I currently own a Soundblaster Audigy. I am in the market to purchase a soundcard that will compliment my Logitech Z-5500 Digital speakers.

The soundcard will be used for video games, listening to MP3s and watching movies. I am leaning towards a Creative soundcard because of EAX however I am open to suggestion.

Also, between the two which would be the better option, the Audigy 2 ZS or X-Fi?

I'd say if your budget allows that: go for X-Fi. They are selling Xtreme Music in around $120. Audigy 2ZS is defenitely an option as it costs half price of that. I used Audigy 2 before I got X-Fi and it was not a bad card, either. But the X-Fi has support for all newest and future games, it has this really nice crystallizer and pretty damn accurate surround sound over regular headphones. Well, this feature alone amazed me so much that I ended up buying X-Fi, only then I discovered crystallizer and other features.

So these new features are cool, but not essential: if you prefer value products, Audigy 2 ZS is probobly one. I saw a few reviews that compare X-Fi and Audigy 2 ZS and some other cards, so if you need more information on that go check PC Perspective review and bit tech net review for example.

Good Luck!

Some reference reading material that maybe of some help.

search results

My suggestion is:

- If you will use the soundcard mostly for games and EAX is important to you, go definitely for Audigy o Xi-Fi

- If you mostly listen to music, watch movies and want to have best audio quality, forget about creative and go for a Envy-24HT based soundcard (Terratec Aureon 7.1 / Audiotrack Prodigy)

[quote=giopiar,Nov 8 2005, 09:37 AM]
My suggestion is:

- If you will use the soundcard mostly for games and EAX is important to you, go definitely for Audigy o Xi-Fi

- If you mostly listen to music, watch movies and want to have best audio quality, forget about creative and go for a Envy-24HT based soundcard (Terratec Aureon 7.1 / Audiotrack Prodigy)

PS: the difference between Audigy and Xi-Fi is mostly in terms of audio acceleration and EAX... if you listen to Xi-Fi you can think it sounds better, but it is only subjective, since this "better audio quality" is achieved in a "tricky" way (post processing AFAIK)

Thank you for the help people

[quote=giopiar,Nov 8 2005, 11:40 AM]
[quote=giopiar,Nov 8 2005, 09:37 AM]
My suggestion is:

- If you will use the soundcard mostly for games and EAX is important to you, go definitely for Audigy o Xi-Fi

- If you mostly listen to music, watch movies and want to have best audio quality, forget about creative and go for a Envy-24HT based soundcard (Terratec Aureon 7.1 / Audiotrack Prodigy)
(post processing AFAIK)

[/quote]

I'm looking for a 5.1 or 7.1 card to listen to dvd-audio or dts music CDs, so sounds like Aureon 7.1 or Prodigy are good. Aureon has 7.1 Space and 7.1 Universe; the later seems to replace DMX 6fire, which has better DAC than 7.1 Space. So does Universe feature same class DAC as DMX 6fire? Is it different than Space other than the breaker box?

Aureon 7.1 space and universe both uses a WM8770 codec by Wolfson Microelectronics. It is made by 4 DACs and each of them works at 192 kHz / 24 bit (see
this image)

It is a very high quality DAC, and you can see the data sheet here

DMX 6Fire uses a 74HC4316D DAC by Philips. It works at 96 Khz / 24 bit

I don't know if it is possible to make a direct comparison between these DACs, but it is known that Wolfson DACs are really good and used in professional equipments too

Here's Universe box!

Bye

Thanks for the info.
According to this link
http://techreport.com/reviews/2003q1/soundcards/index.x?pg=8
The DMX has AK4524VF for DAC, allegedly superior to the AK4355 used in M-Audio revolution, which some claimed to sound similar to the WM8770 based Aureon 7.1 Space. So if Universe is sonically identical to Space, I guess it's a step down from DMX, which is a pitty because looks like DMX is no longer available in US.

According to datasheets, on the DAC part AK4355 has similar specs to WM8770. AK4524VF has specs a bit better than both them, but not as great as to be an easily audible difference, if audible at all. Also, sometimes the electronics surrounding the DAC chip play a role in the final quality so that DAC full specs are not achieved in practice.

People that says that a soundcard sounds much better than other should do some blind tests, and would probably be surprised in most cases.

I read about philips DAC in this italian site. It is said that DMX uses Philips DACs and AKM codecs, maybe there are different revisions of the boards, who knows...

On the other hand you should also notice that Aureon uses a better Envy chip, so, as I said before, i wouldn't be so sure that it is a step backward...