Need New Sound Card Maybe? Advice Requested
DOOManiac
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">from smartey pants sound gurus</div>Drat. I think my sound card is on its last leg. Not too suprising, I mean I've had it for about 5 or 6 years now. Its the original (as in, the first one, when they were brand spankin new) SB Live! Value and it has served me very well these past years, but alas I fear it is time to put it to rest.
I've been having a few probs with it in the past, nothing major, but like the sound would get all staticy and i'd have to reboot to fix it. Only happened maybe once every two months or so..
No the real issue came recently when I tried to use my converter thingy to output the sound to the TV (adapter changes headphones style jack into RCA white & red (left and right)), and i get this really loud annoying BUZZZZZZZZZZ feedback sound :( :(
Does anybody know enough about electronics and etc to know why I'd be getting it? The only conclusion I can come to is that its me sound card :/ My laptop doesn't do it, but it can't really get too loud with the signal anyway... who knows...
So anyway, I'm looking at the Audigy 2 as the sound card to get, mainly due to my lingering brand loyalty to Creative. I mean come on, they were gods with the SB 2.0 back in the day...
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>/me looks around at blank stares of "wuts a es bee two point oh?"</span>
So yeah. Anybody have the Audigy 2, know anything about it, whether its good or not? (I heard the Audigy 1 actually had some problems).
I've been having a few probs with it in the past, nothing major, but like the sound would get all staticy and i'd have to reboot to fix it. Only happened maybe once every two months or so..
No the real issue came recently when I tried to use my converter thingy to output the sound to the TV (adapter changes headphones style jack into RCA white & red (left and right)), and i get this really loud annoying BUZZZZZZZZZZ feedback sound :( :(
Does anybody know enough about electronics and etc to know why I'd be getting it? The only conclusion I can come to is that its me sound card :/ My laptop doesn't do it, but it can't really get too loud with the signal anyway... who knows...
So anyway, I'm looking at the Audigy 2 as the sound card to get, mainly due to my lingering brand loyalty to Creative. I mean come on, they were gods with the SB 2.0 back in the day...
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>/me looks around at blank stares of "wuts a es bee two point oh?"</span>
So yeah. Anybody have the Audigy 2, know anything about it, whether its good or not? (I heard the Audigy 1 actually had some problems).
Comments
1) Apparently Audigy (1 or 2) + Dell Dimension (4100 or 8300) + Windows (2000 or XP) = random inexplicable issues. They come and go, but I sometimes get nasty sound corruption. None of the three companies knows why the problem occurs. Then again, if you don't have that magic combination, you're good to go.
2) Creative's near-monopoly of the soundcard industry has resulted in their cards being rather bloated, especially in terms of accompanying software/drivers. You may find a leaner, meaner card for cheap from another manufacturer. I don't know details; I'd check out some online review sites like TomsHardware.com.
That said, I really have no complaints with my Audigy; I imagine the Audigy2 would only be an improvement. Keep in mind though that a lot of the features offered by the newest cards will be wasted if you don't have a top-notch speaker system to accompany it, so don't waste money to get 5.1 dobly support if you don't even have a 5.1 speaker system.