Sound card. Upgradeing from an audigy

[Guden Oden]

I don't see this as a big question - but Creative is pretty famous about A) bad drivers B) mediocre quality.

Well, I have no issues whatsoever with my Audigy ZS, it works great. Sound quality is excellent too, backed up by independent tests. Distortion, noise, S/N etc, all gets excellent scores, particulary for PC consumer soundcards.

As for the KT133 thing, for GODS SAKES that was a million feckin years ago and probably more VIA's fault than Creative's. You could fix it by changing ONE stinking BIOS setting anyway. It's like saying you'll never buy another Pentium CPU after the P3 1.13giga shambles way back when.

And Digi,

USB audio solutions are CRAP from a CPU useage standpoint. Especially when you enable 3D audio and such. They do everything on the host processor, getting a 25% load just from the audio subsystem isn't uncommon for USB sound dongles.

 

[elroy]

Actually, the KT133A + SBLive! thing WAS Creative's fault. It was discovered that their cards did not adhere to the PCI spec. I thought it would have been fixed with the Audigy 1, but apparently it wasn't. I'm not sure about the Audigy 2.

Anyway, it's my choice to hate Creative on principle and never buy another one of their cards. I have run a Videologic SonicXplosion and a Revo since I turfed my SBLive!, and I think both cards are absolutely fantastic!

 

[Accord1999]

Actually, the KT133A + SBLive! thing WAS Creative's fault. It was discovered that their cards did not adhere to the PCI spec. I thought it would have been fixed with the Audigy 1, but apparently it wasn't. I'm not sure about the Audigy 2.

It was also discovered that VIA's PCI implementation for the KT133A was poor and caused performance problems with just about every PCI card. So it was at least as much VIA's fault (if not more so), as it was Creative's.

 

[martrox]

The problems with Creative and VIA is just one of those things that can happen when you have an open architecture.... this would NEVER happen with a Macintosh! ...Well...course you pay for the closed architecture through the nose!

I feel about Creative kind of - but to a lessor extent - like I do nVidia. I'm not happy at all with how the company does business. They will do anything to control a market and drive any competition out of business, ethics are not something they understand. But, that being said, I have both nVidia & Creative products in many of my machines.... because they offer me the best I can get ATM.....

 

[Sandwich]

Upgrade from an Audigy to an Audigy2? :? I thought both were nearly identical.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Audigy2 takes up less CPU cycles and sounds a bit better I believe...but I ain't sure.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

Hi,

Well, I just upgraded from a live value to a soundstorm (using the optical out to my sherwood receiver) and I have the say that I'm pretty happy with the sound quality. Being able to use the DAC in my receiver instead of on the soundcard is really nice. No EAX3/4 is a bummer (though I've never actually heard it, so luckily I don't know what I'm missing), but over all I'm quite happy with the onboard sound. Certainly better than my live value.

Nite_Hawk

 

[jvd]

nite i had some bad problems when using cpu intesive games. After like 30 mins of playing farcry my soundstorm would start making a hissing sound through the speakers.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

nite i had some bad problems when using cpu intesive games. After like 30 mins of playing farcry my soundstorm would start making a hissing sound through the speakers.

I've heard that the MCP-T can get really hot when a lot of sound processing is being done. Perhaps yours was overheating?

Nite_Hawk

 

[digitalwanderer]

I wasn't really looking to get the USB soundcard off them, I was just interested in the earphones to be honest.

I want to compare the 5.1 earphones and Gainward has the most inexpensive set, I'm gonna plug 'em in to me Audigy2 later and REALLY check them out.

 

[Bolloxoid]

I want to compare the 5.1 earphones and Gainward has the most inexpensive set, I'm gonna plug 'em in to me Audigy2 later and REALLY check them out.

I wouldn't bother with those. Any soundcard with decent headphone algorithms and good ordinary stereo headphones will sound better than any "5.1 headphone" gimmicks in a gaming setting.

And with regard to DVDs, software DVD players usually have a Dolby Headphone option and many AV receivers have headphone algorithms built into them too so I find the idea of headphones with 5.1 inputs quite unnecessary.

 

[Guden Oden]

Actually, the KT133A + SBLive! thing WAS Creative's fault. It was discovered that their cards did not adhere to the PCI spec.

That was rather a lot in dispute at the time, considering no other chipsets than VIAs had problems with the SBLive.

I have run a Videologic SonicXplosion and a Revo since I turfed my SBLive!, and I think both cards are absolutely fantastic!

Both are vastly inferior to the Audigy2 ZS. Sound quality, sound QUANTITY, CPU utilization, features, I/O connectors, etc etc. ZS has them beat by a considerable distance. It's the best soundcard today, heck if it could do hardware DD or DTS encoding it would almost be perfect.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

Actually, the KT133A + SBLive! thing WAS Creative's fault. It was discovered that their cards did not adhere to the PCI spec.

That was rather a lot in dispute at the time, considering no other chipsets than VIAs had problems with the SBLive.

I have run a Videologic SonicXplosion and a Revo since I turfed my SBLive!, and I think both cards are absolutely fantastic!

Both are vastly inferior to the Audigy2 ZS. Sound quality, sound QUANTITY, CPU utilization, features, I/O connectors, etc etc. ZS has them beat by a considerable distance. It's the best soundcard today, heck if it could do hardware DD or DTS encoding it would almost be perfect.

A lot of people consider the resampling on the digital output for the Audigy2 a big enough flaw to rate it inferior for music reproduction versus the Revo/etc. The audigy2 certainly has the rest beat for cpu utilization and EAX effects though. In terms of the DACs, from what I understand both the Audigy2ZS and the Revo have quite good ones.

Nite_Hawk

 

[Guden Oden]

A lot of people consider the resampling on the digital output for the Audigy2 a big enough flaw to rate it inferior for music reproduction versus the Revo/etc.

I haven't heard what "a lot of people" are saying about this and what foundation they have for saying such a thing, but I haven't had reason to find fault with the sound. Then again, I'm not a pro user, but then again, neither is the ZS a pro card...

 

[digitalwanderer]

I want to compare the 5.1 earphones and Gainward has the most inexpensive set, I'm gonna plug 'em in to me Audigy2 later and REALLY check them out.

I wouldn't bother with those. Any soundcard with decent headphone algorithms and good ordinary stereo headphones will sound better than any "5.1 headphone" gimmicks in a gaming setting.

OMG, you just reminded me....I did NOT write to Sensera about headphones because they didn't have any 5.1, must write them...

Both are vastly inferior to the Audigy2 ZS. Sound quality, sound QUANTITY, CPU utilization, features, I/O connectors, etc etc. ZS has them beat by a considerable distance. It's the best soundcard today, heck if it could do hardware DD or DTS encoding it would almost be perfect.

I'm pretty sure you've answered this for me before, but I keep spacing it....the Audigy2 non-ZS is pretty close to the ZS for sound quality and such, isn't it?

BTW-Thanks for the CPU heads-up, I'll check for that.

 

[elroy]

Actually, the KT133A + SBLive! thing WAS Creative's fault. It was discovered that their cards did not adhere to the PCI spec.

That was rather a lot in dispute at the time, considering no other chipsets than VIAs had problems with the SBLive.

That's the thing, there were problems with other chipsets!!! I'll see if I can find the article showing this. EDIT: The site that had the article I'm thinking of is now down (www.viahardware.com)

I have run a Videologic SonicXplosion and a Revo since I turfed my SBLive!, and I think both cards are absolutely fantastic!

Both are vastly inferior to the Audigy2 ZS. Sound quality, sound QUANTITY, CPU utilization, features, I/O connectors, etc etc. ZS has them beat by a considerable distance. It's the best soundcard today, heck if it could do hardware DD or DTS encoding it would almost be perfect.

Hahahahaha!!!! That's a good one!!! Sound quality on the Audigy2 better than the Revo?!! I don't think so.......

 

[JCLW]

BTW: You can softmod the A2 ZS drivers to run on a regular A1. It noticiably improves the sound quality, and you'll get all the fun stuff like THX too. I can't tell the difference between my A1 and my A2 ZS (when both are running the same A2 ZS drivers) using my 4.1 FPS2000 digital speakers.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

A lot of people consider the resampling on the digital output for the Audigy2 a big enough flaw to rate it inferior for music reproduction versus the Revo/etc.

I haven't heard what "a lot of people" are saying about this and what foundation they have for saying such a thing, but I haven't had reason to find fault with the sound. Then again, I'm not a pro user, but then again, neither is the ZS a pro card...

There are some threads that mention it over on 3D sound surge forums if you are interested...

Nite_Hawk

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

hmm. i recently upgraded my box to XP from ME. my soundlaster live stopped working (no problems before that)...2.1...also on it's testing diagnostic program, the window said "click start test button to begin"...there was no 'start test' button. also no uninstall utility for the AudioHQ...so....i decided to (hopefully) abandon those progs. bought a turtle beach santa cruz 2.1 card. no dice either, took it back and bought a 5.1 audigy z2 (about $70) plus 5.1 speakers (also creative...$90)...installed, it all worked fine. i wonder why my 2.1 quit on me though.

 

[T2k]

I don't see this as a big question - but Creative is pretty famous about A) bad drivers B) mediocre quality.

Well, I have no issues whatsoever with my Audigy ZS, it works great. Sound quality is excellent too, backed up by independent tests. Distortion, noise, S/N etc, all gets excellent scores, particulary for PC consumer soundcards.

I don't give a flying frog about your 'excellent scores", honestly.
BTW IIRC you've been enthusiastic about D3 sounds as well and tried to downplay my post when I stated that D3 sound mixing/mastering is a bold mediocre and pretty crappy - and suprise!
More and more people saying the same now...

Creative is a cheap crap, it always will be, period.

As for the KT133 thing, for GODS SAKES that was a million feckin years ago and probably more VIA's fault than Creative's. You could fix it by changing ONE stinking BIOS setting anyway. It's like saying you'll never buy another Pentium CPU after the P3 1.13giga shambles way back when.

1. This particular thing was 90% of Creative's fault.
2. Besides this all the forums were fully loaded for years with complains every time they released another of their broken drivers.