I'm sick of Creative sound cards, need some alternate suggestions

[merlocka]

I've always used them cause always thought they were the best. I have a Live Value and the driver updates are a pain in the butt. I put a PCI128 in my buddies PC and the new driver installer won't run at all. Rodger Wilco won't work on his PCI128 either, despite all my efforts and all the support pages on RW's site.

So, I want to be done with Creative. I know Aureal is gone, so what's left? I see that Guillemot has a line, and Turtle Beach has some. It will be for general gaming use, any suggestions?

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

The new Philips cards are supposed to be the best. I for one am not interested in upgrading, as my Live! X-Gamer has been good to me so far.

 

[noxipoo]

The Philips cards are the best. Acoustic Edge series. cheaper too. check out gamersdepot.com's review of them

 

[nortexoid]

blah blah all these 6 channel sound cards w/ built-in decoding....personally, they're ok.

i still think the aureal sq2500 is the best gaming card (and excellent home-theatre card w/ optical out) even though aureal is gone...u can still buy these cards adn they have awesome rock solid stable drivers for win9x that support A3D and EAX, as well as Win2K drivers that i can't comment on since i don't have win2k.

but if u're still afraid to purchae possibly the best card to have ever existed up until now, then i'd suggest something like the acoustic edge, or santa cruz...(or even the guillemot Muse is decent, although not as good as the former 2)

 

[StrangeRanger]

Here's another vote for the philips accoustic edge. while i still LOVE my trusty sq2500, it was way too sketchy in wk2. picked up the philips AE for $76 with full digital i/o support and i'm loving life. the card has been nothing but a treat and sounds awesome.
j

 

[JokerF15]

im interested in this too, ive gotten sick of the creative line, i want something w/ 4 speaker support, no digital out needed, and not the mx300 or 400. i dont know what to go with. I play mostly games, mp3's, the usual. I have the fps1000's.

if someone could help me out, that'd be awesome.

 

[oldfart]

I'm putting together a PC for a friend and like you, don't like Creative cards. Actually, I don't mind their cards but can't stand that tinny EAX echo junk. Anyway, that's a separate rant. I figured I'd try something new. I ordered a Yamaha YMF744 based sound card for $20. It even has 4 speaker support and 3D sound. There is one with optical out for $26. I'll have it next week and check it out. Looks like a real nice card for the $$.

 

[noxipoo]

the Acoustic Edge line has 3 models. a 5 speaker (6virtual) 4 speaker and 2 speaker model. Of course the higher ones also support the lower ones.

 

[JokerF15]

how are the phillips ones priced. the 4 speaker one. and how is their win2k support. That's one of my primary reasons why i dropped the mx300.

any sites that are reviewing it?

 

[SUOrangeman]

I'm just now waking up to the Acoustic Edge. I had been following the Santa Cruz, which should still be $70 at ebworld.com. (Precise links in my systems profiles -> Project Jukebox).

-SUO

 

[chuckieland]

my sb live value been good to me too
I try the A3D yamaha onboard sound on my K7V motherboard
it's not as good as sb live value card.

 

[Wingznut]

I love my Santa Cruz.

Especially, the Versa-Jack. I plug my headphones into it, then when I want to use the headphones, I just bring up the SC control panel and voi-la! No more plugging and unplugging speakers/headphones.

Oh yeah, the sound quality is awesome, too!

 

[nortexoid]

even if that yamaha onboard does support a3d, it's only 1.0, which is crap compared to 2.0...

anyway, nothing is wrong w/ the MX300 if u use the vortex reference drivers (found here - www. vortexofsound.com)....if u use diamond's drivers, u're asking for a lock up every time u run a 3d app...

i'll still vote for the sq2500, but again, second goes to philips...

also, i'm lovin' the hating of creative sound cards...they're crap.

 

[Blain]

Philips Seismic Edge, (4CH PCI SOUND CARD).

 

[Venomous]

Win2k drivers are FLAWLESS for the Philips. This is a perfect example of a company who has researched the word STABILITY and FORM. BTW.. they had working Win2k drivers on the cd themselves bundled on launch. That should tell you something. I too liked my SB Live X Gamer, but just like always, old hardware must be replaced with newer and more robust alternatives. Creative has been sitting on their a$$, this is truely their wakeup call. I too like the SQ2500. Damn fine card, but i also wanted to try the NEW kid of the block and give it a shot on my newest build. Besides, Aureal doesnthave the best track record for Win2k support and... they are sadly gone

 

[oldfart]

Yep. I still have my trusty MX300 with GREAT sounding 3D sound instead of the "giant tin cave" EAX that Creative thinks we should use. I'm going to Win2K soon and alas, I may have to say good-by to the MX-300. I'm either going to go for that Philips, or just go for a cheap card and live with it. I'm curious to see how that Yamaha card works out. The guy I'm building the PC for is not all that fussy about a sound card. It looks sweet for $20. Yamaha has ref drivers that are kept up to date also. It's always good to have a source of good quality low cost parts for such a project.

 

[nickburns]

Anyone know of a canadian vendor that sells the AE?

 

[JokerF15]

is the phillips PHILIPS PSC704 4CH PCI a good sound card? how is it in gaming. i dunno if it is one of the newer ones. just wanna know how it compares.

 

[JellyBaby]

Nope, Vortex cards are a DEAD END solution and not "rock solid" as some here claim. I loved my MX-300 but there were compatibility issues and they worked very poorly with apps like Roger Wilco and TeamSound.

 

[damien6]

I went w/Creative sound cards because of their after supports and their wide range of drivers supports. Since they're so heavily into PC peripherals market and doing so well in it, I should hope that they'll continue to be around for a while. I've ditched all 3 MX300s when Aureal looked they they weren't going to "last" in the industry and may take any future drivers/supports w/them. Which is especially important since it looks like Win9x/ME "kernals" are in the last stretch of their legs, so to speak. I'd be more than little surprised if Creative closed shop anytime soon or wouldn't have future supports for next generations of operating systems. Whistler's should be comming out of its beta stages sometime in the near future and as far as its concerned, isn't made of same kernals as Win9x/ME. Care to guess what kernals it's based on? This little fact isn't all that import to some of us who wouldn't care to "upgrade" to every time new OSs pops up but how about wide support in other OSs such as Linux, BeOS and others? Got to admit there's something to be said about mainstream hardwares.

 

[Nastimus]

My vote goes for the Edge hands down.

JokerF15 you can find many reviews for this card here

 

[Sir Fredrick]

I ordered an Acoustic Edge, should be recieving it shortly.

I had a Creative Labs PCI128 soundcard, but then I upgraded to Windows 2000, and Creative has not produced working drivers for this model, nor do they appear to have any intention of doing so. I had to slap an old ISA card in here just to get sound. I don't want to go back to creative because they shouldn't benefit from their lack of driver support. Long live competition.

 

[Noriaki]

JokerF15:

The Accoustic Edge (PSC706), Siesmic Edge (PSC704) and Rhythmic Edge (PSC702) (I don't know how to spell any of those names ) are all the exact same chip. The only differences are the output connectors.

The 706 has 6 analogs and Digital output (and input for that matter) so you can get full 5.1 channel sound. The 704 has only 4 analogs. The 702 has only 2 analogs. But the chip on each card is the same, so the quality of sound will be the exact same on the 704 as it is on the 706, if you are sure you won't want to use 5.1 channel speakers, then the 704 will be a good card for you.

 

[barlav]

I'm considering going towards Phillip's as well since my SB Live X-Gamer has issues with my MSI K7T Pro2-A motherboard when running games like Unreal of Quake III.

 

[Lore]

Does anyone know if the Acoustic Edge supports connecting to the Creative's DTT2500 or DTT3500 via a digital connector? The reviews that I've read (AFAIK) do not mention this.

Also, are there any breakout boxes for this card, similar to the SB Live! Platinum?