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Hardware

The State of PC Audio 337

Posted by CmdrTaco from the do-you-hear-what-i-hear dept.
jonesy writes "The Tech Report has put together a pretty decent six-card sound round-up that covers the most popular audio controller chips around. DACs, ADCs, DSPs, and the other important acroymns are explained. One interesting revelation: Creative's Audigy card doesn't do 24-bit/96KHz sound, despite Creative's claims. Gaming benchmarks are provided, and the authors even take a crack at the subjective side of audio, although they seem aware of the difficulties in doing so."
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The State of PC Audio More

The State of PC Audio

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  • Where's the limit? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Deosyne ( 92713 )
    I was just thinking about the limits of sound cards the other day. What features are still in demand from them, considering they can play damn near any sound that we can possibly hear already, and do it directionally? Seems to me that there's really not much more to squeeze out of them, other than maybe making them faster for more advanced applications and cramming them full of memory so any of them can be used professionally. More speaker jacks might be nice, so you can have some really surround sound.

    • Re:Where's the limit? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @01:01PM (#3722878)
      Lower distortion (all types). Lower noise. Better anti-aliasing filters. More linear DACs/ADCs. Balanced I/O. Improved RF rejection.
      Card volume implemented with motor control pot instead of FETs or digital scaling. Eliminate the
      digital EQ that causes phase distortion even when nulled.

      Is that enough?
    • Here's what I would like:

      Above/Below speakers in addition to front, back, left, right.

      Then stuff like quake, rtcw, half-life, etc would be a bit more submersive. It would be nice to know if an enemy is above or below you by sound.

      • Above/Below speakers in addition to front, back, left, right.

        Then stuff like quake, rtcw, half-life, etc would be a bit more submersive. It would be nice to know if an enemy is above or below you by sound.

        This can theoretically be done without extra speakers. Think about it: you only have two ears, left and right. When you hear sounds from above and below, your brain knows where they are because of the way different frequencies are filtered by the weird shape of your earlobe.

        The trick is in figuring out how to filter the frequencies, and probably also in the fact that everyone's ears are a bit different so what works for some won't work for everyone. Also, it's questionable how well your brain is going to believe sound cues from above/below when your entire conscious mind is focused on a screen in front of your face. I've noticed that surround sound doesn't really work for me in a game - I want to physically turn around and look behind me rather than turning in the game to shoot the guy behind me.

        • This is theoretically what QSound does. I remember hearing a demo several years ago at COMDEX, but haven't heard anything using it since.

          The Philips card in the review did use QSound, and the reviewer liked it. Shrug.
      • I read somewhere that a pair of high quality headphones are the best device for 3D audio. Something to do with simplifying the calculations, and the fact that each ear cannot hear what the other is, wich also helps.
      • "Above/Below speakers in addition to front, back, left, right. "

        With my non-leet drilling skillz I would not want to sit under a large speaker I had attached to the ceiling...

        graspee

    • I, for one, has yet to be happy with the capabilities of on board audio under linux. I'm not sure if it's a driver problem or what, I've tried both oss/free and the alsa drivers, and I've yet to get any onboard sound chip to play two sounds at once aka hardware mixing. (for instance, play an mp3, and hear icq sounds at the same time).

      I've been buying cheap yamaha (ymf724/ymf744) cards and using the alsa drivers, you can play mutliple sound sources at the same time with them.

      I'm not talking about using crappy software mixing daemons like esd/arts/nas those all make things sound like dirt IMHO. Death to software mixers, long live hardware mixing. I think windows also can do software mixing via direct sound, but your direct sound apps have to support it, and yes, it makes stuff sound like dirt too last I check, which admittedly, was quite awhile ago that I use a crappy sound card under windows.

      • Re:Where's the limit? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ttfkam ( 37064 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @01:30PM (#3723069) Homepage Journal
        Death to software mixers, long live hardware mixing. I think windows also can do software mixing via direct sound, but your direct sound apps have to support it...

        Why death to software mixers? Unless you are really CPU-bound, they should sound the same. It's not like there's anything special about code that's burned into a ROM as opposed to code that's resident in RAM. The only reason that 3D apps need hardware OpenGL routines is because the main CPU has better things to do -- it speeds the game up. As far as I'm aware, software mixing is nowhere near as CPu-intensive. It it were, there wouldn't have been MOD, S3M, MTM, etc. (multi-channel audio from back in the day) files that were easily handled by my old 386SX-16 with 1MB RAM.

        If it sounds like crap, it's because the software's crap not any inherent property of software-driven mixing.

        And yes, Windows can do software mixing, but apps don't have to support it; they just tell Windows to play the sound. The important part is that sound card drivers must be DirectSound compatible.

        As for sounding like dirt, I'll leave that to your own ears. Personally, I find that it's the quality (or lack thereof) of my speakers that makes a far greater audio difference than the crappy software mixing. But then again, I'm not an audiophile.
      • You might as well stop listening to PC audio all together.

        By the way... Your Yamaha boards use software mixing in the drivers.
        • By the way... Your Yamaha boards use software mixing in the drivers.

          Why do people post on things they obviously don't know about? FYI, the Yamaha 744 does hardware mixing and Alsa supports this. Three minutes of googling will show you this.

          Dinivin

      • I, for one, has yet to be happy with the capabilities of on board audio under linux. I'm not sure if it's a driver problem or what, I've tried both oss/free and the alsa drivers, and I've yet to get any onboard sound chip to play two sounds at once aka hardware mixing. (for instance, play an mp3, and hear icq sounds at the same time).


        Don't know about any onboard sound chips and their drivers, but that works nicely for me with SB Live! and the free OSS driver. No ESD or anything like that running.

    • What I'd like is solid tested drivers, and a clear separation between the actual core driver, and all the other crap they shovel into the box (all that LiveWare nonsense).

      Also, I'd like them to properly test the drivers too. I've got an SBLive on an SMP machine, and I get clicks and crackles all the time. (If I disable the 2nd CPU, it's fine). A friend has the same problem.

      Tim
    • I personally think sound cards are over-rated. What's more important to a good audio setup is a set of good speakers.

      The "sound card" I'm using now is the onboard AC97 sound on my mainboard, and I've hooked it up to a proper pair of hi-fi stereo speakers (NOT computer "multimedia" speakers) and it sounds better than any other audio setup that consist of expensive Creative Audigy sound cards and cool looking Altec Lansing speakers that don't sound half as good as they look.

      I've had people listen to it and ask me if I'm using a Creative Audigy (or some other expensive sound card) and you should see the look on their faces when I tell them I'm using the onboard AC97 sound of my mainboard.

      So my advice is, unless you're an avid gamer who needs the A3D or EAX sound or absolutely must have the 5.1 digital sound, you should just settle on a cheap sound card or the onboard sound if your mainboard has one, and invest the money saved on a good set of speakers.

    • Re:Where's the limit? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Some Dumbass... ( 192298 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @01:32PM (#3723087)
      What features are still in demand from them, considering they can play damn near any sound that we can possibly hear already, and do it directionally?

      24-bit video cards can also display anything you can see, but that doesn't mean that there aren't new features to be added.

      In the long run, it wouldn't surprise me to see sound cards becoming the primary processor for lots of audio-related functions. There's already spatial-audio calculations (EAX/A3D), much like 3d-accelleration in video. Some sound cards also accellerate mp3 decoding. I wouldn't be surprised if this became more common, and perhaps extended to other audio formats. After that... how about a sound card which has on-chip speech recognition, or at least support for some related processes (speech-recognition acceleration)?

    • I was just thinking about the limits of sound cards the other day. What features are still in demand from them, considering they can play damn near any sound that we can possibly hear already, and do it directionally?

      The limit was reached in the mid 1990s, at least as far as I'm concerned. I really can't tell the difference between a generic motherboard sound chipset played through okay speakers and an overpriced sound card. I think that quite a few people fall into the same category. Certainly, upgrading one's sound card is about fiftieth on the list of pressing computer problems.
      • The limit was reached in the mid 1990s, at least as far as I'm concerned. I really can't tell the difference between a generic motherboard sound chipset played through okay speakers and an overpriced sound card. I think that quite a few people fall into the same category. Certainly, upgrading one's sound card is about fiftieth on the list of pressing computer problems.
        Maybe that's because you've reached that age where you can't hear the difference between a crappy sound card and a fancy one...

  • Sound Blaster 16 (Score:3, Funny)

    by JohnHegarty ( 453016 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @12:44PM (#3722758) Homepage
    I use a sound blaster 16 on machine. It cost 12. Its grand , plays mp3's ... and games...

    Am I the only one who doesn't have an orchestra in the back of my pc , or are most people on this type of older card ?

    • Re:Sound Blaster 16 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by getter_85 ( 464748 )
      some people pride themselves (me not included) in a more advanced sound system so they can say they've got something better than person x's
      • > some people pride themselves (me not included)
        > in a more advanced sound system so they can say
        > they've got something better than person x's

        ...and some people use their advanced sound system to do low-level synthesis, remixing, adding effects, etc. The effect of going from low-end to high-end sound hardware can be dramatic - if you're dealing with really low level synthesis, you just can't use an el-cheapo card. Case in point - I was twiddling with my music synthesis program on a friend's computer, and noticed all these weird high harmonics. After frantically searching my code for the source of the bug, I suddenly realized that the problem wasn't the program, but the soundcard. I went to a different machine, and low and behold, weird high harmonics gone. Point being, if you're creating music, especially music with subtle effects, you need to be able to hear those effects properly.

        Of course, most of the people who buy fancy-schmancy sound cards are just using them for gaming. And there's nothing wrong with that, because it makes them happy and brings the prices down for me :-)

        Cheers,
        DH
        • Yeah, I agree. There is a dramatic difference in cards when you do high-level sound processing. I use Reaktor and Cubase VST/32 for my audio projects and there is, like, no point trying to do that that through anything Sound Blaster ever thought about making. Real time sound crunching with acceptably low latency is not possible. So I have dual sound interfaces - an Echo Layla 24/96 with a breakout box for audio, and a Live for gaming (because Echo has never gotten its DirectX mode up to snuff and probably never will since it's not a gamer card.)

          I've occasionally tried running games through the Echo, and frankly I think they sound better on the Live. Also, I don't know why I'd want to waste 32 bit audio processing power on sound clips that are recorded in 16 bit by the game publisher. Given that game companies are not likely to waste CD and hard drive space offering their sound effects in 24 bit audio, I don't really understand why the Audigy marketing goes to so much trouble making false claims about that capability. I guess they are trying to appeal to audiophiles, but there is so much USB and Firewire hardware on the market for trackers/synth tweakers/DJs these days, I don't know why anyone would try to fill that need with their internal sound card anymore. (If USB options had been available when I bought the Echo, I'd have gone that way instead.) Bottom line - the basic Live is all you need for gaming.

      • Some people also don't like that nasty hiss from the SB16.

        Creative cards have noisy DACs, in my opinion. I find the digital out on the SBLive is very clean, though..

        [shrug]

        S

    • Re:Sound Blaster 16 (Score:2, Informative)

      by Skuto ( 171945 )
      Some of the low-price cards are actually surprisingly good. The SoundBlaster PCI 128 (actually an Ensoniq card) is notorious among some audio freaks because the outputs are of better quality than the much more expensive SoundBlaster Live cards.

      The nice thing about this review is that they actually admit their own 'audio quality' test is flawed. That's good, but if you know it, it's stupid to still do it anyway.

      Good evaluation of audio and sighted testing don't mix - ever.

      --
      GCP
      • My 1370 Ensoniq AudioPCI was a great card. it is a shame that Creative crippled its potential when they bought Ensoniq... But then again, they wanted everyone to buy an audibly inferior Live card. That's the way that it goes, I guess.
    • I use the onboard on my Asus A7V333. I saved the few dollars I could have spent on a sound card and put it into some halfway decent speakers with a powered sub woofer. Works just fine for mp3s and cds, and I can figure out if a grenade was to the left or right of me in SoF2, so that's all I really need. Plus, no sound card means I have an extra pci slot.

    • Re:Sound Blaster 16 (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 )
      I still have a Sound Blaster 16. That card is about 7 years old (Give or take a year) It was origianally on my 486 50mhz and then I just moved it to each adional PC that had the 16 bit ISA Port. It still works greate it plays the MP3 and Wav files fine. Sure MIDI sounds a bit comicical compared to the new cards but But with software rendering it still plays nicly. I am not a big gamer but I do have a good ear. And the sound I am getting out of that Sound Blaster 16 is as good as it would come out of those little speakers.
      Odly enought unlike vidio cards sound cards dont have the same obsolete rate as other gaming intended cards. They still work with modern games.
      • [laughing] I also still have my original ISA SB16, from my original 486; it's now 8 years old. It worked fine in the 486 and the P90 and had pretty good sound for its day, but it really doesn't like the P3-550 very much -- sounds like crap (gritty, and I can't get the R/L volume balanced no matter what I try). I wonder if it simply can't keep up with the higher system speed or something.

        I added it to the P3 because its SBLive could not be induced to work in DOS (its DOS emulator crap hosed Win98, and didn't work anyway, so I had to disable it in hardware profile). And I need a sound card that 100% works in DOS.

        [changes subject line] Hey, does anyone know which pretty-good reasonably current sound cards still work in *pure DOS*? None of the reviews I've seen over the past 3-4 years have touched on this. But it's a *must* for those of us who play older games. :)

    • I have the SB16 WavEffects. (8-bit in hardware, 16-bit emulated by Windows drivers.) Works fine for what I use it for: CD-Audio, playing MP3s, some games. Works fine under Red Hat 6.2 as well.
    • I have a machine with a SB16 also. It's in a video game cabinet. I chose it because the speaker outputs are powered, so it can run the speakers in the cabinet without an external amp. A quite handy feature if you need it, and one almost no "modern" sound cards have.
    • I still use my AWE Soundblaster 64 Gold. Not as old as a 16, but a very sweet card if you have ISA ports. The only reason I upgraded (to Live! 5.1 Platinum) was because my newest mobo didnt have any ISA legacy support. So the AWE got put into my linux box instead, oh the horror!

      For those of you who don't know, it had a stereo L/R out directly from the card, so I didnt need a cable to split stereo it into my receiver/amplifier. Very nice indeed. They still have them OEM at a lot of computer places, too.
    • I dunno. I used to hiss pop use a SB16. But I got hiss pop hiss tired of the sta hiss pop tic.

      You're pop hiss pop on a slow pop hiss buss you know ?
  • What I'm intrested in is 16-bit, 48kHZ sound out ether a Parallel Port or PCMCIA card (for soundless laptops). So far, the only thing you have is 8-bit sound that the computer itself has to make sure it runs at the right speed. I'd like to offload that a bit.

  • What's the big deal? (Score:5, Funny)

    by billnapier ( 33763 ) <napier@pob[ ]com ['ox.' in gap]> on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @12:49PM (#3722786) Homepage
    My computer goes "BEEP" when I hit Ctrl-g. What else do I need?

  • the real measure of hardware. (Score:5, Funny)

    by herrd0kt0r ( 585718 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @12:50PM (#3722796)
    omg, evreyuone knows teh REAL BEST sound cards r the ones that overcl0kc teh BERST.

    like, i oc'd my mediavision proaduiuospectrum16 (don't laff its teh BEST) and now i can hear sounds b 4 they happen!

    like, omg. this guy was gonan shoot me with rocket launcher but i heard it before hje shooted then i was gonna shoot him first but tehn i heared my shotgun fire b 4 i even press the button!!1!!

    HE WAS DEADRESTATED B 4 I EVEN SHOOTED HIM!

    I R TEH S0 GLAD I READED THIS REVIEWS.
    MY SHOTGUN SOUNDS SO CLEAN AND CRISP AND CLEAR AND BECAUSE I R TEH AUDIOPHILz0RZ I KNOW IT SOUNDS AS BEST AS REALISTIC YES IS.

    seriously, sound card reviews like this are a crock, providing little information above the specifications provided by the manufacturers themselves. as evidenced by the previous story about the s00per c00l vacuum t00b sound card, people can't be fooled into thinking these things will provide "audiophilez0rz" quality.
    • one more thing, for those who think i didn't read the review and think that i'm off my rocker: read the review yourself.

      for those who think the listening tests add any useful information to the review: read the article.

      for chrissakes, it's written like a horoscope! every card sounds crisp/clean/warm/deep but also might be harsh/tinny/poopy/balls. even _I_ could write a review like that:

      "a friend of mine can play the star spangled banner with his armpit. while it may be unconventional, this reviewer believes that the rendition was warm, with good deep tones. while it wasn't able to reproduce frequencies above 120hz, i do not believe this is of significant detriment, as most farts fall in the sub-120hz range. just for your information, bass tones that low are nearly 'omnidirectional.' that is why it is so difficult to determine who cut the cheese, and why it is best to go with the rule 'whoever smelt it, dealt it.'"

  • What a Sound Card needs... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @12:50PM (#3722798) Homepage

    Is good speakers. You can't have one without the other. So what if your Sound Card is 100% buzzword compliant with 128bit 9GHz output, if your 2 cents piezo buzzer is connected to it the its a waste of space. Equally if you are playing Quake 3 and just want surround sound then there isn't much point in the card without the speakers in the right places.

    For most people a basic card will, shock horror, do everything they want these days when allied to a decent set of speakers. So much of this is upgrade hype driven rather than actually reality. I've had a creative 5:1 set up for a few years now and why should I upgrade ? I listen to music mostly on the train and at work from my laptop on headphones so what would it get me. And what extra would I _really_ get for a 3D game ? Rather than marketing hype.

    Get good speakers, get an okay sound card and buy lots of RAM.

    If you want a top of the range sound system, buy seperates don't buy a PC.
    • I completely agree. I bought some Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 [klipsch.com] speakers and they are amazing. I highly recommend them.
      • I must second this one. I bought a set, after doing about a week of solid reviewing on the internet.

        Then I set them up at home. DAMN! is all I can say to the amount and quality of sound that you can put through these.

        I have them paired up with a turtle beach santa cruz, which is the "quietest" sound card I've ever owned. I used to be a creative labs user, but this card blows away anything "I've" heard by them.

        But that's my opinion. You're entitled to yours. But go listen to the Klipsch at Comp USA... you'll be impressed....
      • If you've got some more cash to spend I'd recommend the Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 [klipsch.com]. Watching a DVD with these speakers easily rivals the sound quality of dedicated home theater equipment. And playing an FPS with these speakers lets you truely feel the explosions and allows you to accurately hear from which direction bullets are being shot at you. A must for a computer audiophile to go with your real high end sound card. Did i mention it's THX certified as well...
    • ... or high quality cans. I endorse the find products from Grado Labs. Mmmmm.

      'jfb
    • Right, good speakers.. where in the hell does a person find GOOD computer speakers nowadays, especially at a reasonable price? The then-$40 generic pair that came with my 486 in 1994 are MUCH better speakers than even the $200 big-whoopee sets I'm seeing hawked today. Bizarre, but true. (I have a VERY good ear, and I hear the difference.)

  • Why I'm sick of Creative Labs (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Besides the obvious fact that they often use a bit of slight of hand in what features they support (ie 96KHz), every couple years they introduce their new sound card, and promise that this won't ever have to be upgraded again. I think they first did it with the AWE64, but then two years later, BOOM, Live!, and two years later, BOOM, Audigy. Each one they claim is upgradeable via Liveware. But these updates NEVER come.

    I think I should've just stuck with my solid SB 16.
    • For the records, I *LOVED* my AWE 64 Gold, and I still love it.
      Thing is, it was an ISA card, and I finally upgraded my motherboard recently. Needless to say... No ISA slot (which is otherwise a good thing, of course).

      As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't ever have needed to upgrade it, wasn't it for an external factor.
  • I just bought a msi kt3u and I was wondering if anyone knew where to get the s-bracket [msicomputer.com]?

  • Edirol UA-5 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @12:58PM (#3722852)
    I think external USB audio devices are a great choice for everyday uses, gaming, and even home recording studio use. Consider a box like the Edirol UA-5 [edirol.com]. It has *real* microphone preamps, coaxial and optical digital inputs and outputs, single-ended coaxial analog inputs and ouputs, and an amplified headphone monitor output. It does not sit in your computer, so it doesn't pickup noise the way a PCI card will. It is in all ways a fairly serious piece of electronics, and you can get one for only $249.

    The only drawback in my mind is you cannot use the USB interface for 24/96 audio. That, and some issues like jitter and delay, should be solved by the next generation of IEEE-1394 interfaces.

    • firewire USB (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jcsehak ( 559709 )
      I don't trust USB completely. I've had problems with hubs deciding not to supply power, and the bandwidth is too narrow. From what I've heard about USB CD recorders, I'm not alone. For $450, you can get Digidesign's Mbox [digidesign.com], which is firewire-based. It samples at up to 24-bit/48khz, has focusrite mic pre-amps with phantom power, and most importantly, zero latency. It also comes with Pro Tools audio recording/editing software. No, I don't work for them, I've just been drooling over this thing lately. The idea of having a decent home studio with one of these and a laptop...
      • I'll be the first to agree that USB is a nasty hack, but there aren't a lot of 1394-connected audio devices, and certainly not any I can afford. The Edirol unit is nice though, because it can operate alone without the computer connected.
      • I don't trust USB completely. I've had problems with hubs deciding not to supply power, and the bandwidth is too narrow. From what I've heard about USB CD recorders, I'm not alone.
        I thought the exact same thing just before I bought my USB CD/RW writer [iomagic.com].

        When I burned my first couple of cd's I was careful not to use the machine (laptop, PIII 750) for fear of swamping the USB's bandwidth... I've got a USB keyboard, USB mouse, USB compact flash reader and a USB cable for my PDA.

        However, I'm happy to report, everything seems to work just fine and dandy when using other USB devices. Granted, I haven't tried using everything at the exact same time... but, I'm pleasantly surprised by the performance.

        Maybe tonight I'll try my hardest at making a coaster... </evilgrin>

        Anyway, I've also been thinking about getting a USB sound device... either the Stereo-Link [stereo-link.com] or Extigy [soundblaster.com]. I like the Extigy because it's got a lot of "stuff" (sparing the details). But, I also like the Stereo-Link because it's not Creative's product. I haven't quite decided, yet... here are some reviews:

        • Extigy: 1 [cnet.com], 2 [tweaktown.com], 3 [ign.com];
        • Stereo-Link: 1 [cnet.com], 2 [neoseeker.com], 3 [soundandvisionmag.com].
    • The only drawback in my mind is you cannot use the USB interface for 24/96 audio. That, and some issues like jitter and delay, should be solved by the next generation of IEEE-1394 interfaces.


      Eh? The UA-5 _does_ do 24/96, but only half duplex. (The manual sample rate setting is not the most user-friendly, but it works..) I did see a few dropped samples, but it performed very nicely recording on site. Just make sure to get some decent mics.. the difference between a PA-grade mic and even a low-end music mic was very noticable.
  • This article neglected two important players in the PC Audio scene. Where is the nForce 420D and the Hercules Game Theater XP? Why were they not included in the roundup? Instead, we got reviews of a bunch of low end cards and high-end Phillips and Creative cards. I think the nForce and Game Theater would have been worthy competition.

  • But what about... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ALecs ( 118703 )
    What I'd like to see is how today's cards stand up against the cards of yester-year (Oh, OK, yester-decade).

    I still run an AMD K6-450 for a single reason: it's got 3 ISA slots that I can put my dual-port joystick board, my Advanced Gravis Ultrasound MAX and my SoundBlaster AWE32 in. Those 2 sound boards kick this living [explative] out of everything else I've heard in the (affordable) PC sound dept. And, the AWE32 has 8 megs of RAM for something useable: putting sound samples into for MIDI/MOD playback.

    Sure, I don't get 18bit, 48KHz playback (which, I'll admit, may be nice for homestudio stuff) but all my 16bit, 44.1KHz stuff (practically everything, since that's what CDs are) sounds fantastic. Nice CODEC chips, nice analog output stages, descrete amps, etc. And, yes, I do listen to it through something worthy of playing back good sound.

    I'd like somebody who has a good A/B comparison rig, good ears and a newer whiz-bang audio card to campare it to a GUS or AWE32 and tell me if they agree. Have these newer everything-on-one-piece-of-silicon cards caught up in sound quality? Keep in mind, also, that I payed only $35 for both of these cards (having dated hardware is nice on the wallet :).

    -Josh

  • It's a gamer's review, not an audiophile one (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @01:05PM (#3722903) Homepage
    I'll repost (most of) the comment I put on TR this morning. TR's comments don't get much feedback usually, and I'd like to get responses/pointers on the points I bring up.

    The review is completely oriented toward gaming though, with only a slight nod toward music listening or DVDs (and the cards reviewed aren't particularly good toward those). With that in mind, the review isn't all that bad. And it brings up several nasty issues with Creative Labs - their drivers continue to suck, they seriously overdo reverb in EAX (uh, guys... you wrote the standard... why can't you do it right?), bloatware on a massive scale, and some of the comments indicate possible spyware.

    Anyway, my original comment is now below, sans a few bits that pertained only to over there.

    Sigh... well, not what I was hoping for, but still a decent review (as soundcard comparisons go at least). Should've marked this as a review for gamers though - for those looking to build a Home Theater PC it's reviewing the wrong cards (the M-Audio 6-channel is pretty much the standard nowadays, but there are competitors).

    It would've been nice to get a few motherboard chipset reviews in with the cards. I know, you were already in review hell. But to whomever is going to try this next, do include a review of the cheapo AC97 codecs, the upgraded ones (such as CT5880), nForce, and such.

    There are also sampling/playback issues - CL has long had an issue with automagically resampling from 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz. This introduces errors during playback. Testing to see which cards do this (on either record or playback) would've been nice.

    Testing to see if the connectors provided are actually standard conforming would've been nice too. The digital output jack on the SB Live series, for instance, conforms to no standard known to man. It will work with most Dolby Digital decoders, but not all of them - it runs the voltage far, far, FAR too high, has absolutely no noise protection, and a few other issues. CL deciding to label their IEEE1394 connector as a "SB1394" makes me suspicious of it as well.

  • Getting People to Listen (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Vegan Pagan ( 251984 ) <deanasNO@SPAMearthlink.net> on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @01:21PM (#3723013)
    The problem I see with PC audio is not the quality of the cards but getting people to hook up decent speakers and listening to them. People seem to reserve their best amps and speakers for the living room and car. Already in 1991 the Sega Genesis and SNES were putting out better sound than cheap TV speakers could reproduce. DVD consoles at least may get hooked to home speakers reserved for movies, and incidentally also use it for games. MP3s have got a lot more people to listen to their PCs, but that's just a drop of the sound today's PCs and consoles can put out.

    One way I see of getting people to get better sound out of their PCs and consoles is headphones. For just $20 the Koss KTX-PRO (also called the Optimus Titanium 35 Pro at Radio Shack) headphones will get you better sound than hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of amps and speakers. As for the surround effect, the Dolby Headphone algorithm supposedly simulates it with DVDs made for 5.1 speakers. It's nice that most PCs have headphone jacks; I wish consoles would as well. Many console games, and PC games as well, I would assume, have great soundtracks that never get heard.

  • the review is crap... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @01:26PM (#3723046) Homepage
    sorry but the review at Here at pcavtech [pcavtech.com] is dead on.. tests done with audio calibration and testing hardware to give real numbers and real information not this "pull something out of our butt" review.

    any review on audio equipment that doesnt use real testing is pure crap and needs to be loudly labelled as such.
    • That page is excellent. Arnie did real work in comparing soundcards.

      As for this crap from regarding "The State of PC Audio"... This other reviewer can shove it. Anyone who writes vague crap like "This sounded warm, but we can't help but think that something was missing" shouldn't be reviewing. Did they use good headphones? No. Did they use a a proper amp and set of speakers? They used a crap set of Logitech speakers, which produce way too many highs, and over-bassy lows. This can be fine for an average user, but you have to adjust an EQ somewhere in the loop.
    • That's a great link you posted. Even better, it does appear at least 1 is supported under Linux. The ALSA Project's Soundcard Matrix [alsa-project.org] lists support for the Midiman Delta 66 [midiman.net], and there's also OSS/Linux beta support [opensound.com] for the LynxONE [lynxstudio.com] (though binary non-free).

      Of course, they'll both set you back 400-500 bucks... Fortunately, the still well-performing Turtle Beach cards have long enjoyed good Linux support.

  • Aureal Vortex 2 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Shade41 ( 251507 )
    I have a Monster 3D sound card based on the Vortex 2 chipset. I payed $30 for it a few years ago and I have been well pleased with it. I use it for playing MP3s to my stereo all the time and it sounds great. I really enjoy using the Vortex setting in games like Descent 3. It adds some nice 3D effects to the game.

  • Not that surprising... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Astin ( 177479 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @01:31PM (#3723075)
    Most Audigy users that have looked at any of the sound card forums out there have already discovered their claims are false.

    Creative seems to have really dropped the ball with the Audigy line. A look at any audio forums (Creative's own even) will show a large contingent of unhappy customers. Audiophiles that think it's a piece of crap sound-wise, gamers who are pissed off with its driver performance. Calls for people to return their Audigies and get a Game Theatre or Santa Cruz.

    Compatibility issues with different hardware configurations, WinXP, etc.. are also popping up. The biggest seems to be an issue where the EEPROM on the card gets scrambled, disabling the rear speakers, and causing the card to be recognized as EMU10K instead of an Audigy, thereby making proper software/driver upgrades impossible for it. The only known solution for this so far is to get the card replaced and hope the new one doesn't get FUBAR as well. There are a lot of very annoyed Audigy owners out there.
    • One problem with the review is that the reviewer doesn't realize that the distortion that he hears with the Santa Cruz is native to the original audio recordings. You just can't hear it with the "higher rated" cards, because of their inferiority. The Audigy's dynamic range just blows.

      I guarantee that the Santa Cruz and Phillips cards produce the best quality in that review. The reviewer is just blind to all of the real variables.

      So if anyone here actually likes innacurate representation of an audio source, then please... By all means, trust this silly review.
  • On April 5th, Philippe Ramelet wrote an article [tomshardware.com] about the Extigy's alleged 24-bit, 96kHz capabilities at Tom's Hardware Guide. Here's the debunking [tomshardware.com] part.

  • zzzSnorezzz (Score:5, Informative)

    by Russ Steffen ( 263 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @01:40PM (#3723149) Homepage

    You want quality audio in a PC? Go get a card made by these people [echoaudio.com], these people [terratec.com], these people [midiman.com], these people [motu.com], these people [frontierdesign.com], or these people [rme-audio.com]. Then we'll talk.

  • The Aardvark is the best ever! (Score:3, Informative)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @01:46PM (#3723200) Journal
    The Aardvark Q10 [aardvark-pro.com] is great for recording, and it works with all my games. It also works with Windows XP and 2000, and OSX.

    I would only recommend this to musicians or engineers though, since it's a bit of overkill for RTCW.
    Recording? Wow! It is absolutely quiet.

  • I love Day of Defeat. I'm married and have kids so usually get to play it at night after they're all in bed, so I seldom get to crank things up.

    Even if I did, my ears are so messed up from '80s metal concerts, I probably wouldn't know the difference between 16bit vs 24bit.

    But the audigy gave me two things that I wanted/needed. The first is the 4+ speakers. So now when I get killed again and again, I know which way it came from :)

    The other is the onboard 1394. I stupidly bought a proprietary IntroDV board, which the company wanted to charge me to get the 2000 version of the drivers. Plus it took up it's own slot and could only connect to dv cams. Now I have an OHCI standards based port on the same PCI slot as another card that can hook up to anything.

    Oh yeah...and it was dirt cheap too for all that.

  • If anybody is considering buying an Audigy because of the remote, think again. I don't think the article made any mention of the remote (which I believe is only available in the Platinum or better) , but it is just about worthless if used in conjunction with anything else that uses a remote.

    I had set up a small tower in my living room, complete with wireless keyboard/mouse and an ATI All-in-wonder, and I upgraded from the SB Live to the Audigy for several reasons- better inputs/outputs mounted on the front were important, but the remote control was extremely important. After all, if I could use this remote to control winamp and other programs (possibly including the ATI TV app), I wouldn't need the keyboard or mouse 90% of the time.

    Unfortunately, every other remote I have interfered with the audigy - I couldn't use the DVD player, TV, stereo, or even the PS2 remote without royally pissing off the Audigy Remote app (even when pointing the remotes in the opposite direction, it still picked up signals far more often than the devices that were supposed to get the signal). Ironically, the Audigy remote caused the least amount of response from the Audigy, and no problems with the rest of the entertainment center. And the Audigy Remote app is such a horribly bloated app that I had to disable it entirely (which is almost as difficult to do as disabling RealPlayer or removing all the AOL icons).

    I like the sound that comes out of the card, I like the 1/4" input jacks (which lets you plug a guitar directly in the front, for example), and I like the fact that there are so many controls and inputs that are mounted on the front (with the platinum version). But the remote was such a disappointment; don't buy this card for that feature - you may get better results, but don't raise your hopes.

  • Creative Labs (NASD: CREAF) down 2% on the 'news'

    stop lying boys!

  • Testing methodology (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Um, the testers seemed reasonably competent technically, but I have to point out that judging a card's audophile capabilities by playing classical MP3 is not the best way to do it. Playing the original uncompressed music, whether from the hard drive or (preferrably), directly from the original CD is always the best method. MP3s will always sound different than the original source music because like JPEG, it's a lossy compression. Take a classical CD with some demanding music, make MP3's from it, take and burn those MP3's to another audio CD and compare the two in a standard audiophile CD player in your home stereo and you'll easily hear the difference between the original and the copy, especially with a good violin piece. Yeah, it's nitpicking, but anyone claiming to do a "listening test" and using MP3 playback as the last word in audio quality is no audiophile, in my opinion. Just my two cents.
  • ...and if you want to bench your internal pc speaker, install vi .

  • Well durn. I bought a mediocre card, according to this article, the Creative Live!

    Oh well, at least when I installed RedHat 7.2 it was automatically configured and working with no config file fiddling from me (unlike in Windows where I had to download a driver and reboot multiple times). This in comparison to my old Turtle Beach Monterrey card where I had to tweak it just to get it to work.

    Anyway, the Live! sounds good and gives decent positional feedback.
  • According to Creative's promotional material, the Audigy supports 24bit 96khz output, but only digitally; presumably this is because it doesn't have a high-rate DAC onboard.

    However, promotional materials claim that the Digital Entertainment version of the Audigy, a higher-end version released for the Asian market, does have a 24bit 96khz capable DAC onboard. Additionally, the "Audigy drive" breakout boxes included with the Platinum and Platinum EX both have 24/96 DACs; 24/96 audio should play properly through them.

    But, a grain of salt:

    Creative's promotional materials and product specs are fairly... creative. =)

    My Creative Labs CD-R Blaster 8432 (an OEM ATAPI Plextor Plexwriter 8432) is the last CL product I'm ever going to buy (well, at retail prices anyway, second-hand ebaying aside). The drive itself performs very well in terms of burn data error rates. However, it has performance problems which have occasionally led to underrunning. The buffer is half the size of the Plexwriter's (2mb instead of 4mb) -- but I knew that when I bought it. And, more importantly, like its equivalent ATAPI Plexwriter cousin, the drive doesn't support DMA properly, even though it claims in four seperate places on the box that it does. It even lists UDMA support as a system requirement. Creative tech support personnel are generally clueless, or seem to feel that giving out any product information will only encourage warranty returns or something. But from what I've been able to determine on the net, there Creative has OEMed at least 3 different drive models from Plextor, Panasonic, and Samsung, under the "CD-RW Blaster 8432" name. And the Samsung doesn't support UDMA either.

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