The best sound card for under $50?

[Tung]

I need your opinions, people

 

[gcliv]

If you can squeeze that $50, find a Sound Blaster Live! Value. There IS no better card for $50!

 

[novice]

I just picked up a Turtle Beach Montego II for $14 plus shipping on Eg*head Auctions. It works great, very similar to a Diamond MX 300 with the Aureal Vortex 2 chipset and nice A3D. A great card for the low $ guys among us.
Chuck

 

[samanvahedi]

the turtle beach is good if you want a decent card for a low ass price..... but i would go with the live... voyetra does not suppor tthe turtle beach anymore so if you don't mind about drivers go ahead and get the montego II... if you are running win2k AND want to play games with the montego, DO NOT get the montego.... no a3d or EAX suport in win2k...

 

[Maverick]

you can pick up an OEM SB Live! Value for around $35 in the FS/FT forum almost all the time.

I sold one for $40 last month when I got my Phillips AE.

Its a good card for the price.

 

[andylawcc]

live value.
or Aureal's SQ2500 from Compusa for 39.99 if you don't want to bei CL's bitch....

my MX300 is still working fine.

 

[Elledan]

Soundblaster PCI 128

I'm using it in both my Win2k and Linux box and everything works fine with it. No problems whatsoever, and that for just $30 USD

 

[denon]

SB Live! Value, hands down.

 

[Verygreedy]

SB Live Value.. hand down up and to the side!

 

[DARRIN]

Another vote for SB Live Value.

 

[Quickfingerz]

live! value

 

[DerProfi]

andylawcc, unfortunately Creative bought out Aureal's assets and IP after they went bankrupt (and stopped updating their drivers) so it's tough to avoid being Creative's bitch unless you go Philips or Guillemot/Hercules

 

[Motero]

my mx400 works great.

 

[MGMorden]

Live! Value. If you wanted to drop the price even more then the Ensoniq AudioPCI works great and is usually under $25.

 

[joinT]

Go look in the Fs/FT forum.

I would suggest an MX400 (i got one NIB from Jalapeno, shipped to Canada for $40 US)
if you are more of a gamer

Any version of SB Live if you're more into music, ripping, making music, etc.

 

[RiceDiGiZ]

Sound Blaster Live! Value

 

[Mem]

I would go with & am using SBLive value 1024 OEM,they can be found for less then $50,you also get good driver support for the future ,"Creative seem to keep going when other sound companies don`t, for good or bad they are always around".

 

[Tung]

thanks for the replies guys.. i'll go with the live! value.

 

[Wingznut]

(NOTE: I've owned the Live!, MX300 - Vortex2, and now a Santa Cruz)

Are you sure you cannot swing another $20? You can get a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz for $70 from buy.com. It is a much much better card than the SBLive!.

If you cannot, I'd go with the Philips Seismic Edge for $39. I have never ordered from OpenLinx before.

As my third choice, I'd go with the Aureal Vortex2 for $15.

The SBLive! would be my fourth choice.