which of these 2 cards are better?

Turtle Beach 5.1-Channel PCI Sound Card, Model "RIVIERA"
more info here

or

M-AUDIO 5.1 Channel PCI Sound Card, Model "Revolution 5.1"
more info here

give other suggestions as well, i want a soundcard preferred under $50, i'll be using it for listening to music (mostly headphones) movies,games and recording some tapes to wav->mp3

I prefer the M-AUDIO 5.1

is the CHAINTECH AV-710 any better than these?

Of the three, the M-audio is the best. Second is the Turtle Beach. I wouldn't do the chaintech, I've heard of some problems with the drivers on that one (specifically about enabling digital pass-thru).

If games are a big concern, neither of the three do 3d hardware accelerated sound. That will mean a cpu hit and possible incompatibilities when using such sound in games. The via Envy chip that they use has some great qualities, but gaming is not one of them. At this point Creative is the only option for game-centered sound cards. (Or ebay for an old hercules card).

Envy = superior music and recording, Creative = superior games
You'll have to pick what it most important to you.

I am glad I found this thread. I am about to get myself a quality soundcard. I am not a gamer. I like music.

Please tell me more about the Envy...

Here is a great thread for you.

yeah music is way more important than games, 2nd comes movies.
Will check out that article, thanks flloyd

A good thread. I'd still take the M-Audio despite the fact they haven't put out new drivers since 2004. At this point everyone who has an Envy card should be using the refrence Via drivers, just like you use refrence nvidia or ati drivers for your video card.

Except for the people with an Audiotrak Prodigy (all 5 of them ).

Hey guys, if you're looking for a new soundcard I'd highly reccomend the EMU series cars. THere is the 0404 and the 1212m. They are probably the best cards out there considering they're prices at $100 and $200 respectively. Also the Chaintech AV-710 is a VERY good soundcard for music at $25 but the EMU cards are much better. EMU are also better then any of the M-audio cards in their price bracket. I strongly urge you to looking into the EMU Cards

yeah Thank You flloyd

Music is far too important, to allow other more important things to get in the way

Not really, EMU sounds better.

When I was looking for new good soundcard I didn't want to sacrifice gaming performance completely, but music playback quality was of course the highest priority. I finally decided to buy Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 - its reviews on internet were enthusiastic. Good Envy chip, DACs, drivers with decent 3D-sound gaming performance (visible under Windows as two soundcards with diferent capabilities) and Native Sound Processing feature were enough arguments for this card.
Of course - considering gaming Creative is the best choice, but after using my Prodigy for 3 months I can honestly recommend it not only for good music playback.

Umm, the Audiotrack Prodigy is also an Envy-powered sound card. It does all 3d sound in emulation on the cpu. The only cards available for purchase that accelerate 3d sound on the card itself are the Creative offerings, the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, and various Hercules sound cards. That it, that's the list.

Whether your Envy sound card will actually hurt your framerate in games will depend on serveral factors, mostly on how cpu-intensive the game it. RTS games tend to need more cpu than video power, while most shooters are so dependant on the video card that they leave plenty of extra cpu for your sound stuff. If your computer has an Athlon64 and an older video card like a 9600 or Geforce4, you will never notice the hit from the sound emulation because the cpu will be waiting around on the video card all the time anyways.

That's true. But you must admit, that cpu-load of different Envy cards vary. So such thing is also drivers dependant, I think.

Definitely. But the difference in cpu load caused by driver implementation is going to be an order of magnitude smaller than the difference between accelerated and emulated. IE 1-2% vs 10%.

It will also be different depending on what exact sound technology the game is using. You can get 3d positioned sound with basic DirectSound without needing to use EAX. This will save a lot of effort on the part of any non-creative card. Frankly, I don't think EAX 1 or 2 were anything really special, so I don't bother with them even though I have a card that can do that in hardware (Herc GTXP). EAX didn't get any really cool features until the new AdvancedHD, which has environment reflection and other neat stuff that Aureal was doing 4 years ago. *Sigh*

I would also guess that the Via standard drivers would actually be the best for games. Via has a lot more experience optimizing drivers for games than the various audio companies like M-audio and Audiotrak. I don't own an envy card so that is just speculation on my part.

Turtle Beach Riviera is a Cmedia 8738 based card, aka it's crap. How does Kylith rate the AV-710 lower than any Cmedia 8738 based card is beyond me. The AV-710 is SUPERIOR to the Riviera in music playback, especially when you use the Wolfson DAC on it(jack nearest to the optical output).

Fsck, I seem to have confused the Riviera and the Catalina. Wish is correct, avoid the Riviera, it sucks. That c-media chip is like three years old. They confuse you by claiming 24 bit output, which it is actually incapable of. That's why I thought it was another Envy based card.


I think the Wolfson DAC on the AV710 is a snare and a delusion. It only works if you're in two-channel mode, otherwise it is outputting the useless 6th and 7th channels. In order to do the switching trick, you have to stick with chaintech's custom drivers, which haven't been updated since August 2003. The other 5 channels on the AV710 uses a standard Via 18bit 48khz DAC - blah. The M-audio uses a better AKM DAC which is capable of the full 24bit 192khz. Also, the chaintech uses the HT-S model of the Envy chip, which is worse in small but significant ways. So I still say the M-audio is superior to the 710. I looked more closely at the Catalina reviews, and i would put the 710 over that. So:
1. M-audio Revolution
2. Chaintech AV710
3. Turtle beach Catalina
Avoid - Riviera

Thats what most people at head-fi are using the AV-710 for, 2 channel stereo output. It bests plenty of old favourites like TBSC easily in sound quality for $25. Even puts A2/A2ZS to shame with the sound quality as most people at head-fi found out, and the A2/A2ZS has a 114dB SNR Cirrus Logic CS4832 vs the 106dB SNR Wolfson Micro WM8728 on the AV-710.

Now don't get this wrong, the CS4382 DAC doesn't sound bad imho, but the way it's implemented on the A2/A2ZS means it won't ever sound as good as a Cirrus Logic DAC should.

You can use the generic VIA Envy24 HT-S 4.42a drivers, they work absolutely fine, I use them on my AV-710. Yes, they still have the volume bug in the mixer, but that can be worked around.

For a multichannel Envy24 HT card I rather get a Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 LT. Good luck if M-Audio ever updates the Revo 7.1 or 5.1 drivers(NOT UPDATED since 2004).

http://www.audiotrak.net/prodigy7.1LT.htm

i think i'm gonna go for the chaintech AV-710, then later go for something more expensive ($100-$200) Right now i'm using an onboard sound card and when i use headphones and foobar i cant really get it quite loud enough and i dont have volume control on my headphones...how do i solve this (pretty sure its not the foobar) do i need to get a volume control thing for my headphones?

ehh damn i can never make up my mind...but one last card i need help with haha Turtle Beach 7.1-Channel PCI Sound Card, Model "CATALINA" is this better than chaintech's AV 710?

You may require a headphone amp. Sound cards have output at line-level voltage, and are not happy when you ask them for more than half a dozen milliamps. Old sound cards, like the SB128 and before, had little 2 or 3 watt amps onboard. This was because they often powered little passive speakers. You could hook up any headphone and get good volume without clipping the amp. Now the soundcards all expect to be using either cheap low-impedance headphones or powered speakers, so they don't bother with the amp.

What kind of headphones are you using? Specifically, what are its impedance ratings (in ohms)?

No. I was wrong to say anything positive about either of the Turtle Beach cards in my first post.

If you plan to use only headphones, and don't care about the multichannel audio, the Chaintech 710 is the best. As Wish pointed out, it's Wolfson DAC is very nice for two channel output. If you want to use a set of 5.1 speakers, I would go with the M-audio or try to find an Audiotrak Prodigy.

well i might get a 2.1 system, but thats still normal stereo right or is that considered multi channel?

Prodigy has built-in headphone amp. I'm happy with it, however I don't know how does it compare to good external amps... I haven't found anywhere any decent comment about it yet.

i'm using some cheap ass KOSS UR-15C headphones

Stereophone specifications
Frequency Response: 25-15,000 Hz
Impedance: 32 ohms
Sensitivity: 92 dB SPL/1mW

well these are just temp ones...i've had them for over a year so i expect to replace them with some better ones soon.