Is onboard sound really that bad??

[Skinner2]

I have a 3 piece Altec Lansing speaker set and I mainly play Unreal Tournament and listen to MP3's...Am I going to see a big boost in sound quality if I get something like the SBLive! Value Edition?

 

[Shudder]

I would recommend having NO sound at all over an SBLive! card.

But the Onboard sound will definitely give you less problems than the Live.

If you decide to get a real card like a Phillips Acoustic Edge or Turtle Beach Santa Cruz you'll notice a decent increase in quality (But then again going from the Live to the SC was an improvement) and you'll get cool things like 3d positional audio.

If it's because of money, stick with the onboard and give it a shot. With a simple 3 piece set I probably wouldn't worry much about it. If you waste even 10 bucks on a Live you'll be wondering why you paid 10 bucks for it instead of just keeping sound that works better.

Anyway... Live sucks, better than the onboard sound if you're a name-brand whore, but the best stuff you can get is the likes of the TB SC, Herc game XP, and Phillips acoustic Edge

 

[Skinner2]

Thanks for the advice...basically go all out and get great sound or don't bother upgrading for such a tiny incremental increase in quality. I think I'll stick with what I've got for a while and put my money elsewhere.

 

[aamsel]

Is the Turtle Beach really in the same league with the Philips?
Andrew

 

[Shudder]

Also, you'll have people yelling at you for having a sound card that's more expensive than your speakers.. and I suppose that's somewhat true. If you can't get speakers to even take advantage of how awesome a new card would be, it's not worth it. I HAD to upgrade my sound card because the SBLive just was causing too many problems to be worth it.. this was on an via-A southbridge, not even the B one.. and now that I've got a B southbridge I'm glad I did it.

One thing though, a soundcard seems to be louder, just volume wise, than the onboard sound.. so if your speakers are plenty loud for you now you should be ok.

edit: aamsel- Are you saying that the phillips is better or worse? I just notice they're about the same price and have roughly the same feature set.. it seems to be a matter of opinion really, but from what I read I got the feeling that the SC's drivers were a bit better in windows 2000.

 

[4824guy]

I used to have a Compaq that had the ESS soundchip intertraged. I found it to be pretty good and had good enough power. I can't say anything bad about it.

 

[Pepi]

I like SBLive - have no problems the sound is just fine (via Teac PowerMax 500/2)

 

[Dundain]

Im using the onboard sound on my KK266-R because I had an SB!Live and it was causing constant hard lockups. The only thing I really dont like about the onboard is that it wont let me adjust treble, and that it can only play one audio stream in windows at a time. So if I have winamp open I cant hear ICQ, AOL, or IRC noises That irritates me more than anything. Otherwise I'd be happy with it. Guess I'll have to go get a Santa Cruez or Philips, or maybe even a Hercules XP

 

[Shudder]

"Guess I'll have to go get a Santa Cruez or Philips, or maybe even a Hercules XP"

Yeah, big tragedy eh? Yeah it sucks to plop down some money, but any of those are a far superior card.

 

[loosliptcomptrola]

Whuts wrong with the SBLIVE! I like it lots. VIA audio sux.

 

[Shudder]

A deaf man often wonders what's so great about this hearing thing until one day he can, then he'll wonder how he ever did without it. Keep your SBLive, you're not ready to see the light just yet.

 

[Pauli]

<< A deaf man often wonders what's so great about this hearing thing until one day he can, then he'll wonder how he ever did without it. Keep your SBLive, you're not ready to see the light just yet. >>


Shudder, you obviously have some kind of bug up your butt about the SBLive!. While it is not the ultimate in high fidelity, it is certainly MUCH better than ALL currently available onboard solutions. Your advice about this is utter crap and your response wreaks of arrogance. The Live! Value is, in fact, an excellent choice for those of us with 3-speaker setups.
As far as compatibility is concerned, I have been through several upgrades over the past couple of years and this card has worked perfectly through it all (All Intel machines, though). I know many have had issues with Via chipset motherboards and the Live!, but I have to say that Via is the problem here - this card is very compatible with Intel chipsets.

 

[GregANDTCH]

Hey Shudder,
I noticed your Rig changed.
What'd you add?
Where's Alberta, US?

 

[Einz]

onboard's not too bad. my onboard ac97 codec has pretty good sound, but it uses a lot of cpu power. my sblive platinum sounds a tad better and uses less cpu power. if you're concerned with money, then onboard's not too bad an option to go. just realize that you wont get the best performance out of it.

 

[GregANDTCH]

OK,
What would I look the &quot;Santa Cruz&quot; up under on &quot;ibuyer&quot; ?
They have Montego's?!?!?!
What model # card ?

 

[Elledan]

It depends on the chipset used for the onboard sound. Some chipsets are pretty good, while others really suck.

I've an old PC (Celery 400) with an onboard Trident 4D-Wave soundchip. I didn't realize how awful the sound is it produces until I upgraded to a SB 128 PCI because there were no Win2k drivers for the Trident chip.

I'm still only using SoundBlaster 128 PCI soundcards BTW

 

[Chaotic42]

I went from an SB128 to on board sound (via 686B on an MSI K7T Turbo) and the
only difference I can see is that the SB128 bumped a bit harder. Other than that,
it seems fine.

 

[Shudder]

GregANDTCH: My MSI K7TPro MB died and I replaced it with an Epox K7ta3 or whatever it's called.. Kt133a chipset.

Pauli: It's not arrogance. Why would I pimp out any other card but the live for my own arrogance? I own no stock in any other company, I don't work for them, it's just trying to help a consumer not get a shoddy product.

You say it's an excellent choice for 3 speaker users. For 3 speaker users, you'd be better off with something like the Guillemont MUSE card. It's slightly cheaper and doesn't have any of the conflicts the Live cards have. You have to weigh all aspects of a card. Sound quality is one. Compatibility is another. I don't care if Jesus Christ came down to earth to say that the SBLive was audibly the most perfect sound card ever created, if it's going to crackle or lock your system, then it's NOT a good solution.

And why would you buy from a company that uses its marketing muscle and deep pockets to put obviously better cards out of business AND refuses to update its own card? Throwing in newer games into the XGamer series doesn't count.

 

[Pauli]

Hey Shudder, the Live! was available WAY before the TBird or Duron were around with thousands of people using them and no one complained about crackling then. To blame the SBLive! for these problems is misguided - blame Via!

 

[Shudder]

I'll blame live for poor design. It may have been cool to suck the PCI bus dry when no one had anything other than a sound card and maybe a modem, but it's poor forward planning.

My 386/40 processor I have at home won't work with my current Kt133a mobo, so I should blame via for that too for not supporting old parts that well.

Just because it's old doesn't mean we have to love it. Respecting elders is for humans, not hardware. The live could die and many people would be happy for it.

 

[Pauli]

Somehow, Intel's modern chipsets seem to work fine with the Live! Why Via has such a problem with it says something about them, not Creative. The Live! is not so old that a motherboard chipset manufacturer should not dismiss it as being old and incompatible. Your analogy to the 386/40 is ridiculous.



<< I would recommend having NO sound at all over an SBLive! card >>


This statement is indicative of some personal, emotional, bad experience that you have had with the Live! The fact of the matter is that tens of thousands of us are using the Live! with no problems whatsoever. Your overly dramatic proclamations do nothing to help anyone here. Perhaps this could be rephrased to &quot;Many of us with AMD/Via machines have experienced problems with the Live! You may want to avoid it and use xyz brand.&quot;

 

[whitelight]

when you're listening to mp3s with onboard sound and you're cpu is really chugging, you'll get some delays and skips. but if you can put up with that, stick with your onboard sound. i don't think the sblive is that great. if you wanna upgrade, go with a santa cruz, acoustic edge, or hercules game theater. and upgrading won't burn a hole in your wallet either. check out the hot deals forum. sometimes they have great deals on the sound cards i mentioned. i think there's a deal for a refurbed santa cruz for around $30.

 

[BillMartin12]

Onboard sound has a tendancy to skip, miss, jolt, pop, crank, twirl, do the polka.


It's pretty iffy, I mean the faster your processor the better it plays, but overall it's just not worth it or even necessary. Not necessary because you can get a cheap sound card which will by FAR beat it in quality for so little money it's not even worth mentioning.

Bill Martin

How To Build Your Own Home PC for Under $700, even if You're a Techno-Dummy!