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Thread: Need a new music oriented soundcard

  1. Need a new music oriented soundcard

    My old soundcard has passed away, it was a very nice asus one for around $100. I am in the market for a new one, but given that I am probably the poorest person on tnl, $40 is my limit. I am focused 100% on soundquality for music, I only have 2.1 and don't give a shit about 5.1 or 7.1 yada yada, don't play games on my computer either.

    Do you guys know a good place to start? Despite my low budget, sound quality is very important, so I want to do the best I can with what I got. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks guys.
    Check out Mr. Businessman
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    On the way to the stock exchange
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  2. What are you outputting to? Do you actually need a dedicated soundcard? Most people do not.
    your mom

  3. #3
    Anthony does.

    I use an external USB audio card. Some Maudio thing. It does the job. Two channels. Two 1/4 and two XLR inputs.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Mman View Post
    What are you outputting to? Do you actually need a dedicated soundcard? Most people do not.
    Music playback doesn't require a real fancy schmancy recording/surround sound card, but I haven't heard an integrated soundcard yet that isn't noisy as fuck when put through a good audio setup.

    I haven't bought a soundcard in years, so I can't be much help, but if you are just looking for good quality 2.1 you may look at some of the high end soundcards that are a few years old.
    Quote Originally Posted by EvilMog View Post
    Screw being smart. This is TNL.

  5. Anything you find by Creative will be solid, I haven't used any of their current cards but I've never had a bad one and I can't recall anyone I know every having anything negative to say about them either.

  6. #6
    Opaque may be onto something, I just looked up at Newegg and they have Creative Audigy (they still sell those?) cards for $30, and X-Fis for a little higher. From reading the reviews though, it looks like the Audigy is the better card, as the budget X-Fi's are just Audigys emulating whatever the fuck the X-Fi is supposed to do.

    I've got an old Audigy in the Wing Commander PC, it's a pretty good card. The analog outputs have just a touch of noise if you crank the PC volume way up, but with the PC at a medium volume (where it should be, control volume with the stereo/amp/whatever!) it sounds fine. It supports a digital output with an adapter, although it's only 2.0 (or Dolby Digital passthrough for DVDs) if I remember correctly. Memory says the digital output was very clean, but I've never hooked it up to my Onkyo system to give it a real test.

    So basically, after doing 10 minutes of research I think for the price range the Audigy may be the best bang for the buck. It's old as hell, so you might double check to make sure Creative has stable Windows 7 drivers, if that's what you're doing. Creative has a bad habit or releasing buggy drivers when new products/OS's come out, but I'd imagine 7 has been out long enough to have a good driver set by now.
    Quote Originally Posted by EvilMog View Post
    Screw being smart. This is TNL.

  7. Relevant: my card is a high end X-Fi that I bought OEM on clearance for like 1/10th the price but I totally forgot what model it was and it doesn't say anywhere on the card and when I installed Windows 7 it figured out what it was all on it's own and installed it by itself because Creative has awesome driver and support and communication with Windows.

    So, take that as an additional hearty endorsement.

  8. #8
    Yeah, IIRC X-Fis were the shit a little while back, but the reviews on Newegg mention that the ones they have are not really X-Fi's, they are missing the processor and emulate it with software. You could probably find a real X-Fi on another site dirt cheap though.

    *edit*
    Here's a real X-Fi, $60 on Amazon, which goes over the budget:

    http://www.amazon.com/Creative-SB088.../dp/B001E25KDK
    Last edited by GohanX; 20 Sep 2011 at 02:12 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by EvilMog View Post
    Screw being smart. This is TNL.

  9. Quote Originally Posted by Josh View Post
    Anthony does.

    I use an external USB audio card. Some Maudio thing. It does the job. Two channels. Two 1/4 and two XLR inputs.
    I didn't even know I could use that to output my sound. Problem maybe solved.
    Check out Mr. Businessman
    He bought some wild, wild life
    On the way to the stock exchange
    He got some wild, wild life

  10. #10
    Depends on your speakers, probably. Report back.

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