What sound card to buy

[JMD 0]

Hello.

 

I have the Sound blaster 16 pci right now and was thinking of an upgrade. Would I really notice the difference in quality if I bought the SB 64, SB 128 OR SB 128. I'm starting to play more games, but I'm wondering if the sound is all that much better in the cards mentioned above.

 

Keep in mind I have never heard a high quality sound card..infact I have never heard any card better than the one I have. haha

 

Im using LABTEC 70 SPEEKERS.

 

Thanks

 

Regards

 

Joe

[Cynan 0]

SBs are all well and good, and don't get me wrong, I've never had any problems with the ones I've had... but apparently they do have a lot of incompatibility problems with various hardware.

 

Most ppl I know tend to switch to the Game Threatre XP. Its around the same price and apparently gives your sound a new lease of life. I haven't heard it myself, but if I had to get another card, I'd seriously consider it.

 

--Cynan.

[Down8 0]

I personally dislike the SB Live!s, but they are fine for most ppl, except for the VAI/AMD/Win2K incompatibilities that pop up on occasion.

 

I'm looking into the Philips Acopustic Edge, and the Hercules Game Theater XP. I still haven't made up my mind on which one to get, since they are tied for the lead.

 

-bZj

[Brian Frank 0]

You also may want to consider some decent speakers to go with that new sound card. Ive got the Cambridge Soundworks FPS1000 4.1 speaker set and its good. The sound card I have and no trouble with it at all, is the Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo. The only bad news about it is its no longer being made. For $50 it had a lot of features like rear speaker output, Optical digital out/spdif, EAX, A3D, and Senusura. I havent installed the drivers for it, but it works great either way in Win2k. All the problems with SB's especially the live cards make me really glad I didnt get one.

 

I heard a lot of people happy with the Santa Cruz cards as well as the Acoustic Edge.

[Cynan 0]

I think the Santa Cruz and the Game Theatre XP are basically the same thing arn't they? or I read something like that somewhere - not checked them out though.

 

--Cynan.

[JMD 0]

Thanks guys.

 

Is it true that when a sound card has 16, 64 or 128, that this means that it can handle 16, 64, 128 different voices or sounds at the same time.

 

Cheers

[ThC 129 0]

acoustic edge, santa cruz, game theater XP are pretty much all the same cards. Only diff between GTXP and SC is that the GTXP has that big hub thing that you put like 400 things into it.

[Son_Gohan 0]

Either:

 

Go for a Sound Blaster Surround 5.1 http://www.europe.creative.com/products/product.asp?

lang=1&cate=2&prod=158

 

(Sound Blaster live 5.1 + Dolby Digital DTT2200 speakers) for

EMU EUR: € 265

 

Or a guillemot/herculesmaxi gamesurrounnd fortissimo II sound card

http://europe.hercules.com/products/gf2/features_gf2.php

for €66 aprox. And buy a FPS1500 4.1 speaker set (+ € 95).

 

PS: 1.00 euro= 1.33568 Canadian dollars

[JMD 0]

Many thanks.