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Topic: Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series (Read 4706 times) previous topic - next topic
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Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Hi,

recently I increasingly read statements concerning the Creative Soundblaster Live! series complaining about bad sound quality. Can anybody confirm these rumours? I'd like to know if this card is recommended to be used within an high-end hifi-equipment or not. Details, please!

Bye
MS

Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Reply #1 –
First it does not sound good at all. Attach headphones and listen against others or your CD-Player.

Second is its resampling so you can not seriously use it even when you go thru digital with a daughter board.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....fc708aedd0c037c

There are for sure more threads you will find against the SB-Live series when you search the forum.

btw. its frequency response is somehow shitty, too.

Wombat
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Reply #2 –
The topic has been discussed a million times. Use search.

- The resampling quality depends on the sound driver/operating system. WinXP has the best default setting, Win98 the worst. Can be changed in the Control Panel.

- With the SSRC resampling DirectSound Output Pluging for Winamp, the resampling problem goes away and the Live! will work fine when using digital out. The analog out is not sublime in anyway, but I have heard much worse.

My recommendation: If you already own a Live! card, use it with the SSRC plugin. If you are looking for a new card, look for something else.

Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Reply #3 –
Main problem of the Sound Blaster cards are the PCI problems they have. The hog the PCI bus and have some other problems which gives headaches to users of VIA chipset mobos.

Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Reply #4 –
Quote
Main problem of the Sound Blaster cards are the PCI problems they have. The hog the PCI bus and have some other problems which gives headaches to users of VIA chipset mobos.

I think its sort of unfair to blame this entirely on Creative, considering it only occurs on VIA mobo's, and they have done little to fix it.  My SBLive worked fine on my old intel 440bx mobo, and now on my sis645 mobo, but I had problems on my via kt266.  Lets face it, via has never really had a reputation for quality and stability.

Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Reply #5 –
Quote
Quote
Main problem of the Sound Blaster cards are the PCI problems they have. The hog the PCI bus and have some other problems which gives headaches to users of VIA chipset mobos.

I think its sort of unfair to blame this entirely on Creative, considering it only occurs on VIA mobo's, and they have done little to fix it.  My SBLive worked fine on my old intel 440bx mobo, and now on my sis645 mobo, but I had problems on my via kt266.  Lets face it, via has never really had a reputation for quality and stability.

The only problem with Creative cards occured on VIA's 686B Southbridge to my knowledge.  VIA also releases updates to it's 4-in-1 drivers regularly.

Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Reply #6 –
Quote
The only problem with Creative cards occured on VIA's 686B Southbridge to my knowledge.  VIA also releases updates to it's 4-in-1 drivers regularly.

Ah yeah? Read this article, or maybe just the conclusion.

Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Reply #7 –
Quote
Main problem of the Sound Blaster cards are the PCI problems they have. The hog the PCI bus and have some other problems which gives headaches to users of VIA chipset mobos.

And you cannot use Windows 2000 on a dual processor machine with a Sound Blaster card and the Creative drivers. That was at least the case in december 2001. Driver/hardware issues will always be present.

Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Reply #8 –
Quote
Quote
The only problem with Creative cards occured on VIA's 686B Southbridge to my knowledge.  VIA also releases updates to it's 4-in-1 drivers regularly.

Ah yeah? Read this article, or maybe just the conclusion.

I stand corrected.

Quality Of Soundblaster Live! Card Series

Reply #9 –
Quote
I think its sort of unfair to blame this entirely on Creative, considering it only occurs on VIA mobo's, and they have done little to fix it.  My SBLive worked fine on my old intel 440bx mobo, and now on my sis645 mobo, but I had problems on my via kt266.  Lets face it, via has never really had a reputation for quality and stability.

Who's blaming this entirely on Creative? I wasn't. Sure it isn't all Creative's fault, but there are lots of sound cards which works on VIA mobos yet the SB Live doesn't, so VIA cannot take all the blame either. All I know is that I had friends who bought the combination without knowing about the problem and asked me to fix it... and it just pisses me off.