I've heard a lot of people (here and elsewhere) say they don't like the SoundBlaster cards, and in particular the Live! series cards.

Why?

Are the later "5.1" cards any better than the earlier ones?

Is it because of the idiotic 48k resampling? It looks like all cards do that. (Well, the old sound cards didn't. I suppose I could dig out my old original ISA sb16, but that thing was rather noisy.)

So why? Is it game related or audio related? I don't care about games.

Is it just general sound quality? Noise? What?


To be honest, I was thinking about getting one to replace the lousy on-board audio for listening to music. (After all, there aren't a wide selection of choices at <$50 and I can't see any reason to pay $100+ for a sound card.

I had thought about getting a Philips sound card (psc605) from BestBuy, but they don't have those anymore.

And since I don't like buying mail order (in case I want to return it), there aren't too many other choices around here except SoundBlaster.

So....

What is so bad with the SBLive 5.1, and is the Audigy (not Audigy 2) really any better?

Yes it is, and no they don't.

The idiotic 48k resampling can be a serious issue if most of your music is in 44.1k. My stereo-link, inspite of the drawbacks I've mentioned elsewhere in these forums, does not suffer this problem. From my understanding, neither does the M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 nor most other decent card.

Edit: The FAQ explains it better than I can:

Well, from what I've seen, yeah, most 'cheaper' cards do. Or they have Windows do it for them.

True, a lot of the cheaper cards don't even briefly discuss the issue, however, a 48k output is one of the recommendations for the AC97 spec isn't it, and most sound cards try to be compatable with that.

Some, such as the SBLive 5.1 certainly give the impression they work in 44.1k (and other rates), but according to various stuff, they don't. (Is the original SBLive non-5.1 card different from the later 5.1 card? Dunno.)

From what I've read in here recently, one version of the Audigy 2 doesn't, provided you use it's secondary chip and don't do any DSP stuff. Pretty strict conditions. But the price is far beyond what I think any sound card is worth.

Same for the M-Audio... It costs too much. And I haven't seen it around here locally anyway.

But still, some people seem to object to the Live! for some reason. Now, sure, I can certainly understand not like "Creative" the company, but that's a seperate issue.


As for the FAQ... I read that. And others. But that doesn't really say a lot... As I said... does that apply to the later 5.1 version or just the original 4.1 version?

Is that the only reason people object to it?

AFAIK, it applies to all SBLive editions, including the 5.1. The drivers from the kX Project may help, though.


I also remember that the frequency response of the SBLive cards is not very good, with distortions in the higher frequencies. But I don't have a link about that right now.

Here is another reason:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?threadid=76742

If you want an affordable consumer-level soundcard I can recommend the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (or the Videologic SonicFury, which is actually the same card sold under a different brand).

I've also read good things about the M-Audio Revolution 7.1, but I haven't used that card myself.

For more technical info and measurements, check the PCAVTech website. It's a bit outdated now, but it still contains info about the SBLive and the Santa Cruz.

I thought the older Live series card used a better chip?

No, the ones using a better chip (sometimes) are Sounblaster 128 PCI, which is based upon the es1371.

I'm noticing something with my sblive 5.1 And I dont know what to do to possible fix it-if anything at all.
I got the card, obviously, and the creative inspire 5.1 speakers. For whatever reason, in neither windows media player or winamp-my center speaker will not put out sound.
However, in my creative diagnostics when I run my speaker test, the center speaker sounds its call just fine. Any ideas how I'd go about getting 5.1(properly) for all my applications? Mainly, winamp/media player.
I'd appreciate input.
Thanks
Skrem

Try to enable CMSS in control panel somewhere, I don't remember exactly, haven't seen that panel for over a year... however it will sound like crap, obviously.

Simple test that requires a M-Audio or Terratec 24/96+ card and a SB Live! card and a pair of headphones (cost $40+)

1) Plug the headphones in the Live!. Sounds nice

2) Plug the headphones in the better card. The sound is lots better, get used to it for half an hour.

3) Plug the headphones back in the Live!. Listen to the same tracks as in 2). Puke, then clean up...

That's about it....

I read somewhere that 5.1 in SBLive 5.1 isn't "true" 5.1. If you are looking for a good cheap card, pick up a Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1, they're about $50.

The SB-Live takes a lot of flac now, but at one point it was credited with having great sound. It's kind of like how MP3 @ 128kbps used to be acceptable, but now people won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. I don't have any huge issues with my SB-Live - I just use 48khz re-sampling in Foobar to get around the bad stock re-sampling and use SPDIF instead of the analog outputs. I don't feel that an M-Audio Revo would give me a $100 increase in sound quality, if you know what I mean . On the other hand, just as I would never instruct people to rip MP3s at 128kbps, I would never buy another SB-Live for my next computer.

I believe the PC97 spec dictates that compliant sound cards must resample internally to 48KHz. The Live! is believed to have the worst-sounding resampling algorithm, which is where part of the problem arises.

One of the other main problems with the Live! is that it is a PCI bus hog, and according to some sources, not completely PCI2.1 compliant, which is why VIA had to issue a PCI latency patch for it's 686b southbridge.

Having owned both the Live! and the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, I would buy the Santa Cruz again in a second. The Hercules FortissimoII and III are quite similar to the TBSC.

The Rev.7.1 isn't that expensive unless you love to buy things at their exact retail price. If you need a Creative Labs card, the Audigy 2 is known to be a lot better than Creative's older stuff. Newegg may still have a special on it.

As for mega-budget cards (including the now obsolete SB-Live), you get what you pay for

Do you know what sources say that Live! isn't PCI2.1 compliant? Any links? I have been looking for info on that...

One thing you can try is to install the Audigy 2 drivers on your Live card.

I did it on my Audigy 1 and what I gain was an added stability on my system (Why Audigy 1 drivers aren't that stable?)

Check this : http://kpush.tripod.com/tweaking/id33.html

If direct download is too slow you can try eMule for already patched drivers, look for Audigy 2 ZS.

One thing is frequently claimed, sound quality is improved with these drivers put on Live and Audigy 1, but one things is also true, in the CMSS 3D settings a check mark is put beside "Activate CMSS 3D" which definitely means that the sound is somehow modified between the source and the speakers.

One last thing, you won't get DVD Audio capabilities they are hardware dependent of the Audigy 2. :'( Well I don't have any DVD Audio

Not to mention 5.1 or EAX. The sound quality (record and playback) is not so good ... Try to compare with other better sound card, you'll found the truth.

I changed the sound card to M-Audio Revolution 7.1 and immediately feel that.

Yes I have to say if you think SB Live! is good, plug it off and try a Stereo-Link. After this experience I decided never to touch anything Creative again.

Yup, dont bother w/ creative. Even the speakers. ppl think that since creative are good sound cards, or used to be considered to be good, so the creative speakers are nice too. Bull sheet. They're not. I havent been keeping up with the speakers, but some time ago Altec Lansin were the tihs ...

Sorry, I have to comment on this, since, I'm HA's other resident stereo-link user. It's overrated. I get distortions whenever I use my Raid-0 array (which is a lot). Their support amounts to "Use Windows Update and make sure you have the latest USB drivers." Done and Done, and ..... didn't work.

To their credit though, when I'm NOT using my Raid-0 array, it sounds really good.

Unfortunately, the only place I recall seeing this definitively mentioned was at viahardware.com, when it existed. Now it's changed its name and I doubt they have the article anymore. A quick alltheweb and metacrawler search leads to nothing but dead-ends and random slashdot postings.

I believe the author may have had some information from VIA, since that site was a fan site. So either VIA was lying about Creative's PCI2.1 compliance, the author himself was lying, or the Live! really isn't completely compliant.
Given that VIA issued the PCI latency patch almost exclusively for the Live! (no other soundcards I know of were affected), the latter makes the most sense to me, but is certainly not definitively proven AFAIK.
edited syntax and spelling
added:


I disagree in part. The cheap "Inspire" line of speakers from Creative are pretty lousy, but the new Altecs in that price range aren't any better, IMO.
Where Creative does make a good product is in the high end of the multimedia speaker market - the Megaworks line of speakers are IMO excellent for the money (street price), all things considered. This may have had a little something to do with Creative Labs acquisition of Cambridge Sound Works, a company that has made brilliant HT speakers for the money for many years.
Creative has recently released the "gigaworks" speaker line which are even more expensive than the Megaworks, but I have not heard them.

You're right they don't have it anymore. It was the 686B Faq written apparently by WiNC).

But you can still have "little" information here :
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=3&faq=16&Search=686

This link is on the site that was VIAHardware, and they removed the 686B Faq
http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=29

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.p...p?threadid=8072

A funny way to talk about the 686B problems
http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/stz_via0.htm

If you are planning on doing any digital in recording in the future (maybe because of corrupted/damaged/copy protected CDs?) then a non-resampling sound card is a mandatory thing. All the better if the card is not too prissy about the copy protected flag when doing the actual recording.