Soundcard upgrade

[ath50]

I'm upgrading to a nice 2.1 Speaker setup soon (probably the Klipsch Promedia 2.1).

As far as usage, I keep all of my audio files in lossless format, so listening to music will be the main usage. I do play games, although I use my headphones for that almost all of the time (of course the soundcard is still important....)

Should I upgrade to an Audigy or something else from my 5 year old SBlive card? I've seen a lot of comments saying people didn't notice the different from the upgrade, and others that said it was great. Also, I would rather not spend more than $50 if I do get a new card.

Thanks!

 

[Nextman916]

Get the soundblaster 24-bit live! i have that card, it only cost me $30 and sounds just as good as an audigy. I turn EAX up on all my games and it sounds great on my altec lansing 221's.

 

[ath50]

I don't know if I'd want to go from the old SBLive to the newer version though, would it be better to get an Audigy?

aka bump

 

[Nextman916]

Well your upgrading from 16-bit to 24-bit sound which is a HUGE difference imo. Audigy is a good card but for under $50 you would ge tthe value which isnt all that great probably on par with the SB live, plus you can save some money with the live. The main reason i recommend the SB live is because your only going to run a 2.1 setup(like me), more expensive cards boast higher quality sound but for a larger speaker setup. If you read specifications and support on creatives site the audigy's dont even mention support for 2.1/stereo which is what you want, but SB live does. They will all support stereo sound of course but i dont think any will show a huge improvement over the other. And with a SB live you can already enable EAX in any game, so why pay more?

 

[Eureka]

Don't get the Promedia 2.1, get the Altec Lansing MX5021.

Anyway, for 2.1, get the Chaintech AV-710 sound card if you want the best sound quality. It's $25, and it's very good for sound, but it doesn't have EAX and it's pretty much a basic sound card.

Norm

 

[Nextman916]

I would suggest to buy a SC with EAX. Its such a critical feature nowadays because its being featured in almost everygame.

 

[orangat]

The Chaintech AV710 like most other non-creative cards HAVE eax. Its just up to eax2 however.
It also doesn't have any opamp so its probably can't drive good headphones unless you have an amp or receiver.

If you rip music in lossless format and listen with headphones, you're much better served with a better soundcard than the p.o.c. live. The A2, AV710 or some other envy24 card would be noticeably better.

 

[Captante]

The only cards that are a major upgrade from a SB Live are the Audigy 2 ZS & even better the cheapest X-Fi... a 24 bit SB Live is super cheap but will only give a small improvement that you'll hardly notice.
For music, you can go with an Envy based card or even a C-Media based unit, but if surround sound in games is important Creative has the best options because they use real hardware acceleration.

 

[Xyclone]

X-FI ftw!