Much Improvement from Audigy to Audigy2?

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: KoolHonda

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: KoolHonda
If it was a genuine Audigy, I'd say no. But the Audigy in question is an ES model:disgust:, You will be able to tell the difference with headphones if not your speakers.

Don't you think you're being a little overdramatic? The ES is an Audigy 1 minus the Firewire controller; it should sound the same as any other A1, which sounds about the same as any other A2/ZS.

I've owned an Audigy X-Gamer, Audigy LS, Audigy 2 Platinum, and a Audigy 2 ZS, and the LS was by far the worst of the bunch.

As Virge stated above, the Audigy LS and X-Gamer are the same card except the LS has no firewire port. The audio reproduction capabilities are identical so any differences you heard were either in your mind alone, or the setups were not identical for comparison purposes.

Correction: The ES is the same. The LS is actually a different card, it even uses a different DSP than the EMU10K2 the other Audigies use.

 

[KoolHonda]

The software apps were crippled as well. I never could get my tunes to sound anywhere near as good with the LS as I could with my Gamer. Maybe the ES is better than an LS even though it's cheaper, but I wouldn't take the risk.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: txxxx

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Im gonna step in and say stop giving creative money for horrible drivers and a hard to navigate website.

M-Audios cards based on Via Envy-24 are every bit as good, cost less, and dont have junk bloatware drivers. (225MB for sound drivers!? what a joke!)

Im gonna step in and set you right. You dont have to install much to make the Audigy series functional. Download AudioHQ, SurroundMixer, and the Updated driver and thats all you need.

If you extract the updated driver from its self-extracting setup application, you dont need a previous install of the Audigy driver.

Once done, card is fine.

Also, you'll not easily notice the difference between an Audigy and the Audigy 2 with those speakers, and if you dont actually need 6.1 output etc, the A2 has no other real advantages that you'll benefit from.

Way to go on setting me right...

You can't download the full drivers on site for some cards, patching sometimes crashes for no reason at all, the external cards tend to crash on intel chipsets in win2k (this is a 2 year old problem now), M-Audios based on the Envy-24 have a driver 1/15th the size and you dont have to install extra crap just to adjust basic settings (like cmss, bass and treble, speaker configurations).

Creative makes good hardware, their drivers are horrible.

 

[txxxx]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: txxxx

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Im gonna step in and say stop giving creative money for horrible drivers and a hard to navigate website.

M-Audios cards based on Via Envy-24 are every bit as good, cost less, and dont have junk bloatware drivers. (225MB for sound drivers!? what a joke!)

Im gonna step in and set you right. You dont have to install much to make the Audigy series functional. Download AudioHQ, SurroundMixer, and the Updated driver and thats all you need.

If you extract the updated driver from its self-extracting setup application, you dont need a previous install of the Audigy driver.

Once done, card is fine.

Also, you'll not easily notice the difference between an Audigy and the Audigy 2 with those speakers, and if you dont actually need 6.1 output etc, the A2 has no other real advantages that you'll benefit from.

Way to go on setting me right...

You can't download the full drivers on site for some cards, patching sometimes crashes for no reason at all, the external cards tend to crash on intel chipsets in win2k (this is a 2 year old problem now), M-Audios based on the Envy-24 have a driver 1/15th the size and you dont have to install extra crap just to adjust basic settings (like cmss, bass and treble, speaker configurations).

Creative makes good hardware, their drivers are horrible.

Shut up jackass-Did you read what I posted? "extract the updated driver from self-extracting package" = one right click with WinRAR installed.

A typical Creative install when installing just what you need is about 30MB, and that certainly doesnt stay memory resident!

You dont have to install surround mixer and AudioHQ - but its useful. 5.1 Audio can be setup in Sound control panel within Windows now, base and treble within volume mixer of windows.

Also the OP is purchasing an intenal card not an external - stop trying to spin this, got nothing to do with external solutions. They dont all have issues.

Unfortunately for you, Creative have moved on nicely, i've not had to do anything to my Audigy in months.

 

[KoolHonda]

[qUnfortunately for you, Creative have moved on nicely, i've not had to do anything to my Audigy in months.[/quote] Same here. When the A2 first came out, I had some issues. But for over a year now, I haven't had any issues with my A2 Platinum or my latest A2 ZS

:thumbsup:

 

[Pariah]

just out of curiousity : have you ever recommended midiland s2-4100 to a AT member in the past by any chance?

No, never heard of them.

Correction: The ES is the same. The LS is actually a different card, it even uses a different DSP than the EMU10K2 the other Audigies use.

Maybe I was thinking of the ES. Regardless, Creative lists the audio playback capabilities of the LS identical to the original Audigy except for a lack of EAX acceleration. Changing the DSP should not have any affect on music playback if you're not using EAX filters or other DSP effects if everything else is the same.