someguy03 Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 My music and game audio mean alot to me, and I want to step it up from my Nvidia SoundStorm onboard audio if a soundcard would provide alot of improvement. I am looking into Creatives new X-Fi sound cards, as well as the Audigy 4 (and maybe Audigy 2). And I was wondering, do these provide an audio quality that justifies their cost when compared to onboard audio, such as SoundStorm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petroid Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 The Soundstorm is a pretty good solution in terms of raw quality. However if you play games that take advantage Environmental Audio a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 or X-Fi would be a great audio solution. The X-Fi also does some nice 3D surround sound for headphones... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonComet Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Personally I thought that nvidia soundstorm sounded worse than my sblive! 5.1, which sounded much much much worse than my audigy 2, which sounds worse than my X-fi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbie Khan Reviews Posted March 23, 2006 Reviews Share Posted March 23, 2006 I don't think the price justifies what they give (creative cards) and if you are a person of sound then you would much better enjoy a soundcard designed to deliver just that, pure sound. Terratec, M-Audio and Turtle Beach all do the cards you require, The Turtle Beach Santa cruz is 6 years or so old now but the sound quality it gives out is second to none, new the card cost ?70 or so but now it can be had for maybe ?15 2nd hand. I bought mine 3 years ago for ?30 and will never look at anything else agian (have it connected to my kenwood amp and tower speakers) The only difference is these proper cards don't offer things like EAX3 or EAX-HD, this isn't a great loss because the games that use them either use them badly or don't give a significant boost in gaming experience over using standard 3d/stereo or surround sound. You will not be dissappointed with either of these cards: Terraec DMX6fire M-Audio 7.1 Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uhaligani Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Way back in the past I used to build HI-Fi (valves, if you remember them!) from the numerous kits that were available. 20% distortion was considered pretty good. Today .01 % is pretty much nominal. I think you would have to be a discerning musician with a sharp ear to detect the difference today. I would say the priorities would be price, installed gadgetry (?) and, most inportant in the computer context, foreward compatability, thinking of Vista and even Linux versions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirupa Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 How much different is the sound quality between an Audigy 2 and X-FI? At what point do the speakers become the bottleneck as opposed to the sound card? I'm pretty much in the same situation as the thread starter. Cheers! Kirupa :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrunknMunky Veteran Posted March 23, 2006 Veteran Share Posted March 23, 2006 When I upgraded from onboard sound to Audigy 2 it was a massive improvement :yes: Plan to upgrade to the X-FI soon :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Montage Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Also, on-board sound utilises your processor more I believe. A proper soundcard does more of the processing itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solecs Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 The short answer is yes. I just built a computer for my roomate and we compared some different setups actually. I tried the onboard AC'97, my SB Audigy, and his Turtle Beach Riviera on it, and you could tell the difference easily. The onboard was the worst, and the Riviera was the best, it had a lot more detail on it and just sounded better. This was on my Logitech X-530 speakers, so obviously not exactly the highest end setup and there was still a noticeable difference. I'm not really sure how the soundstorm compares to those though, so it could be hit or miss. But as far as picking one goes, I'd have to agree with mrk in recommending turtle beach, m-audio, etc. for sound quality. Also, the newer cards from those companies support EAX now as well I believe, though they might handle it through software so you'll get slightly more cpu usage. Not sure how the X-Fi compares to all this though, I have no experience with them first hand so I really couldn't tell you. Anyways, sorry for the novel, hope this helped somewhat :p . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbie Khan Reviews Posted March 23, 2006 Reviews Share Posted March 23, 2006 the bottleneck is down to the speakers and the amp driving them right from the moment you start to use dedicated sound processors., since using component setup for pc sound even the altec lansing/dell THX speaker setup doesn't sound very good, this is probably the downside to upgrading to better equipment, lesser stuff just doesn't appeal anymore and you need moar!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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