Which Sound Card ???

[Debbie]

Hi All,

I am considering changing my sound card, howevr
the problem is that apperently the only well stocked brand on the island is Creative.

At the moment I have the AWE64 (ISA). I have been
looking allover the place for a Santa Cruz with no results.

Which Creative card works best with the Marvel G400-TV ?

Regards,

Debbie

[Brian Ellis]

If it works, why change? Despite all the codswallop you see on this forum or elsewhere, the difference in sound quality, as recorded on a video, is almost imperceptible. For some unknown reason, some users cannot use the more sophisticated Creative cards, although I've never had any problem, and suggest such things as the Santa Cruz. I bet their video sound is just the same. After all, it stands to reason: it takes 645 Mb to record a CD lasting a tad over an hour. Yet, on the same size disk, you can record a tad under an hour of video AND sound. You cannot make me believe that the video takes up less space than the sound, so something has to give - and its the sound. Want to know more? Render any video file using any type of compression. Then disable the sound and re-render it as video only. Compare the file sizes. The difference is what your sound track uses. If you think that, with this compression, your sound is good quality, then buy your super-duper sound card. Otherwise, stick with the very adequate one you have (I still have an SB16 in one of my computers and it's fine).

And I bet that puts the cat amongst the pigeons!

[Debbie]

Hi Brian,

Thaks for your advice. I am quite happy with the AWE64, but taught I could perhaps improve in direct MPEG video capture on long clips.

Thanks again,

Debbie

[johnpr98]

Hi

I just upgraded my computer, my AWE 64 has gone & I now have a Videologic Sonic Fury, a fantastic improvement.

The Sonic Fury IS the European Santa Cruz, it's even written on the card.

Regards

John

http://www.johnpr98.com

[KuroNeko]

Terratec EWX2496 here. No frills like 3D sound, EAX and such, just superb 2x audio in/out in both analog and optical digital. Real 24 bit, not like the up/downsampled crap by Creative.

Not as cheap as a Fury though, but those seem to be hard to find. Did Turtle Beach sell them off in preparation for launching a new card perhaps?

Neko

[Ant]

Sorry I've no input on the topic just wanted to say I'm impressed to see someone use the word codswallop. I bet that's left a few people scratching their heads

[Sciascia]

The problem with Creative, (except for the AWE 64...outstanding card) is that the newer versions, Live and Audigy use some very unscrupulous codswallop (I know, but it looks like a neat word)...

Basically they inject null data into the PCI bus, hijacking resources form your 2nd IDE controller so that anytime you need it, it can respond faster. I guess that is allright if you don't need good PCI bus performance for anything but your soundcard. Me personally, sound is secondary for reaction time and I don't think that hearing a click or ding is worth codswalloping (closer use??) my system. I tried the Audigy and I couldn't capture more than 30 Seconds without drops. It infected my system with something like 13 Gig (gross exageration) of useless bloatware and tries to hijackk all of your file associations in order to use their lame media players. They are ugly and pathetic. I tried to stick with it, after getting my file associations straight, but it is a poor card from a driver standpoint. If I played games and that was it, it might be nice, but for video it causes more problems than any other device out there. It is not just me, but thousands of others. Some (meaning Tehcnoid ) have success with it, they are the exception.

I went out and bought the Santa Cruz and it is a beautiful sounding card and is great for capturing video and audio. It was a piece of cake to install and it didn't try to overtake my system.

Codswallop...GREAT STUFF

[Technoid]

It infected my system with something like 13 Gig (gross exageration) of useless bloatware and tries to hijackk all of your file associations in order to use their lame media players.

That sounds like a description of how quicktime behaves.....

I have figured out why I don't have any problems with my Sblive and Audigy!

I't annoys the hell out of the rest of you!

One thing to notice is that the writer of VirtualDub, Avery Lee also uses a SB Live card......

[Sciascia]

That sounds like a description of how quicktime behaves.....

Or my all-time favorite, Realmedia. Because I just need that stuff running all of the time.

[IM_Riktar]

I would still be using my AWE64 today if my motherboard had ISA slots.

For what it's worth,

[This_Idiot]

Originally posted by IM_Riktar
I would still be using my AWE64 today if my motherboard had ISA slots.

Damned right. I've only one machine left that has ISA which my baby daughter (18 years) has hijacked. She uses it for blasting MP3's out at obscene sound pressure - and it sounds damned good to me. I switched to a Yamaha "Waveforce" DS-192XG PCI card a couple of years back on my main capture PC and have never had any problems with it (apart from Death Rally doesn't recognise it). I've also got a cheap SB32 value in my other machine which co-exists with an ADS Pyro with no problems.

Chris
T_I

[IM_Riktar]

Hiya Chris!

I prefer to think of the ISA line of Creative products as "inexpensive" from an "Already got it", or "used" standpoint, as opposed to the "cheap" PCI products they have been cranking out.

[Mance]

Creative?

I liked Creative a lot when PC sound only meant gaming to me.

But when I got my Radeon AIW a year and a half ago and its ability to capture crapped out on me in two months (due to ATI driver factors as well), I went out and bought a Santa Cruz solely based on the recommendations I found here. It cleared up all the sound problems.

I've never been happier. I would have been content to continue to love Creative cards had I not encountered a problem. They'd always been THE STANDARD before.

The only problem I have with the Santa Cruz is that when I rebuilt this system, I installed W2K without the card in place. Windows never installed the yellow volume icon. Santa Cruz came in during install and installed its blue volume icon, but did not replace the yellow one. The blue one doesn't 'ding' when you slide it. But you can go back in to, somewhere can't remember offhand, and turn on the yellow volume icon, and it appears right beside the blue one and it 'ding's. Strange. Also, ATI's MMC seems to take control of one of the audio components so that when you turn down the sound of the TV, you've turned down sound for all apps. Then you have to go back in to the mixer and turn it back up. Pain in the... But that may be ATI's issue and not the Santa Cruz. I don't know.

But yes, for doing long video captures, I've really grown to love the simplicity and efficiency of this Santa Cruz card. They've made a convert out of me. Music and games sound great too, but for me it's the ability to author that I require.

[Elie]

Hey Chris!!!
It's been a while dude, how the hell are ya?

I've been using the Santa Cruz with Awesome success, under both Win2K and WinXp Pro.
All you need to do is carefully follow the driver installation instructions and you should be fine.
The SC provides high quality sound especially the SPDIF out, AC3 passthrough and WinDVD/Cinemaster also works like a charm.

[Sciascia]

Originally posted by This_Idiot


Damned right. I've only one machine left that has ISA which my baby daughter (18 years) has hijacked. She uses it for blasting MP3's out at obscene sound pressure - and it sounds damned good to me. I switched to a Yamaha "Waveforce" DS-192XG PCI card a couple of years back on my main capture PC and have never had any problems with it (apart from Death Rally doesn't recognise it). I've also got a cheap SB32 value in my other machine which co-exists with an ADS Pyro with no problems.

Chris
T_I

I bought one for my first computer (back when video was a pipe dream in most cases) when they first hit the streets (over $300 USD!!). Even before they were really available in the states and I ran into more probelms that first year. I had a friend helping me and I bought a 486MB with an AMD 586 chip. Drivers wouldn't install. 3 days later bought a new Pentium MB and a 166 Cyrix. Wouldn't install. 4 days later bought a Penium 150, because of the "inaccuracy of the floating point unit" in all chips besides Intel. Go figure worked like a champ after that. Then about 6 months later they came out with revised drivers that worked with everything because of all of the whining.

Oh well I cut my teeth on that system and learned the hard way about the big 3, Intel, Microsoft and Creative. They had some kind of backdoor codswallop going on. Anyway I used that card for years and years and several systems. It was the best SC they ever built.

Now you couldn't pay me to use anything blue and codswallop (that pukey yellow color) in my machine.