Which card?

[Guest]

I need a new sound card for my PII-450. Want to spend about $50-$70 street for it. My needs are primarily for burning & playing CD's, musical fidelity on a three piece Boston Acoustics speaker system, & decent game sounds.
I was checking out the SB PCI512, & the Guillemot Fortissimo. What do you think of these cards for my needs?
Any other recommendations?

 

[Guest]

Pricewatch.com lists a Soundblaster Live! X-gamer for $69 @ <A HREF="http://www.pcstop.com" target="_new">http://www.pcstop.com</A>

 

[twin]

My recommendation : Turtle Beach Fiji or Turtle Beach Montenegro. They are a bit outdated on technical side (ISA-bus, no 3d sound etc) but their sound quality is uncompromising. For example, you could compare Fiji to highend cd-player without unneccesary bells & whistles.

They just don't create sound cards like that anymore, what a shame. You'll have to get used one...

 

[machow]

Where do you live? US? Europe? Asia? Right here in Asia you could get the mix between SBLive! X-Gamer and MP3+ with Player. Cool eh?


Smart guys are not smart; they only see things in different perspective.
1st <b>member</b>!

 

[Guest]

There is NO difference between the X-Gamer and
MP3+; only the software that comes with it (and
the software for the MP3+ is junk anyway) Buy
an X-gamer for the games that come with it and
download different audio software (Soundforge
Cubase, Xing, etc.
Turtle Beach is a good choice if your working with
MP3's playing audio CD's, etc.

 

[Guest]

stifferd-
Thanks for the reply. Turtle Beach cards have been mentioned several times, although the X-Gamer might be the way to go.

 

[Guest]

Twin-
Thanx. You're the second person who mentioned Turtle Beach.

 

[Guest]

US. Cool...

 

[Guest]

Murdy-
Useful info. Thanx for the buy tip also.

 

[machow]

Yes the softwares offered are different and you can obtain even better software for to replaced those that you have lost... but where do you get them? You pay for them! (Oh yeah I know people go find them from the net...)


Smart guys are not smart; they only see things in different perspective.
1st <b>member</b>!

 

[Guest]

Go for X-Gamer. Awesome card

 

[Guest]

Whatever you do don't get a Creative Soundblaster card. The drivers for these cards (live value, x gamer etc.) are utter crap. If you run Windows 2000 you will have nothing but headaches. If you have a decent amount of peripeherals (any combination of the following: DVD drive, CD Rom, mpeg card, capture, card, TV tuner card, Fastrak card, network card etc) you will probably have compatibility issues and driver conflicts with these cards. They are responsible for more computer headaches than they are worth. All of the extra functions that make this card great are memory resident and buggy. The soundblaster 16 emulation is dodgy and doesn't work properly (this means those old DOS games won't work). To top it off their web site is difficult to navigate, convoluted and their support is slow at best.

Honestly if the drivers were a lot better I would recommend this card, but in it's current state I decided to stick with my old Creative AWE 64. Go the Hercules, the cards looks very good and they are known for good customer support are well produced hardware.

 

[SoulReaper]

Get a soundblaster live. you will spend a little more but u won't have any problems in the future

"upgrading is no longer an option...it's a necessity"
Visit www.elitehunters.com
--SoulReaper =)

 

[priit]

SBLive is pretty usable as guitar effect processor. Sound output quality is pretty good, too (S/N ratio about 80db,frequency response 22-18Khz @ ~ +/-3db). But it's not really as good card as everybody seems to claim: MIDI part of it absolutely sucks (worst wavetable synth I have heard, my good-old GUS MAX was way better), DOS SB16 emulation takes so much processor time that I can't even play DOOM on K6-2+/450, those Win9x/ME drivers are bloated as hell and screw up Winblows registry, under linux it's driver doesn't support all features. I somewhat regret buying it....

 

[Guest]

I own an SB Live!, and I can tell you that Creative tech supports sucks (they never even picked up my call) and their drivers are underdeveloped. My favorite would be the Aureal Vortex2 series, but unfortunately, Aureal has died off. Without driver support for my Vortex2, I was forced to get the SB Live! for my 2nd comp.