Which sound card would work best?

[imported_chrisbtx]

Okay, I am ordering an Athlon 64 3200+ processor and the Asus K8V SE Deluxe Motherboard in a couple of days and was curious on the issue of what sound card to use.

I plan on getting the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum or it's equivalent (whatever's new at that point) in about 4 months, but for now I have both an Audigy Mp3+ from about 2 years ago and the version of the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card that comes with Dell systems (also from about 2 years ago... from a Dimension 8200). One of my friends told me that for music one is better and for gaming the other is, but I can't remember anymore and wasn't sure if that was true. I want it mostly for gaming purposes, but obviously listen to a lot of music on the computer as well. Does anybody know which card will give the better overall sound quality for what I'm looking at using it for?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[konakona]

audigy is best for gaming, no one disputes that. but for music it is far from best, only if you have good enough gear to be able to discern the difference at that tho (i.e. good pair of headphones with proper amplification). popular suggestion is to go dual with audigy + chaintech av-710 for music. the latter is an astonishingly good deal considering some find it even better than m-audio revo. well then i am a happy camper with my EMU 1212M 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

 

[imported_chrisbtx]

What about the Turtle Beach card? Are you saying that between the two for both gaming and music you would still go with the Audigy? As I said before, I am waiting another 3 or 4 months before I'm going to update my sound card to something better and newer, mainly because I do my upgrades a bit at a time so as not to have to use up all my available money at once. 😀 I just wanna make sure that between the two you're saying the Audigy is the one to go with... also, if that is so, is the Santa Cruz good for anything?

Thanks again from a noob when it comes to sound cards!

 

[konakona]

TBSC is a decent card, but chaintech av-710 beats it by a landslide : it sports an envy24 based chipset + high quality wolfson DAC for analog output. not only it betters TBSC, audigy is easily outclassed in music if you are serious about it. audigy's true strength lies in gaming as it is the only card to support the latest versions of EAX and gives you least cpu utilization = higher fps. if you got an irq to spare, keeping both card is an attractive solution at very affordable price.

 

[imported_chrisbtx]

Wow. Thanks for the help. That Chaintech is actually in a price range I could purchase for short term use right now (23 bucks on newegg). I really appreciate it!

 

[konakona]

this may prove useful while u at it... i got some good music out of mine tho it didnt get to stay in my box for very long 🙂

steps invovled in properly configuring the AV-710

1. purchase the card from our favorite retailer, newegg.

2. insert the card into a pci slot. you may wanna keep your audigy if EAX gaming is one of your priorities

3. download the latest drivers from Viaarena

4. fire up via Audio Deck, select 2 channel Hi Sample Rate tab.

5. plug in an interconnect cable to your amp of choice.

6. download foobar2000 8.2 special

7. download otachan's ASIO plug-in for foobar2000, place it in foobar2000 components folder.

8. open foobar2000, press ctrl+p to access preferences
a)Playback - output - show all options - 24bit fixed-point padded to 32bit, dither - triangular noise shaping
b)dsp manager - resampler(SSRC)
c)resampler - 96000hz, check slow mode if your machine can handle it.
d)output - ASIO(exe version)
e)ASIO(exe version) - buffer size = 0

9. download Asio4all, install it. adjust the buffer size till you dont here any clicks and pops while playing your flac/apl/ogg/mp4/mpc/mp3 or whatever.

there are other adjustments and tweaks to foobar such as columnsUI or setting replaygain. Voila!

mad props to Stephonovich of head-fi!

 

[imported_chrisbtx]

Thanks again for all your help, but I do have one more question while we're having this little convo...😉

When I get the Audigy 2 ZS Plantinum or Plantinum pro, would you recommend keeping the Chaintech card in there for audio?

(The decision b/t the Platinum and Platinum Pro will decide on whether I want to spend 130 or 160 bucks when the time comes... I work at BB so we have those employee purchase deals. I love 'em!)

 

[konakona]

well it all depends on what your gear and priorities are... personally i have EMU-1212M feeding ZEN/HD-580 combo (see my sig), which is more than enough to be able to appreciate the huge difference that lies between the outputs respective cards produce.
if you find the chaintech card adequate for your gaming need, you wont even have to go for audigy... but truth be told, the chaintech card is noticeably better for music (again, you will need some good speakers or headphones)

hope this helps 😉

 

[imported_chrisbtx]

Yup, bout answers it all... thanks!:thumbsup:

 

[SeTeS]

I've been considering a TBSC to replace my SBLive Value which I've had for years. I'm looking for something geared for higher quality audio rather than gaming performance.

Looking at both the Chaintech and the TBSC, one drawback I see right off the bat is the number of internal connectors on the Chaintech. It's got 2 analog cd-ins, where the TBSC has 3 analog and 1 spdif.


Also, which would perform better w/ VST synth progs (e.g. Reason, Orion, etc.)

 

[konakona]

sorry, no experience whatsoever with VST synth progs, i dont have a vaguest idea what they do 😛

Looking at both the Chaintech and the TBSC, one drawback I see right off the bat is the number of internal connectors on the Chaintech. It's got 2 analog cd-ins, where the TBSC has 3 analog and 1 spdif.

hmm i never knew that, i realized i never tried listening to CDs from my computer... when you use wolfson DAC on chaintech, you lose some analog functionality like line-in and recording capabilities. after all you only pay $23 shipped for revo-like quality 😉