Hello there,

I've read many topics concerning soundcards now, but either the starter had no interest in gaming support or wouldn't spend so much money. As seen in the title, the price doesn't matter ;-)

I was quite happy with my Sound Blaster 128, unfortunately it broke a few days ago and I'm stuck with an AWE 64

I'm looking for a card that provides

Amazing quality
No resampling
Basic gaming support (EAX and so on, don't know the collective term)

It should be compatible to standard Adlib and Soundblaster (I'm still playing old DOS games), but that's not top priority. 5.1 is not that important either.

And it would be great if it was available in (/a shop that ships to) Germany.

Regards,
Sebastian

What do you mean for expensive? Really expensive cards don't have EAX or anything similar, nor or headphone support for example. Main advantage of expensive cards is that they have great recording quality, and several inputs/outputs.

With average price good quality cards, such as M-Audio Revolution, the output quality seems to be really good, in a level that I think can be perceived to be as good as anything you can listen to (I mean, the output quality reaches the level of "transparent"). However, I think in practice this is very likely to happen with slightly worse quality cards too.

It seems that the Audigy2 had a bug that caused to resample badly 44.1 KHz data, but that this bug is fixed with the latest drivers, and the output is ok now (I don't have more in-depth info, sorry). Some say that output quality is now comparable to good consumer and semi-pro cards. However, I guess its drivers are still bloated.



I'd say that even new Creative cards are no more compatible with the old Soundblaster 16 or Pro standard.



Some new Terratec Aureon cards look good, but I don't know much about them. I guess you can buy M-Audio cards easily from USA.

I meant that money doesn't matter. It mustn't be expensive at all cost

Well, just read that automatic resampling is not a good thing, I must admit I don't have experience with that (Not exactly, currently experiencing DVDs resampled to 44.1 cause the AWE 64 doesn't support 48 )

If the M-Audio Revolution provides "transparent" quality it's a whole new perspective on the subject. But I've never seen that card in shops nor on Ebay and guess it's not so easy to obtain it from an US dealer without a credit card?

As you said and from what I've heard, the Creative drivers seem to be nasty, I don't like that company either. Old Soundblaster support should be standard in my opinion?

Regards,
Sebastian

M-Audio Bezugsquellen (Dealers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland)

I just bought the new Terratec Aureon Sky sound card and have no complaints at all - very good sound quality and not overly expensive.

Hmmm...

Terratec Aureon 7.1 space? http://www.terratec.net/products/Aureon_sp...ace_details.htm
M-Audio Revolution? http://www.midiman.net/products/consumer/r...ution_page1.php

Just to give you an idea of more expensive soundcards; granted they are overkill for what you state as what you want from a card:


RME - High quality audio hardware from Germany

Same link to RME in English


The LynxTwo - Ahead of time when it was released two years ago


Those cards are usually bought by musicians who need high quality recording and low latency in order to synchronize audio and MIDI.

There's also cards from M-Audio, Echo, Mark of the Unicorn, Creamw@re, and many other companies that are worth mentioning while we're on the topic of high end cards. The LynxTWO probably has the best output quality of all of them though, and is one of the only cards out of these that supports 192khz sampling rates.

However, most of these cards are not only well over $500, but they also don't include "basic gaming support" as mentioned as a necessity by the original poster. They are way, way overkill for someone who is not planning on doing some serious recording/midi work.

My vote for a soundcard would be for the M-Audio Revolution. I have this card and I also have an M-Audio Delta1010 (I used to be somewhat of a musician, a synthesist to be exact) and the sound quality of the Revolution in comparison has not disappointed me at all. M-Audio has a pretty solid reputation for making soundcards with very good output quality (the audiophile2496 is also quite popular on this board), and the Revolution is no exception. It features 7.1 output and the drivers support Sensaura 3D, so you get your EAX and whatnot. The 3d audio stuff is not hardware accelerated though (it won't be on most of these types of cards), so that might be something to consider depending on how fast of a machine you have and how critical a feature this is. The card does not resample and supports up to 24-bit/192khz playback. Apparently, according to rightmark tests, the Revolution basically matches the LynxTWO at 16-bit/44.1khz playback also... quite an impressive feat for a $99 card.

I second the recommendations of M-Audio Revolution and Terratec Aureon. Both seem to have very good quality for medium price. And as bonus you get multiple channels.


Maybe using two cards is an option? You don't need a new top-notch soundcard for old games.


Then Terratec is probably easier to get.


Where can I find the results?

There was discussion about all of this, along with benchmarks, somewhere in the forums here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdispla...p?s=&forumid=26

I don't remember the exact thread though, but it should possible to find with a search.

Does it have digital input?

Acording to their web page, it only has a digital output (coax).

Aureon Sky/Space has optical in/out.

If someone else is interested, here are direct links:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....963#post1803963
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....threadid=218263
(http://members.cox.net/deadduck/Comparison.htm)

Nice links, Continuum, I didn't read the whole thread when I posted it.

If those RMMA measurements have been done in loopback mode with each card, the Revo line-in input is very good too!! Seems that comparable if not a little better than Audiophile's!!

there are several SB emulators for win2k DOS-Box, that use DirectSound and so work with any sound card. for me it works with all games, that work under win2k themselves. (and I've heard that winxp DOS-Box is slightly improved)

Interesting! I have the same problems, since I changed sound cards recently. Do you have more information or any links? Does it work with Win98se?

http://vdmsound.sourceforge.net

http://www.softsystem.co.uk/page3.htm

and its do not work under win9x, of course, since DOS-Box implementation there is absolutely different (more complete, but less safe).

If you are just looking for audio out from your computer to your stereo or headphones, I'll chip in with a recommendation for the stereo-link (see www.stereo-link.com).

The 'link is basically a very simple external USB soundcard with a small internal preamp. Because its external/USB, the signal stays digital all the way out of the computer, which does wonders for preserving quality. Also, since windows views it as a HID device you don't need any 3rd party drivers, and it will support any game that uses directx.

On the downside, it has no recording support whatsoever; its intended only for audio output. Sells for about $150 US.

As far as quality goes, if you compare this to just about any consumer (or even 'prosumer') cards, you should be pleasantly surprised. Several audiophile magazines have touted it highly, as well.

Mine is connected to a pair of Sennheiser HD590 headphones (about $350), and I've been really, really happy with the setup. (One other downside: now when I listen to stuff in my car, I am constantly thinking 'God, this sounds like shit', but thats how it goes.)

-Aaron

With today's good quality cards (such as the ones mentioned), the quality is preserved even when the DACs are at the internal card.

So I have to boot WinXP to play ancient DOS games? Intriguing...

Thanks for the links!

or convince your sound card manufacturer to provide legacy DOS drivers for win9x
(like Creative does for SB Live!)

Isn't usb audio causing lots of cpu-load?
Besides, there are other ways of getting audio out your pc digitally...

I'm still dreaming of a method I came across in the headwize forums some years ago: using a m-audio or rme-audio card slaved to an external dac's clock.

A simple Delta DIO can do the trick. But my plans haven't taken off yet, since DACs with word clock output don't come cheap... So I'm saving up for a 7000USD dCS DAC I guess...

Mmmm...

I was just checking out that Motu link Dibrom posted.
Now I wonder, would firewire be a better connection to use from pc to dac (as you'd get with Motu stuff)?

Offcourse, there are no jitter-like problems on firewire, whereas it's a hell of a difficult issue with spdif. But firewire requires more (noisy?) components inside the dac box. So that would clutter your external dac and then, what's the use in having it external...



KikeG, do you have some comparisons? I can hardly imagine an analog signal would travel through a box with numerous different frequency busses without facing a quality penalty.
(I'm not saying I'd hear a difference, but hey, I'm not only a music lover, also an equipment lover...)

You might check out these guys for the M-audio Revolution..

http://www.digitalconnection.com/

This is the store of the guy Cliff on the avsforum link, who has been working with
M-audio in getting the card out there and getting the last bugs fixed.

He's very good with the support, as you can see from the threads, and I don't
see why he wouldn't ship overseas. Send him a mail.

The more I read, the more impressed I am with this card.. I might just haul off and buy
one pretty soon.

Currently, DC is selling them for $99 USD, which is about as cheap as it gets..
at the risk of sounding like I pimp for him, I think he deserves the sale for the
work he's putting into coordinating with M-audio on getting bugs fixed and features
added..

At http://www.pcavtech.com you have measurements over many soundcards, and also over some cd and dvd players and external DACs. The best quality audio device at these pages is the LynxTwo, which is an internal soundcard, and has better performance that any consumer DAC or player I have read of.

At http://audio.rightmark.org you have some more measurements of cards. In this thread there are some similar measurements of some cards.



In an internal card the analog signal doesn't travel though any busses, it just is generated at the DAC, possibly amplified with a opamp, and then sent to the output connector.

Sorry... my bad english. Well, also it was 3:29 in the morning...

I meant to say... it seems bad having a vulnerable analog signal in a box where there are also numerous and powerful sources of noise present, like pci clock, ata clock, fsb clock, which are not even synchronous or so.

it wouldn't directly affect the analog audio signal i guess, though, since that's in a totally different frequency range. But things like keeping power supply to all components constant, and keeping a clean and stabile clock for d/a could be difficult?

Then again, in the end, a measurement is the only sure answer. So apparently, those lynx people did a hell of a job keeping supplied voltages constant and all that. Thanks for the links!

Edit: well, Maxim Liadov @ digit-life is better at english, and says all i had wanted to say: "Some time ago it was assumed that high-quality sound could not be obtained at all on a computer system because of magnetic pickups from a video card and a processor into the sound card's circuit of the printed-circuit board, terrible power supply from a pulse power supply unit, jitter in converters, ...." But he, too, comes to the conclusion that perhaps it doesn't have to be so.

You can pick up noise thru the power supply, and any other number of places in the PC.

That being said, the (better) cardmakers have learned a lot in how to filter out and make the
card's circiutry reject the noise that is there.. Modern high end internal cards have become
very good, condsidering what they have to live with.

That, is indeed a grand achievement. But then theoretically, external DACs with the same quality of components, should still be able to perform better than internal ones, right? They don't have to deal with high noise levels.
E.g. the Lynxtwo is extremely expensive. At about 1300 euro, wouldn't there be an outboard professional solution that performs better?

I know it's a bit of a theoretical discussion. I'm still wondering about this claim, that's all.



I thought, KikeG, that you meant that internal cards can do better than most people expect.

But do you also want to take the statement further: does it say there isn't any use in getting an external dac? I mean, when you get to a point where internal cards exceed a 100dB s/n ratio and have frequency responses flat within 0.1dB, is there still use in getting an external box?

The thing is, I wanted to get me a fairly good internal dac, that is slaveable to a word clock link. Then, I may later improve my system with an external dac. But if you're argueing that there isn't any use in going external, I have a lot more choices now; I won't have to look for word clock connections...

E.g. the Egosys Waveterminal 192L doesn't seem to have a proper word clock link it has, but you need an expansion card for digital in, but has a lot more to offer otherwise, than an M-audio Audiophile. They go at the same prices...
Also, I found that the Waveterminal 192L doesn't seem to perform al that well; see http://forum.rightmark.org/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000092.html. On the rightmark website there is test data that indicates the 192X should do a lot better. But hey, that it should be, at a 50% higher price...

I think that the important thing is not wether the DACs are internal or external, but the quality of the card/converter.


I don't know of any DAC or soundcard that performs better at that price. I think some professional DACs used at studios (Apogee and such) are better, but I'd say they are quite more expensive.

Also, note that these professional cards can achieve ultra-low noise levels thanks to the use of balanced connections, which help a lot in reducing interference and noise at the inputs and outputs, but are useful only when connected to other balanced equipment. Most consumer equipment is not balanced.

Unbalanced equipment will have always some more noise at the output, due to the lower inmmunity to external interference of this type of connections. And, what would be better, unbalanced internal card or unbalanced external DAC? I guess it also depends on quality of the device, and I don't care very much, since good consumer cards are already so good that induced background noise is not a problem at all.

terratec EWX 24/96 (you have to look in products, I can give you a direct link)
http://www.terratec.com/ttus/products.htm

Echo MIA
http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/Mia/index.php

M Audio Audiophile 2496
http://www.midiman.net/products/m-audio/audiophile.php

All retail for about 250$ (I think, correct me if I am wrong).
if you are willing to go for an extra 100$ (meaning 350$, i know its not a very hard math, but still) you can go for an external solution that will suffer less electric distortion from all the electromagnetic vibes inside your computer case, and will include more robust interconnects (even XLR). Have a look at the USB Duo and Quarto on the M-Audio website.
But all that depends on what you hook these gizmos to, I suppose

Audiophile $150, Echo MIA $175, EWX 24/96 $200, at http://www.midi-store.com . This is a good shop.



I don't think that having an internal card is directly related with more interference, as I explained.

Thank you very much for the replies. I will most definetely try to get that M-Audio Revolution, but I haven't read anything yet if it's gonna support Windows 98 some day, since it is still my OS of choice for gaming... Otherwise I'll just buy another 256 RAM so Win 2k will be ready for the games to come.

And yes, I think 2 sound cards is a good option, when I keep the AWE 64 I can be sure that the old standards are supported fine. And since I use Linux quite frequently and I suppose the M.A.R. won't work with that - correct me if I'm wrong - I'll still have a card for background music

An external solution would also be a good choice. I'll have to think this over (?).

This stereo-link-thing sounds interesting, I will try to find one.