista x64 drivers on the razer site work absolutely perfectly for me (no F8 required) and the software initializes on boot.
Click to expand...

Unless you have removed the updates that require forced driver signing and then run the workarounds, you dinitely need to boot from F8 with any of the most recent drivers for this card. I have verified directly with a Level 2 Razer CS agent that the drivers are unsigned. For whatever reason a few people here and there claim to be able to boot normally, and I assume they would know whether they have Vista 64 or not, and I can't explain this, but nobody should expect to be able to use them without booting from F8 in order to enable this driver.

Also, I have had this card for a few a couple months now and I finally re-enabled onboard sound because I got really tired of sound intermitently not working whenever starting a game, you tube, windows media player, VLC; it didn't matter what the application was, about 1 out of 5 times there would be no sound and I would have to stop and restart the application to get sound. After a while it got annoying. I don't know if the problem is with the card, the drivers, or Vista, but I am hoping a future driver release will fix the problem.
Click to expand...

Nope, I have Vista 64 with SP1 (and every recent update up to today), but have no problems. Sound is entirely stable in all settings: HeadPhones, 7.1 etc. I'm not sure what the difference is between mine and everyone else's system...

Not sure if this matters, but I use the HD-DAI port with the HP-1 headphones exclusively (no speakers).
 
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