Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 or Creative X-Fi Elite Pro?

[gwolfman]

Looking to get a sound card and need some quick opinions. Which do you recommend and why? I'll be doing a little bit of everything, but mostly for listening/music/movie purposes.

Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 or Creative X-Fi Elite Pro?

 

[halcyon]

Well, for the $$ the Auzen Prelude is the better card, especially if you don't need the EP's breakout box. ...but Creative's current drivers are quite a bit better than Auzentech's current drivers in Vista (if you're using that OS).

If XP is still your OS, I'd say save the money and go with the better card, which is the Prelude.

...hope you're feeding something better than PC speakers with either choice though, because, if not, both cards are overkill, IMO.

 

[bobwya]

Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 or Creative X-Fi Elite Pro?

Looking at the reviews for the Auzentech Prelude it generally beats the X-Fi high end cards in the audiophile stakes. I have an Auzentech Xplosion and the DTS encoding over SPDIF works well. The drivers are very stable under Windows XP x64 but I hear the Prelude drivers which were originally better have lagged behind Creative's own under Vista.

The only issue with the Xplosion I have is that EAX support doesn't work 100% - but obviously that is lease of a problem with the Prelude (I guess) since the EAX-5 technology is licensed from Creative?? Not an issue anyway if you are not a gamer (heck you might start one day!!)

Bob

 

[chookman]

Id agree with Halcyon, the Prelude uses better onboard components than the elite pro...

I assume if you are looking at the elite pro you do some kind of recording or audio editing, which is better done on other mfg's cards including M-audio.

Otherwise a cheaper solution thats nice could be one of the titanium cards from creative (for Vista)