santa cruz vs sb live!

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spanky

spanky

Lifer
Jun 19, 2001
25,716
4
81
alright... so i got trigger happy and bought a santa cruz (with logitech z540's) from compusa. i thought it was a good deal... so i splurged. now the thing is... i already have a sb live! and do not have any problems with it (running win xp). right now, i am having second thoughts about keeping the santa cruz (and speakers), becuz i seem content with my sb live (and atp3s). can anyone tell me what (if any) are the advantages of the santa cruz over a sb live? i'm looking for a reason to not return the santa cruz (and z540's)... if i can't find convincing evidence that the santa cruz is worth the $40 upgrade... i'm going back to compusa tomorrow for a refund :p
 
Adul

Adul

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
32,999
44
91
danny.tangtam.com
Just listen to them to hear the difference :)

Santa Cruz is SMP friendly
Santa Cruz has great driver support.
It supports 5.1 :)
 
PliotronX

PliotronX

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 1999
8,883
107
106
Since you're content with your Live!, I don't suggest upgrading to the SC. The main difference would be better frequency response in the upper-end (>16KHz), but you may not notice it unless you're saavy with audio and music (let alone if your ear can even pick up the frequencies).
 
J

joohang

Lifer
Oct 22, 2000
12,340
1
0
Originally posted by: spankyOO7
Originally posted by: joohang
Originally posted by: spankyOO7
Originally posted by: joohang
I am now a happy user of TB Santa Cruz and gave my SB Live! to my sister.
Click to expand...

is it worth $40 tho?
Click to expand...

To me, the VersaJack alone is worth 40 bucks. :D
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wanna buy it for $50? :p
Click to expand...

Nah. :)

I do think that Santa Cruz sounds a bit better than Live! when I play music, but then I got cheap speakers any ways.

I made a wise choice though because Santa Cruz is more compatible with dual Athlon motherboards. Also, I'm biased against Creative. :p
 
SUOrangeman

SUOrangeman

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
8,361
0
0
If you have the time and the latest release of Ghost, I's try swapping parts around to see if you really notice the difference. Oh yeah, start identifying folks who may be inneed of a nsound card and speakers. :)

-SUO
 
M

Mavrick007

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2001
3,198
0
0
It's a great card, and if I needed a new card I would buy it for $40, but I don't (I'm still using my old SB Live Retail too).
I'm sure that someone would pay that much for an unused TBSC card. Is it a Retail or OEM?
 
L

LarryJoe

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 1999
2,425
0
0
The SC just plain sounds better and cleaner than the SB Live under XP. I gave up my SBLive for an SC about 9 months ago and the improvement was immediately noticable. Better drivers and straight forward control panel (i.e. no Live ware crap) give it the edge.
 
spanky

spanky

Lifer
Jun 19, 2001
25,716
4
81
u guys r slowly brainwashing me to keep the SC :eek:

i think i might just keep it and like SUOrangeman said... i will prolly start ghosting this weekend. but in the meantime, i am thinking of ways to chop down the price.... like two weeks ago, i got in on a "free" belkin router deal from compusa. but the catch was i had to buy a $25 patch cable. i am thinking about bringing everything back... returning everything... and hopefully get store credit for the patch cable and use that to re-buy the SC and z540's. anyone think that will work? :p
 
A

AU Tiger

Diamond Member
Dec 26, 1999
4,280
0
76
The Santa Cruz sucks. Its horrible. I think you should get rid of it immediately. I would be happy to take it off your hands. ;)
 
Mem

Mem

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
21,476
13
81
You have a tough decision to make ;), I actually think the Philips AE and SE sound better then the Santa Cruz and even prefer my Audigy in gaming to the SC :D ,however sound quality is always subjective .

Don`t let the Santa Cruz AT members brainwash you ;),yes the SC is a better sounding card but`s it`s your money and you`ve to decide if it`s worth keeping or not,maybe with better speakers the difference might be bigger (the Z540 speakers are not bad but you can do better),so no easy answer here except use your ears harder ;).
 
P

peang

Senior member
Apr 6, 2000
269
0
0
If you really want to keep your santa cruz, why don't you just keep it. :)
and about your sb live! you can just e-bay it or put it on sale/trade forums :)
so it mean you not doing $40 upgrade :)
 
W

Woodchuck2000

Golden Member
Jan 20, 2002
1,632
1
0
In the end, if you're not going to notice the difference it's not worth the upgrade. The Santa Cruz has better, less clunky drivers. That said, I did a comparison using a decent pair of 200W (RMS) speakers and I prefer the live's sound. (note the subjective) Unless you're a closet Audiophile however, you won't notice the difference and it's probably not $40 for better drivers.
 
C

canadianpsycho

Diamond Member
May 23, 2001
3,417
0
0
Heh, I wouldn't touch a SB Live! with a 10 foot pole if you're running a VIA chipset.

I love my SC. Only ever had 1 hardware conflict with it (Highpoint + Win2k + SC drivers - this may have been fixed by now, not sure.). All the stories about the SB Live and VIA chipsets has made me avoid Creative sound cards for quite some time.
 
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Woodchuck2000

Golden Member
Jan 20, 2002
1,632
1
0
The thing with the whole creative/via thing is partially due to the fact that VIA has a large chunk of the chipset market share and Creative has an even larger chunk of the Sound Card market. This makes the two a very common combination so any bugs will affect a lot more users than say, a bug affecting SIS chipsets and Turtle Beach soundcards.

I've never had any problems with the two myself. (although before I get flamed, I am entirely aware that other people have had problems ;))
 
R

Rainsford

Lifer
Apr 25, 2001
17,515
0
0
Originally posted by: Woodchuck2000
The thing with the whole creative/via thing is partially due to the fact that VIA has a large chunk of the chipset market share and Creative has an even larger chunk of the Sound Card market. This makes the two a very common combination so any bugs will affect a lot more users than say, a bug affecting SIS chipsets and Turtle Beach soundcards.

I've never had any problems with the two myself. (although before I get flamed, I am entirely aware that other people have had problems ;))
Click to expand...

I thought this was because Creative seemed to have some sort of issue properly implementing the PCI 2.1 standard. That's what I've heard at any rate, although I have the KT133A chipset and a Live and I have 0 problems with it.
 
spanky

spanky

Lifer
Jun 19, 2001
25,716
4
81
hmm... thanx for the suggestions. i guess i have a date with my computer this weekend. :D
 
Judgement

Judgement

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2001
3,815
0
0
I liked the sound of my friends TBSC card, I thought for at least MP3s it sounded better then the live card.
 
B

bernse

Diamond Member
Aug 29, 2000
3,229
0
0
Originally posted by: canadianpsycho
Heh, I wouldn't touch a SB Live! with a 10 foot pole if you're running a VIA chipset.
Click to expand...


I've never had a problem. Ever.
 
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