I am considering this card, but I will be playing a lot of CD material, and want to make sure that there is no resampling involved...

Thanks!

It resamples.

Which cards do not resample? How about M-Audio Revolution 7.1? or Terratec 6-Fire LT?

or should I not worry about this???

Both don't. Terratec Aureon 5.1 Space and 7.1 Sky also don't resample as reported here.


Depends. If you use a player that resamples to 48kHz in a decent way there shouldn't be any audible problems as resampling by the card is avoided. AFAIK the Audigy 2 (ZS) is better for gaming and so far it's the only card capable of high resolution DVD-A playback.

When you say "a player that resamples to 48khz" do you mean the CD ROM or RW drive? I will mostly serve audio to the card from the HDD.

I mean software audio player like foobar2000 or Winamp.

So you are saying that resampling by the card is a non-issue if I play from the HD drive?

THen how about Windows Media Player 9? Do you know if that resamples well?

Thanks for the prompt replies...

Well, resampling by the software player needs some processing power, but quality-wise there shouldn't be a problem if you use a decent player.


I don't think it resamples at all, but I'm not sure. Here]http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?sho...9772&st=0&]Here's a thread with udial.wav sample which can be used to test your player/soundcard combination. If there's bad resampling you'll hear awful high frequency sounds.

It's the only hardware with that capability at the moment, but you can use WinDVD to play DVD-A if you so desire.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....&hl=audigy+2+nx

If you want a Soundblaster card that doesn't resample, read that thread.

Audigy2 ZS resamples if DSP is used, but if you play thru aditional chip then it doesn't resample (it's the same situation as Audigy2).

What do you mean "Play through additional chip?"

I am a little confused

Audigy2 cards have two chips: one is standard Audigy DSP, and aditional one is p16v;
Audigy DSP can process effects, but only supports 48000Hz (and it resamples).
p16v supports any samplerate upto 96000Hz, but it's not a DSP, so no effects can be applied.

Thanks for the info!

So I can use the Audigy 2 or Audigy 2 NZ and not have it resample? I presume that there is a choice via some driver or software setting to point out to which chip to use? Does anyone know?

I am curious because I ordered Audigy 2 ZS with a new computer...

When playing through Foobar2000 or Winamp, which chip will be used by default? pv16?

I'd assume selecting 24 bit fixed-point output format in foobar would result in bypassing the EMU DSP altogether (via the 24 bit path).
Winamp is 16 bit only, though the third-party MAD decoder does allow you to select 24 bit output, IIRC.

By default both of them will almost certainly go through the EMU10k and get resampled, but this isn't shouldnt be a problem with the Audigy or Audigy2 or most other AC97 compliant cards outside of the Live!.

Not with Creative drivers (they choose automatically depending on bitrate), but with kX drivers yes (p16v chip is that 'HQ' device).

So by using KX drivers you cam eliminate the need for foobar to resample to 48khz. Sounds a good idea