Best Sound Card of All Time or So Far???

The fact is that soundcard depends on drivers very much (even quality of it output) - only reason that I haven't got rid of my Audigy already is kX

 

Best sound card? I've used a few and I honestly couldn't say. In terms of soundcards that 'just work' with few quibbles, the SB AWE32 and AWE 64'll do that and still provide a remarkably good midi environment. Back in those days, you could record from as few or as many analog sources as you liked, upgrade the onboard midi memory, and maybe enable the onboard ide controller =). In fact.. I've often thought someone should make soundcards more like graphics cards.

Give them...

-32mb or so of on-board sound-memory (doesn't need to be that fast, 'cus sound doesn't need to be read too fast)
-As much hardware acceleration as possible - I want to see an 'SPU' here!
-Regularly updated drivers.

That way, you would eliminate the problems with crackling due to pci bus latency by buffering sounds on onboard memory. During heavy bus use by the graphics card or ide controller, sound would have no excuse for slowness. Upload the sound samples you need for games to the s-ram and have the SPU fetch 'em when needed. Like a gfx card... Just an idea. Of course, the big buffer wouldn't be used for low-latency requiring stuff...

Well anyway, the older awe cards etc no longer compete in terms of quality, simultaneous channels etc.

In that respect, CL's latest range are the best I've seen for midi, A3d 3d sound cards are great for the best 3d sound, but the cpu usage is abysmal, and it won't change now Aureal are dead. Although I am not satisfied by y SB Live Player 5.1, I've seen other cards, and they've often been worse. Someone just needs to make a really good card: good drivers, no quality issues, a decent 3d engine, and a solid audio pipeline, maintaining sample rates etc. I'd also like to see a card with some better recording capabilities, and less of the software-reliant midi. Please. That's my 2 pence anyway.

 

Actually the cpu usage on the Aureal cards I own is very very low. The Diamond Monster Sound 3D had less then 4% usage at it's heaviest use, and the Aureal Vortex 2 had about 6% max usage. Never did figure out why everyone thought they had so much overhead. The initial drivers did have some problems with that but it was quickly rectified.

 

Regulary updated drivers - kX compatible cards. Good quality - Envy24(HT)-based soundcards.

 

Really? Low cpu usage? Hmmm.. Well, with half-life, which had a notoriously slow a3d adaptation (based on streamed sound instead of point or something, enabling a3d has always produced dramatic slow-downs. Othe games less-so, but half-life was the main game back then.... Switching a3d on and off produced a huge frame-rate difference...

 

kX doesn't support A3D (yet, hopefully). And Envy24-based soundcards use Sensaura to enable it. So, A3D isn't good idea to use (anymore).

 

I'm going to have to say SB16..
Only because I have so many memories with it. =)

But right now, my Fortissimo II > Live! that i had.

Though, i am also one of the people who hate CL for buying out Aureal.

Audio is *much* behind Video because of that.. if Aureal were still alive,
i'm pretty sure we'd all piss in our pants playing games and swearing that
there was someone outside tapping on your window, laughing quietly
under his breath as hoards of demons and monsters slowly grew out
of your backyard, rumbling your house and making you feel queezy.......

 

Best of all time has to have been the AWE. The card was AMAZING in it's day, even on a 2.1 speaker system the difference between it and other cards of it's era where amazing. Now the cards all basically sound the same until you get to the huge speaker sets. And even then the difference is not a big deal. The AWE redefined sound in it's day. A really amazing card. In my opinion the last great card creative came up with.

Edward

 

/me pats custom built class A amp and custom built speakers; tweeters midrange and woofers based on KEF 104/2 Reference Series and Kef 109 Reference speakers Haha, digital shmidjital

Hej nisam znao da imamo domacina ovdje Kako ste

 

Layla 24 is the best you can get.:w00t: But it does no good to the average user it is designed for recording & studio purposes. PCI bus master interface included or connect via the *optional* CardBus

Dynamic Range of 110dB (A-weighted) on inputs, 115dB on outputs

8 Balanced +4dBu TRS inputs

8 Balanced +4dBu TRS outputs

Headphone output with volume control

Both Alesis ADAT optical and S/PDIF digital inputs and outputs

MIDI In/Out/Thru

Word clock I/O

Esync to other Echo 24-bit products

Software Console for monitoring, metering, and setting levels

Low-latency drivers

Compatible with all popular recording/editing software

Full duplex operation (simultaneously record 8 analog channels while playing back 8 analog channels)

Will record analog and digital inputs simultaneously

Includes mixer application for audio outputs, monitor assignments, volume, and metering

Includes Steinberg Cubasis VST recording/editing software for PC and Mac!

Layla24 is now shipping with drivers for Windows 95/98/2000/XP/Mac/WDM/ASIO/GSIF