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Sugestions for a PC sound card

ggarcia

ggarcia

Active Member
OK. I know that most of you thinks about... :thumbsdn: :puke:
But I need sugestions for a good sound card to feed my Sansui au-X701 and SP-5500X boxes for the best performance listening in stereo mode my CDs and FLACS & APES.
Thank you
 
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Knock 'em if you will (lots of people do! :D ), but it's hard to go wrong with a decent Creative card these days. Great S/N ratio, dead quiet on my system, and no glitches like in the bad old days...
 
I have an Audigy II card on my machine, works well, no strange noises. My old Live was also quiet, noise floor on it was far lower than anything I connected to it for an input. Don't have exact figures but watching a VU meter in something like Cool Edit would jump off the infinity mark to about -48 with the phono pre plugged in, and to about -30 when the needle fell. I don't use Windows anymore, and the Creative cards have excellent open source driver support, so I tend to stay with them for practical reasons as well. That, and its just a decent card for the money. Also, compared the the onboard, it sounds much better. The onboard had odd interference issues from other hardware, the mouse and hard drive would create static. None of that from the Creative cards.
 
As far as I know none of the Creative soundcards can give you bit for bit accurate output from your PC.
I believe most of the MAudio ones do. I use a Chaintech AV-710, which is the cheapest card I've found which can do bit bit for accurate playback.

Good luck.
 
I'll second the recommendation for the Chaintech AV-710. There might be a better value out there now, since the card's a couple of years old, but for less than $30, you can't go wrong.

Mine feeds my Chaintech Number Cruncher 203.2 ($50 DAC) and I feel absolutely no need to upgrade.
 
I would steer clear of M-Audio. I say this not because of the quality of the hardware, which I think is very good, but because of there very poor driver support. Multiple cards, multiple problems with sound dropping out, and other stability related issues. No updates from the original driver releases.

I just switched over to a EMU 0404 for stereo output. Very pleased with the quality.

If you want a budget card the Chaintech AV-710 is very nice with the high sample rate function turned on for analog. Dirt cheap.

dew.
 
M Audio is the studio benchmark, most studios use it, they work fine on XP and 2K, for Linux, it gets little patchy but can be worked out, I own the Audiophille 96/24, its a great card, although not as comprehensive as my Yamaha SWXG-1000, its got good sound and features.
 
I third, fourth, fifth, or whatever the M-Audio. I have a Sonica and still listen to it daily. It's fine if all you need is stereo, but you'll need to look on the second-hand market for it.
 
And how does the sound of an M-Audio or other card compare to what already exists in my G4 "windtunnel" tower? All I want to do is archive some cassettes to digital (either AAC or for AIFF), which I do by running my deck into the Mac via the Audio In jack (3.5mm miniplug). So far, everything sounds fine, but as I have no point of comparison, perhaps I don't realize how much better a different sound card might be. Thoughts?
 
Thank's to all for opinions.
By the few I could catch in the specs of mentioned cards, I think Chaintech would fit my needs, with a good cost/benefit relation. Remember my purpose, only stereo listen, no recording, no midi, no surround. But I had others opinions before the mentions of chaintech and got from ebay an m-audio revolution 1.5 (a little more expensive, 49 USD). I believe that both cards have the same general features, so, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thank's again
 
Proconsul said:
And how does the sound of an M-Audio or other card compare to what already exists in my G4 "windtunnel" tower? All I want to do is archive some cassettes to digital (either AAC or for AIFF), which I do by running my deck into the Mac via the Audio In jack (3.5mm miniplug). So far, everything sounds fine, but as I have no point of comparison, perhaps I don't realize how much better a different sound card might be. Thoughts?
Click to expand...


I have a G3 (blue and white), G4 Cube, Powermac G5 and a Mac Book. I will tell you first hand that the M-Audio is leaps and bounds better than the internal sound device.
 
Proconsul said:
And how does the sound of an M-Audio or other card compare to what already exists in my G4 "windtunnel" tower? All I want to do is archive some cassettes to digital (either AAC or for AIFF), which I do by running my deck into the Mac via the Audio In jack (3.5mm miniplug). So far, everything sounds fine, but as I have no point of comparison, perhaps I don't realize how much better a different sound card might be. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
All that matters is that you're happy with it.
 
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