I plan to replace my old WinFast 4X (CMEDIA 8738) card with a new and better one. I've read many post in here about soundcard quality, so with that info in mind and what I could find in my city i've got four candidates in my price range:

Terratec DMX XFire Kit (CS4624) - 39 Euros
Terratec DMX XFire 1024 Retail (CS4624) - 49 Euros
Terratec Aureon 5.1 Fun Retail (?) - 39 Euros
Creative SoundBlaster 4.1 Digital (CT5880) - 19 Euros

I really don't know the difference between the two DMX XFire cards (I suppose the "kit" is an oem or bulk version), but the Aureon costs almost the same. I was going to buy a Santa Cruz or a Sonic Fury but I couldn't find any of them here, so I'm left with that four. What would you do? I'll use the card for music listening and casual playing (with Windows and Linux), no need for 3D audio and that sort of fancy things: just good 2D stereo.

BTW, There is an Aureon Fun Games for 69 Euros and an Aureon Sky for 79. Are they worth it?

Thanks in advance.

Aureon 5.1 Fun is based on C-Media 8738. So, it's not a good choice.

Hhmm, thanks for the input RIV@NVX. That lets me with the XFires and the SB 4.1. Any experience with the SoundBlaster? Is it good as the old 128 PCIs? If not I will buy a DMX XFire, so any idea if the "kit" (or bulk or whatever) version will be any different to the retail one? I'm buying online and I don't have any more info.

I have no expirience with CT5880, but I guess it's ok for that price

The Xfire cards are quite similar to the Santa Cruz, so I think that at first they look like a better option than a Live card. However, Terratec drivers sometimes have some issues, so I'd try to look for more information about this.

Terratec Aureon Sky and Space are better cards, similar to M-Audio Revolution, but the same applies.

You could also try to buy a Santa Cruz from USA at internet, if you can find a shop that delivers it to you. You just need a credit card. I have done it a couple of times without any problem.

Videologic have a new card, called SonicXplosion, that seems to be a SonicFury/Santa Cruz with some minor changes. There is a standard and DVD version, but I don't know what its the real difference between them.

Live cards will have better support and effects for games, if that interests you, but the audio quality will be somewhat worse for playing and recording music.

Edit: more info about SonicXplosion: http://www.hardwarereview.net/Reviews/PURE...nicXplosion.htm

Which cards have true 44.1k playback, as compared to the upsampling of Soundblaster cards to 48k? I am looking for a 24bit 96k (or higher) card that does direct playback of 44.1k and has true 24bit recording, and possibly with some hardware processing instead of the M-Audio Revolution's software processing. With the above features, am I going to have to get an Audigy 2, or are there other options? (argh, but the Audigy 2 upsamples the 44.1k signals)

According to what I've heard, Hercules Crystal Soundfusion drivers have been reported to work with xfire1024 (but not with my terratec sixpack, grr).
Terratec drivers do have issues indeed - "mp3 hardware decoding" enabled == plenty of BSODs whenever some app tries to use it, but that can be disabled (seems like their latest controlpanel forcefully does so), and Hercules drivers don't suport it at all; hardware DLS support is like completely broken (again, it's not really that important, there's default microsoft's software synthesizer available); etc.
Those Terratec driver issues I've noticed on my system definitely don't affect music listening performance (and you get quite decent hardware mixing capabilities).
Oh yes, and my sixpack passes "udial.wav test" ^_^

Today I received my new Terratec DMX XFire 1024 sound card. After some testing (and some problems with Linux and ALSA, solved now) I'm quite happy with it. Sound is rich and clean (and a tad louder!) I haven't experienced any problems with Windows drivers as of yet, but I think that some games might have detected EAX or some sort of 3D as I experience strange things and effects with my headphones.

Thanks for your replies.

KikeG: I thought about it, but money was a problem. I think this is a good choice for 8000 pesetas! Anyways, it's too late now

Cheers.

I just found that my new card has a "digital in" (2 pins) connector next to the usual aux & cd inputs (4 pins). My dvd player also includes such output (2 pins), so I connected them with a cable included with the soundcard. I can't hear anything when playing audio cds. Is the input designed for that or should I use the traditional cd-in instead? I can't find any info in the manuals, so any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

BTW, my old card didn't support "hardware mixing" and I had problems with Linux, because I couldn't play more than one stream at a time (i.e. listening music & playing a game) and ARTS didn't work well for me. I don't have this problem anymore, and I've read this card can play up to 31 streams at a time. So if anyone has the same problem and plans buying a new card this (dmx xfire) could be a good choice for them.

Cheers.

You might want to have a look at USB audio devices : link.

I have a Stereo-Link which supports up to 55kHz without resampling. However it does not record or do not go up to 96kHz. For such a high-end device you need to pay a lot more.

Oops. Wrong post. This was intended for some other Sound card thread

Well, on my Prodigy 7.1, it seems that the digital in can only be monitored when it is being recorded. It looks like it also passes through to the digital out, but I don't have anything to test that with (yet).

Could also be that I'm missing something with all of the "DirectWire" stuff on my card.

Edit: spelling

I just found out how to use it playing with alsamixer in Linux.

http://www31.brinkster.com/anacondo/mierda...s/alsamixer.png

I unmuted the "IEC958 I" control and it started sounding. I can change the volume level with the "DAC" control. Dunno in Windows, I haven't played with its drivers yet, but maybe it has someting to do with this.

Thanks, and cheers.


edit: link