So what's the latest thinking on sound cards?

[bnlsrv]

I don't understand it but my sblive 5.1 seems to be working ok using the asio direct full duplex driver. (May not have that name quite right, and just got GPO running) But I'm thinking I should update the card in the near future. So what's the verdict on the Audigy, or any others. Who's using them and how are they working? :rolleyes:
One other note - I love these sounds in GPO! :D
Thanks Gary and all those involved in making this happen. Now I just have to learn how to write music! :eek:

[Joseph Burrell]

Go with the Audiophile 24/96. At its current price (I've seen it for 79 bucks) and feature set, its a bargain and it performs splendidly with GPO.

[Styxx]

I agree with Neo. I have a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 in my PC (came with it) and not satisfied with the performance. I'm after a new on soon myself so keep the suggestions coming in!

[squoze]

M-audio 2496 works great for me.

[bnlsrv]

M-audio 2496 works great for me.
Appreciate the input everybody. Can you tell me if it has a optical output? I have a minidisc recorder that
I want to send out to.

[ZeroZero]

2496 .............. Nice!

[SteveMitchell]

Check out http://en.terratec.net and look specifically at the DMX6Fire 24/96. It's been awhile, so there might be a newer model with a slightly different model number.

I've had good success and still use the above card, along with my favorite EgoSys WamiRack24 - 8in-4out soundcard. VERY quiet, something like -107db.

Stevemitchell

[EricWatkins]

I use a Tascam US-428 which is a little overkill but they also make a couple little ones too. I think the US-224 or something like that. It's USB but works really well. It also has transport controls for running my sequencer which is what I love the most. Even the little versions have this I believe. Hope this helps. The only thing I dont like is that my latency is like 46 ms I think. I'm not sure why as I'm sure that it is capable of better timing than this. However, I dont even notice it when I play my VSTi's.

Eric

[tgfoo]

I have a Echo Mia Midi. It's a good card IMO. I would have gone for the 2496, but I wanted the balaned inputs and outputs. But I definitely agree with the others about not using an Audigy as your music audio card. (You could be like me and have two audio cards in your comp. I use the Mia just for making music and the Audigy for listening, movies, and games. It's a good combo.)

[galvedro]

I use a Tascam US-428 which is a little overkill but they also make a couple little ones too. I think the US-224 or something like that. It's USB but works really well. It also has transport controls for running my sequencer which is what I love the most. Even the little versions have this I believe. Hope this helps. The only thing I dont like is that my latency is like 46 ms I think. I'm not sure why as I'm sure that it is capable of better timing than this. However, I dont even notice it when I play my VSTi's.

Eric
I use one of the smaller ones. The smallest one, actually ;) US-122. I'm very happy with it, although I must agree with the latency issue.

Anton

[BlueMax]

And with the M-Audio Audiophile 2496, you even get a "free" reliable MIDI interface - no joystick-port-foolishness.

Should you go Gigastudio, only cards with onboard MIDI interfaces get GSIF/MIDI low-latency support.

[musomark]

I'm using an M-Audio Firewire Audiophlie with my Centrino laptop - No problems with very low latency(ASIO drivers) & a great sound.

I've also installed ASIO4ALL on my laptop. This is a free driver which uses your machines native soundcard. I was stunned how short a latency I could achieve without experiencing problems. I have to use my laptop's headphone output (which of course limits the sound quality) but it's great for mobile use!

How well ASIO4ALL works depends on your computer and seems to be a bit of a lottery - but it's free and worth a try.

Here's the link:

ASIO4ALL (http://www.asio4all.com)

[L0W]

WARNING: This post goes against the grain of widely held opinion!!

I have the Audiophile 2496 and originally SBLive (Value) and then Audigy (1) working side by side in the same PC. The perceived wisdom is that the Audigy is for games/non-serious users and the 2496 is for seasoned pros on a budget. In terms of sound quality/noise/etc I've a/b tested them through a variety of scenarios and can't tell any difference between the three. Not believing my ears, or thinking I must be deaf (as everywhere I was reading - 'dump the Audigy and get an Audiophile' - now including this forum!) I checked out the review specs of each (frequency response, dynamic range, THD, etc) and sure enough there's nothing between them. I also read that latency is better on the Audiophile - again not true - using both the Creative and M-Audio dedicated ASIO drivers, meltdown occurs at more or less the same latency for both cards. I think if you have SBLive working fine, you won't notice a difference in upgrading to the Audiophile. I keep my Audiophile and Creative cards running together so I have more inputs and outputs without splashing out on something like an 828.

[Kevin B. Selby]

I was going to wait until someone broached the subject before I chimed in on the Creative cards. I think in another post I mentioned this too, so forgive me for being rather boorish....buuuut...

I have used Creative cards from the pre-Live/Audigy days (AWE 64 Gold and before) all the way up to the current Audigy's, and, while I recently bought an M-Audio Firewire 410 for higher quality (supposedly!) and some condenser microphone stuff I wanted to do, as well as a good system for my new laptop, I would trust the Live/Audigy line with everything I have. I too have noticed in A/B comparisons that I can't tell the difference. The one thing I CAN tell you is that compared to the Firewire 410, the Audigy I have right now is a dream to work with simply because for some reason, the Firewire 410 is a bit less than stable when connected to my laptop as well as my desktop. I can't tell if its the drivers or the unit itself, but it's definitely not a "connect and forget" kind of thing. The occasional "crashes" aren't annoying enough yet to send it back or quit using it, but I can tell you that I have not had one SINGLE problem with the Audigy cards, nor with the Live series that came before the Audigy. Install them, make sure the drivers are up to date, and they just flat out work. Period. Which allows me to actually work on music...which is what I wanted to do in the first place.

Even the keyboard latency (and possibly the microphone In latency) is better on the Audigy than what I appear to be getting with the Firewire 410 (and trust me, I've played with all the settings...it might be that firewire isn't a fair comparison against an IDE card, but I still can't help comparing them!). I'm talking about NON-soundfont use here...where the comparison is simply betwixt the cards themselves both running a DXi like GPO or Roland Super Quartet.

And if you happen to still have some good sounding soundfonts around that you use (and there are a few still remaining in my arsenal that I'll use for making background trax for playing live and stuff), you can't beat the Audigy since there is absolutely NO latency involved in playing Soundfonts through a Live or Audigy card. In fact, when I switched to a higher level card, I had to wrap my mind around the whole concept of latency because it just didn't exist in the Live or Audigy cards in my experience.

Anyway...I know this goes against the conventional wisdom, but my experience has been quite the contrary to what most people think about the Creative line of cards. In fact, I was just using my Audigy last night to build a background track for "Englishman in New York" (Sting) that I'll play live piano and sing against when I play at a local brew pub this month and there is certainly something to be said about sitting down, plugging in, and having everything just simply WORK the way it's supposed to.

Okay...I have SAID my piece. I will go crawl back in my Live/Audigy hole from whence I cameth.

[BlueMax]

If GPO were a giant SoundFont, I'd agree with you.

But GPO is not a SoundFont so a low-latency soundcard is a very good thing to have. The Audigy2 ZX is actually ASIO2 certified so it's worth considering - especially if you play a few games on the side.

[Kevin B. Selby]

In all that rambling above, I forgot to mention that my Audigy (1) works fine with GPO. Both the DXi and the VSTi versions. No latency issues (or at least, very few issues, no more than with the Firewire 410).

In fact, it works so well that I'm considering buying the Audigy 2 ZS Notebook so that I can have nearly the same studio environment on my laptop that I have on my desktop and simply use the Firewire 410 only when necessary (mainly for good quality vocal stuff with condenser mics and all that). I'll have to probably get a USB MIDI adapter also since I don't think the Audigy 2 ZS has MIDI in/out.

Sorry for the confusion.

[kitekrazy]

You still can't go wrong with an AP2496 for $99.

[L0W]

You still can't go wrong with an AP2496 for $99.Agree completely and no-one above disagrees, but the post from BNLSRV was asking if he should upgrade his SBLive to something better. Most posts initially suggested he get an AP2496. The point I was making [and others later in the thread] is that he has something as good as an AP2496 already, so no point spending even $99.

On a related note, I also have an Audigy 2 [came with the PC] and I DID convince myself that it sounded poorer than the AP2496, Audigy 1 and SB Live. I couldn't tell the difference between the AP2496, Audigy 1 and SB Live, but when the Audigy 2 was playing there was a definite mudiness to the sound so I wouldn't personally recommend that route.

A card I did hear (on a richer freinds PC) that REALLY sounded good was made by Creamware - but I think the company went broke were taken over and I am not sure about their new product range.

And lastly why does everyone talk about Creative cards needing Asio4All, etc - Audigy (1) - as seen in the screen grab below has dedicated Creative ASIO drivers although you do get stuck at 48kHz or 96kHz sample rates (ie no 44.1):
http://www.btinternet.com/~lfharvey/cubase.gif

[BlueMax]

I remember that screen all too well... that's where it would always lock up solid whenever I selected it.

Audigy2 + ASIO didn't work for me AT ALL. :(

[epexegenesis]

I have been considering for while now purchasing a new sound card. I currently use a SB Live that I pulled out of an old Dell PC. Using the KX drivers I get good latency (11ms), which would liekly be much lower if I changed my PC from ACPI so I could get the sound card on a different IRQ. As for sound quality, the peak meter hovers around -75 dB which I find to be a bit high.

Since I'm hearing that the Audigys and the 2496 aren't a whole lot better, and I'm not willing to spend much more than $100, I guess I'll just stick with what I've got.

[BlueMax]

THE budget card to get is the Chaintech A710 (I think I have the model# right.)

It uses the VIA Envy24 chip which is the same as the M-Audio Revolution but is under $30 Canadian! Use the ASIO-for-All free drivers and you have a great-sounding card on the cheap! No MIDI controller though.

What can I say? When you're on a tight-to-non-existant budget you know where to find the cheap stuff. ;)

[dwdonehoo]

...It uses the VIA Envy24 chip which is the same as the M-Audio Revolution but is under $30 Canadian! ;)

The M-Audio Revolution is a great card for a midi slave system (like with the use of MidiOverLan), one pair in, four pair out, and now the drivers are GSIF campatable.

[kitekrazy]

Since I'm hearing that the Audigys and the 2496 aren't a whole lot better, and I'm not willing to spend much more than $100, I guess I'll just stick with what I've got.

I don't know where you get your information but the AP2496 is a helluva lot better.

[BlueMax]

Sound quality is one thing, relaibility is another. Many people pooh-pooh SoundBlasters for their unreliability or problem-generation with pro-audio software. Creative Labs may have gotten a little better with ASIO since purchasing EMU some years ago....