Sound card recommendations

Bluemeanie · 12-28-2009 04:19 PM

Currently I'm using a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS. Lately I've started hearing cracking and popping sounds, at first noticed it only in game, now just about whenever it feels like it. Doing some research, I've found I'm not alone. So, time to replace it. Not being a big fan of onboard sound, currently on a Asus P5N-E SLI that does have that, but looking at other alternatives. Here's a few I think would be ok. Comments/suggestions?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829271001

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829132006

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829156006

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829118109

Katie V · 12-28-2009 08:53 PM

I suggest making sure it's the sound card that's at fault: crackling and popping are usually either a bad connection between the speakers and the card, or drivers that aren't providing sound information to the card as steadily as they should.

je_saist · 12-28-2009 10:13 PM

The cards you picked all use varients of the CMI87xx chips, even the Asus DX1.

I've got both the Asus and the Turtle beach and as far as sound quality goes, there's no difference if you are using the Optical Outputs.

The Analog audios are a different point. I think Asus does a better job of setting up the DAC (Digital Audio Convertors), so on headphones and straight jacked in speakers, I think the Asus sounds better.

FitzSimmons · 12-29-2009 11:54 AM

QR,

Creative cards suck. This crackling/popping issue has been around for years. YEARS! I had gotten a xifi extreme gamer, hit the crackling and popping issue and found out that it's a pretty major issue.

Lots of suggestions on how to fix it but none of them worked for me.

I went back to my onboard sound and have had no issues since.

My suggestion is anything but a Creative card.

They stink, stink on ice!

je_saist · 12-29-2009 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FitzSimmons

QR,

Creative cards suck. This crackling/popping issue has been around for years. YEARS! I had gotten a xifi extreme gamer, hit the crackling and popping issue and found out that it's a pretty major issue.

I can attest to that. Here's what I wrote about Sound Cards covering my issues with Soundblaster over on HardOCP : http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.ph...6&postcount=16

Quote:

Okay. First of all, I'm the kind of person that spends way too much money on speakers and home audio equipment. I've got speakers from Pioneer, Aiwa, Altec-Lansing, Sicuro, and creativer; receivers from Kenwood and Sony; and even oddballs like the Zalman surround sound headphones.

Audio quality is very important to me, and I'm not just talking about sound effects and channel separation. I'm talking about the actual generation of the audio. Yeah, I am one of those "freaks" that can tell you when you've played back a song in 128k Mp3 encoding, or 128 Vorbis encoding.

While Intel's HDA audio was a large step-up in terms of audio quality... the reality is, even ancient chips like the AS9200] (hint, that one came from Aopen) or CT5880-DCQ (hint, that one is a creative labs card) will provide better analog-audio quality than many on-board HDA solutions. I've got a Clevo D900-T notebook, and when Steelsound sent me one of their headsets for testing which included a USB sound-chip, one of the first things I immediately noticed with the Steelsound headsets is that the Clevo's Intel HDA audio wasn't even trying to produce some of the lower-range sounds. That was pretty much the point at which I stopped using cheap logitech headsets as I could literally hear what I was missing.

Where the situation gets a bit... fuzzy... is in Digital Audio where you pass the sound processing off to a receiver to handle channel separation. However, even in these cases, and this is coming from somebody who bought Abit NF7-S 2.0's not because they were stellar Socket A overclockers, but because they had an onboard optical out, then followed that up with a DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb because it had optical out onboard, then followed that up with a Hercules GameTheater Xp because it had a break-out box with all the audio I/O you could ever need, then followed that up with buying Via Envy's with Optical out because their breakout boxes were SMALLER... Actually that's not quite true. I sold off an STA Media 7.1 a while back, but it's breakout box was as large as the Hercules box.

Anyways, a couple creative cards thrown in to the purchasing history. I count a couple Audigy's and Soundblaster's sitting in a box, two of them I bought with the front-panel boxes so I could get optical out... and those were junk... Had a long go back and forth with creative over problems with the front panel boxes in which the audio CONSTANTLY skipped... and Creative kept claiming it was my receiver when NO OTHER OPTICAL / COAXIAL OUTPUT I HAD ON HAND SKIPPED...

anyways, getting away from the point. Just because you have a digital signal generation on the motherboard, or on the sound-card... doesn't mean you automatically get a good quality audio playback. Again, I'm not just limiting myself to audio effects like EAX. I mean actual signal to noise ratio and audio processing.

While you might never notice the the audio difference on $20 Logitechs, or the speakers that came with your computer, most people can start hearing the difference with even low-end headsets like Logitech's $50 Digital Precision headset. Even with a decent mid-range speaker set, and I used to like to point to Sicuro's though they no longer seem to be in business, at least in the US, most people will be able to hear a difference in their audio with even the most basic of add-in cards.

Now, a lot of audio is subjective. I can hear the differences. You might not be able to. And that's fine. You might be perfectly happy with the audio quality Intel's HDA system delivers. I'm not.

Demobot · 12-29-2009 02:08 PM

On the topic of sound cards...

I recently purchased a new laptop (Gateway p7805u FX) and was looking into sound options. My old laptop came with a Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS Notebook PCMCIA card, which was nice 'cause it came with a docking cable for hooking up a 5.1 speaker setup. Of course, it too had the crackling/popping problem.

I was looking at Creative's X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook card which has the same docking port and I've gotten really attached to those speakers, but if it'll end up with the same crackling/popping as my other card I'd rather avoid it.

For Christmas I received a Creative X-Fi Notebook (not the aforementioned X-Fi Xtreme) and I think I'm just going to return it and buy a nice headset.

As it stands right now the on-board sound isn't half-bad and I'm leaning towards buying a headset.

Any advice/suggestions?

@Demobot

Also on Steam

Bluemeanie · 02-22-2010 04:56 PM

For what it's worth, I went with the Turtle Beach Montego DDL. To me it sounds much better than the Soundblaster did, but that might have something to do with no popping, cracking, etc anymore. Actually I didn't know how bad it did sound before.