ISO good sound card / reviews that don't suck

[mike3411]

Hello, I'm looking for a good sound card for my new system, and in the process of researching what's currently available i've come accross a virtual plethora of crappy, inconsistant and vague reviews. Sites whose quality I generally trust, such as AT (tho not my fav ) seem to dislike reviewing sound cards, as there hasn't been a sound card review here in over two years. What I want:
1. Digital SPDIF in & out
- must be able to pass a digital signal (such as from a DVD) to a receiver for decoding (almost every card I've seen can do this)
2. Digital surround sound encoding
- when I play an mp3 on my computer, the sound card should send a digital signal to the receiver that will utilize all my 5.1 surround sound speakers
3. Good game surround sound support
- EAX, A3D, whatever the standards these days are, I want to be able to get 5.1 surround sound out of modern games

Any competant help would be appreciated! And if Creative makes it... I'm not buying it ..... yes, I've had _that_ much fun with their drivers over the years....
Thanks,
-Mike

 

[Shooters]

3dsoundsurge

 

[MasterHoss]

Head over to 3d Sound Surge and read up on their reviews. Also, try searching for various sound cards in the forums here...

1.) You have several sound cards to choose from
2.) I believe the nForce boards are your only choice there. (the encoding part that is). When sending a stereo signal out to your receiver, such as mp3 files, you can only set your receiver to ProLogicII to get some type of 5.1 output.
3.) You have several sound cards to choose from

 

[Rand]

Sound/audio hardware definitely isnt my primary area of knowledge but personally I thought Tech Reports latest consumer level sound card roundup quite good compared to most similar efforts I've seen recently.

Otherwise 3DSoundSurge is an excellent place to go, as mentioned above.

 

[mike3411]

Yeah, I had checked out 3dsoundsurge, but I've found several of their reviews to contain small, but relevant inaccuracies. In their Phillip's Acoustic Edge review, for example, they state "Live 5.1 cards digital output can send up to 3 PCM streams". This isn't true. I own a Live! 5.1 and it can only output a single stereo digital signal.

 

[mike3411]

Originally posted by: Rand
Sound/audio hardware definitely isnt my primary area of knowledge but personally I thought Tech Reports latest consumer level sound card roundup quite good compared to most similar efforts I've seen recently.

Otherwise 3DSoundSurge is an excellent place to go, as mentioned above.

It wasn't too bad, but it barely touched on digital output issues, and some of the descriptions were extremely lacking in technical detail. One example I recall is their excitement at how well the Acoustic Edge's QMSS stereo signal "expander" works. They claimed that, with this feature enabled, they could hear a rocket getting shot from behind and moving past them. That's very nice, but how on earth would the sound card actually know where to place the rocket? It's only being fed a stereo signal, and would have no idea if the rocket was behind or in front of them.

It does, indeed, appear that no other chipsets besides the Nforce support 5.1-encoded digital out, which is pretty #*%&#$(* pathetic. If the Nforce supported dual Athlon's, then it might be an option, but as it is I think I'll end up buying some $15 card w/ a digital out and wait until sound card manufacturers get off their asses and make what people have been wanting since digital surround was invented....

 

[Soccerman]

well it sounds to me like the best bet would have to be getting a reciever with Dolby Pro Logic II and connecting it to the soundcard with the digital output. that way, even IF the source audio is stereo you can get 5.1 channels out of it. that's good for music, however I hesitate to recommend it for games, becuase I have no idea if games have Dolby Pro Logic (I or II) in mind when they are made.. if they DO, then really you could go with any soundcard (obviously it has to pass the Dolby Digital/DTS signal out to the reciever).

one example of a soundcard that is actually a bit innovative when it comes to getting 3D sound out of games is the Acoustic Edge. supposedly it is very good at taking a stereo stream from a game and producing a real good 3D environment using it's QMSS feature which appears to me to be like Dolby Pro Logic. unfortunately, it does this onboard (I think with no performance hit) which means all those extra channels don't get sent to the reciever through the digital out.

There was IMHO a good roundup of todays soundcards (excluding the GTXP I think) a week or so back. it sounded to me like the reviewers were honest in their audio analysis.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: mike3411
Yeah, I had checked out 3dsoundsurge, but I've found several of their reviews to contain small, but relevant inaccuracies. In their Phillip's Acoustic Edge review, for example, they state "Live 5.1 cards digital output can send up to 3 PCM streams". This isn't true. I own a Live! 5.1 and it can only output a single stereo digital signal.

3DSS is correct, the Live 5.1 can output multiple digital streams:

Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 FAQ

Why is it called a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1? What does the 5.1 mean?

The 5.1 refers to the capability of the soundcard to handle 5 discreet speaker channels and one discreet subwoofer channel. It can send out 5 separate analog signals and one subwoofer signal in either analog or digital format.

"They claimed that, with this feature enabled, they could hear a rocket getting shot from behind and moving past them. That's very nice, but how on earth would the sound card actually know where to place the rocket? It's only being fed a stereo signal, and would have no idea if the rocket was behind or in front of them."

That's the whole point of the codec to try and determine where the audio is should be heard from. It's most likely not totally accurate but from most reports it does a fairly decent job of simulating 3d audio.

As for the original question, if you're connecting your sound card to a receiver, your receiver should be the one to simulate 5.1/7.1 audio, either through Dolby Prologic II or some custom surround modes by your receiver. The receiver should do a better job than any of the sounc cards. All major cards today can pass an AC3 stream. So the only criteria you really need to examine is the gaming ability, which tje best choice is unfortunately for you the CL Audigy. After that your best bet is probably the Hercules Game Theater XP.

 

[mike3411]

No, you're wrong about the Live!, it can only outpu 5.1 surround sound (6 channels) via analog, ignore the Creative fud. I've emailed their tech support at length about this, consulted people that I'd consider PC audio hardware experts, and they all agree, as far as digital output goes, the Live! can either output a stereo (2 channel) PCM signal or pass an AC3 5.1 surround digital signal from a DVD or other source. From the Creative FAQ:
"There is no hardware support on the Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 for encoding files into an AC-3 format although third party software should be able to do this for the card. "
Find me ONE person who has managed to get the Live! to output a full 5.1 surround signal to a digital receiver. Cuz none of the thousands of people I've directly and indirectly consulted could.

As far as QMSS goes, anecdotal reports, like "it does a fairly decent job of simulating 3d audio." are nice, but, like I said, technically worthless. If the only information it has is the stereo signal, then it's pretty much guessing whether that rocket is in front of or behind me. I'm not saying that QMSS isn't a worthwhile technology, merely that the review was entirely lacking in technical detail.

A receiver simulating the other channels from a digital stereo input is all well and good if the original source is merely stereo, but for other sources, such as positional audio, the digital out should be able to provide discreet signals for each channel, in exactly the same way the analog outputs can. No cards/chipsets (besides the Nforce) appear to be able to do this.