Should I upgrade Sound Card?

[HouRman]

Currently I have a SB PCI512 sound card which has the following stats:
Max. Playback Depth 16-bit
Max. Playback Rate 48 KHz
Signal-to-Noise Ratio >96 dB

I've been looking at the following choices:

Sound blaster Audigy:
Max. Playback Depth 24-bit
Max. Playback Rate 96kHz
Signal-to-Noise Ratio 100dB

Turtle beach santa cruz:
Digital Playback (D-A):
Frequency Response: (-3dB) @ Fs = 48kHz: 10Hz to 20kHz
SNR: 90dB FS A-weighted
THD+N: (-3dB FS): < -87dB FS (0.004%)

Hercules GT XP:
Audio Converters · 18-bit ADC/20-bit DAC For high audio quality at sampling rates of up to 48kHz

This is about the only info I've gathered for deciding if or what card I should get. I will be connecting a rotel 2 channel amp to the sound card. The source is being changed from a separate DVD player to my PC and I'd like the quality to stay the same for music CDs and dvds.

I would like to keep my budget under $100 which is why I'm excluding a few other choices. I would appreciate if anyone would explain if those stats mean anything and if my plan to upgrade is wise in the first place.

Will the Hercules Game theater be the best since I can use a standard (RCA to RCA) interconnect instead of a mini plug to rca interconnect? Or does a stereo mini plug carry a signal just as well as 2 separate RCAs?

I am running a p3 600E@840
Windows 98SE, Asus VIA p3v4x mobo
Rotel RB-870BX 2 channel 100wpc amplifier
JBL S38 speakers

thanks

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

the GXP and santa cruz use the same chip, so their sound is for the most part, the same. the audigy is a bit less accurate, but it has other benefits like special stuff for games (EAX? not sure what it's all called, i dont game 😛) so basically for games, get audigy, for music get SC or GXP.

the GXP has that breakout box, which is handy but you can accomplish most of what it does without it.