Wow, So Creative Really Does Suck for Sound Cards

[ja1484]

Moved from an Audigy 2 to a TB Montego DDL. Games sound equivalent, but music and DVDs are NOTICABLY improved, and this is with a set of cheap Logitech X-somethings I got for under $100 4 years ago.

The thing I noticed the biggest difference in though was the stability of the drivers and the lack of bloated crapware.

How on earth did Creative get to their position of market dominance?

 

[destrekor]

The X-Fi series is better than the Audigy 2 series for multi-purpose audio, but yeah, Turtle Beach has always kind of been there with amazing sounding cards, but tend to have less features, but typically non-important. The fact that they tend to be cheaper scares away many people, because generally everyone has always equated Creative with having the best audio products. Likely they are the heavyweights in the audio market because of the fact, that iirc, they were the first and have always been mainstream.

 

[Ika]

The main problem with Creative cards is that they use piss-poor quality opamps. This is why modding them (hotrodding, in cotdt's terms on Head-Fi) gives so much improvement.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Aflac
The main problem with Creative cards is that they use piss-poor quality opamps. This is why modding them (hotrodding, in cotdt's terms on Head-Fi) gives so much improvement.

The main thing that made me switch was the drivers. I was just tired of Creative's crap. What surprised me was the much better software (drivers and utilities) alongside as good or better fidelity, even with mediocre speakers.

I guess most people just don't know there are alternatives out there...

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: Aflac
The main problem with Creative cards is that they use piss-poor quality opamps. This is why modding them (hotrodding, in cotdt's terms on Head-Fi) gives so much improvement.

The main thing that made me switch was the drivers. I was just tired of Creative's crap. What surprised me was the much better software (drivers and utilities) alongside as good or better fidelity, even with mediocre speakers.

I guess most people just don't know there are alternatives out there...

I don't really get where people are coming from when they say the drivers are crappy. I have an X-Fi in my system, and the most trouble I had was dealing with setting it up (it actually wasn't that hard; having an OEM X-Fi made it harder but still, installation wasn't so bad). Once I got it installed, I never have to deal with it... so I dunno.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: Aflac

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: Aflac
The main problem with Creative cards is that they use piss-poor quality opamps. This is why modding them (hotrodding, in cotdt's terms on Head-Fi) gives so much improvement.

The main thing that made me switch was the drivers. I was just tired of Creative's crap. What surprised me was the much better software (drivers and utilities) alongside as good or better fidelity, even with mediocre speakers.

I guess most people just don't know there are alternatives out there...

I don't really get where people are coming from when they say the drivers are crappy. I have an X-Fi in my system, and the most trouble I had was dealing with setting it up (it actually wasn't that hard; having an OEM X-Fi made it harder but still, installation wasn't so bad). Once I got it installed, I never have to deal with it... so I dunno.

The Audigy 2 ZS I had was awful with the software. Driver issues, software issues, just a pain. The X-Fi was much better in this respect, although it was not problem free for me either.

 

[zoiks]

I've been using the Montego DDL for a long time and it sounds great.

 

[cheesehead]

I'm a Linux user. As soon as I get a new wall-wart, I'll be in the happy land of M-audio.

Pro audio FTW.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: Aflac

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: Aflac
The main problem with Creative cards is that they use piss-poor quality opamps. This is why modding them (hotrodding, in cotdt's terms on Head-Fi) gives so much improvement.

The main thing that made me switch was the drivers. I was just tired of Creative's crap. What surprised me was the much better software (drivers and utilities) alongside as good or better fidelity, even with mediocre speakers.

I guess most people just don't know there are alternatives out there...

I don't really get where people are coming from when they say the drivers are crappy. I have an X-Fi in my system, and the most trouble I had was dealing with setting it up (it actually wasn't that hard; having an OEM X-Fi made it harder but still, installation wasn't so bad). Once I got it installed, I never have to deal with it... so I dunno.

The Audigy 2 ZS I had was awful with the software. Driver issues, software issues, just a pain. The X-Fi was much better in this respect, although it was not problem free for me either.

Same, and we've all read enough horror stories about X-Fi issues to know the trend continues.

To be fair, you probably hear about many fewer TB/HT Omega/M-Audio/Auzentech issues because far fewer of their cards are purchased, and those that *are* bought are generally being purchased by "enthusiasts" (or whatever we're supposed to be called these days) who know what they're doing with a PC, as opposed to joe blow that expects plug and play everything.

But I was appalled at how much extra crap creative installed on my system without asking, how difficult it was to disable and uninstall it, and the fact that there were still, this long after release, driver issues in certain apps.

You'd think with all that money they could hire decent programmers and a Q/A team...

 

[biggestmuff]

Originally posted by: Cheesehead
I'm a Linux user. As soon as I get a new wall-wart, I'll be in the happy land of M-audio.

Pro audio FTW.

M-Audio is pro-sumer; it bridges the gap between consumer and pro.


Since we're talking about good interfaces, I have an Apogee Ensemble attached to my dual, quad-core Mac Pro rig with 10 GB of RAM.