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at the moment i am looking to up date my sound card at the minute im using AC 97 onboard audio, ive been looking at the Audigy 2 zs card but its a bit too expensive at the minute even with the realise of the Audigy 4. any ideas what alternate cards are out there ive been looking at the phillips 5.1 card.

one thing i dont want to do is change the soundcard only to find it makes little or no difference, mostly i use my computer for mp3s and playing dvds and games.

You will notice little or no difference.

not that i would normally question FP, but you sure?

p.s

forgot to mention im using phillips A5.600 speakers (100 watt RMS)

FP would know.. He used to be a sound engineer..

eGo

Only thing a "better" sound card will cause is for you to notice that MP3s have issues with the compression as far as quality goes. If you have good ears you'll notice the difference at times. And unless you have a HT system, DVD audio playback quality won't increase because it's still not "digital" and your speakers will hold back what you hear. The only issue with a sound card I've ever had was when my sound card was holding back my frames per second during benchmarking and sometimes during gameplay. But this was using a SB Live Value (original SB Live) with newer technologies when it wasn't necessary.

Unless you're a major audiofile, you're not going to hear much difference.

If you're one of those people who actually thinks that spending an extra $100 on a speaker cable with gold contacts and special wire alloy will in any way affect the quality of the sound your speakers produce, then by all means spend the money on the expensive sound card.

I'll sit here with my $20 CMedia sound card and plain 5 cents a foot speaker cable and laugh my ass off as the stock I own in audiofile product companies keeps going up...

Sorry FP, but.... I too have much experience in the sound industry.

I went from a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz to a Audigy 2 and noticed an incease in audio quality. I'm using Logitech's Z640s. The Santa Cruz sounded muffled by comparison. Maybe this is why it had a built in software EQ? Also, EAX never worked properly on the Santa Cruz. I was using my my mobo's onboard sound, but it was glitchy in BF1942.

I agree though the gold plated cables are a waste.

My all time favorite HAS TO BE the onboard that was on my 8rda+ SOUND STORM rules! I swear i would go back to that mobo just for the sound.. but it doesent have SATA or the extra power connector... but dam it i want my sound storm back. It ran my recievers in AC3 and i could easly set all my speakers and crosovers and all that good stuff right from the PC!

Originally posted by Pugsley
My all time favorite HAS TO BE the onboard that was on my 8rda+ SOUND STORM rules! I swear i would go back to that mobo just for the sound.. but it doesent have SATA or the extra power connector... but dam it i want my sound storm back. It ran my recievers in AC3 and i could easly set all my speakers and crosovers and all that good stuff right from the PC!

If you ran your Soundstorm using a digital output through a receiver, than the Soundstorm actually didnt have much to do with the sound, because the receiver would do all of the necessary D/A conversion.

Anyways, I would recommend the M-Audio Revolution 5.1 or 7.1, or another card that uses the VIA ENVY HTS-24 chipset. I'm not a big fan of Creative's cards, for one because their software is terrible and buggy as hell, and also because their Audigy cards resample everything to 48 KHz internally, making it sound pretty crappy. Also the Audigy 4 is nothing but an Audigy 2 with a better DAC and better op-amps.

Well yes that is another reason why it was so good. My recivers did some of the work and they are good. I just liked the fact i could have surround presets of levels and crosover points for different apps.