Need New Sound Card!!!!!

This sounds kinda stupid, but are all these cards (the Acoustic Edge, Sonicfury, Santa Cruz, and Game Theater XP) backwards compatible with DOS? I only ask because I got a SBLive because it was completely backwards compatible with DOS (Warcraft II specifically) and if these are also backwards compatible I might as well get one since I hear they have better sound quality than the Live.
 
Thanks WizeGuy,
I'll be keeping my current speakers (4.1) so I have no need for digital 5.1 output, but I'm looking for a card which has good 4 way output and aslo sounds nice when playing Music (MP3's) because the my main use for my PC is for games and as a 'HiFi'. Can you or anyone else give me any suggestions.
Cheers
TheSweeney
 
The Sweeney, the Philips Acoustic edge seems the best for what you need, it has unique features for mapping either mono games into 3d or stereo music into true Quadraphonic. I have tried getting one of these in the UK though and havent had much luck, check here for a review of most sound cards.

http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/
 
Hey WOLF, where did you get that deal $58 CDN? What's the name of the store if you don't mind saying--I live in Toronto. Thanks for any info. :)
 
Canada computers
its a chain and they have a location in toronto
www.canadacomputers.com
buy at your own risk, sort of thinking they may not be legitimate santa cruz cards but just copies. mine works ok but gotta question it when it thats cheap..
Wolf
 
Himself said:
Best sound quality for cheap would be a vortex 1 based card, if you want something more high end, I just picked up a Philips Acoustic Edge and I am very pleased with it.
Click to expand...

I second that! The Acoustic Edge is great!
 
Thanks Wolf. I buy most of my stuff on that store! Anyways, if the card works perfect then that's a great deal! I have a dual boot OS (Win98/2000); which are you using it at? I wanna know more about the card before buying it and hanks again for any info. :)
 
Philips Acoustic Edge

Philips Acoustic Edge

Alright Kosh,
Thanks for the Reply, The Philips AE sounds like a nice card but i'm also in the UK and will probbly have the same trouble as you picking one up. I'm gonna check that soundsurge u told me about and see what they say, but unless theres anything of great intrest i'll probably go after the AE. My Brother Lives in US so i'll get some price info from him and see if he cant send me one over. Do me a favour Kosch and E-mail me ([email protected]) if you get any closer to getting one, also if your really desperate and all goes well with Big Bro E-mail me and we'll arange for him to get you one. Just a Thought.....

Cheers
TheSweeney
 
MelvT:
currently I'm running win98 SE...however am planning to install 2k on a my second partition within the next few days. (curious whats in service pack 2) will let you know then if you havent already gotten one how it was under that
Wolf
 
Just wondering

Just wondering

If you look at my sig you can see I'm using a pretty old cheapy sound card. Does anyone have an idea what I should get if :

1. I want 5.1 surround sound for my DVD
2. Would like best sound (5.1 if possible) in games
3. Do minor WAV/MP3 editing / recording

Would it be Santa cruz, Philips AE, or Herc TheathreXP....
I wish soundblaster cards worked better.. wouldn't mind their 5.1.

PLEASE let me know.. I need better sound hardware and would like to know other options...!!


Peace :put
 
I yank out my SB LIVE 'cause it won't work well with win98se and win2k! The dang thing won't like sharing its IRQ; same problem with VIA chipset on top of that. Got tired of it and got an Aureal--but it went out of business when Creative bought them and doesn't support the card and update drivers. *sigh* I think that the Phillips AE, Santa cruz, Hercules and the new comer ABIT's own A10 theater sound card are the real options.
 
magicknight0233, the Sonicfury, Santa Cruz, and Game Theater XP (all based on the same Cirrus Logic chip) all have legacy Sounblaster support in DOS.

Zazzybud, the Santa cruz, Philips AE, or Herc TheathreXP all have 5.1 support with DVD's and games. The Santa Cruz and Herc both handle MP3's in hardware where the Soundblaster Live doesn't. (Not sure about the Philips). All are great cards with many more features than the Soundblaster line of cards. They also don't have the PCI bus hogging and VIA issues (data corruption) that the Soundblaster audio cards have. Hope this helps
 
Wolf said:
I bought a santa cruz yesterday, nobody carried them here untill last week, then one store got oem models and were selling them for 58$ Canadian!!
I called a few other places before buying yesterday 2 other stores now carry them here one for $129.99 and another for 169.99
so I payed the 58 bucks and I am real happy to have that sblive out of my system!
it has alot of extra options you may not need, but then if you do decide to get a set of speakers at some time you wouldnt have to upgrade your soundcard to support it.
I think for the money santa cruz is the way to go now..
especially if you can get a deal like I did
Wolf
Click to expand...


Hey Wolf, I like to buy one of those Santa Cruz sound cards. Where in Canada did you get the card for that price? That's a good deal man. If you don't mind telling me I would appreciate it.


Thanks

Radak
 
Melv: just wanted to let you know I installed win2k this morning...this card seems to work better for me under 2k..I was having some probs with the a3d under win98, seems those problems have dissapeared under 2k..not sure why but..I'll take it
Wolf
 
If you're more interested in sound quality than games, check out http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/reports/index.htm - some of the reviews are a bit old, but there's a ton of technical audio quality reviews of lots of major amateur/pro sound cards. It doesn't appear to have been updated recently with things like the Acoustic Edge, etc.

However, if you're looking for a "gaming" card, the SBLive does NOT have the best sound quality - the santa cruz is better, especially if you do any recording in/out thru the soundcard (e.g., mp3's or whatnot). Now, will it be noticeably better? As always, it depends on your system....
 
I was a long time SBLive owner until I upgraded to an Athlon from a PIII. The SBLive gave it fits and no patching or BIOS tweaking would seem to fix it. I run Windows 2000.

I borrowed both a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and Philips Accoustic Edge card and tried each of them for 3 days. I ran both cards with the latest drivers. Both cards sounded and performed much better than the SBLive. Both cards were very stable, though the Accoustic Edge was slightly more so. The TBSC gave me 2 BSODs, PAE never crashed or BSODed in 72 hours of continual use, the SBLive would freeze my machine at least 3 times a day.

I felt that the Santa Cruz delivered better sound and environmental audio from 2 speakers and headphones than the Accoustic Edge did; but the Accoustic Edge sounded fantastic from 4 speakers - blew the Santa Cruz and SBLive away.

Since I primarily use a 4 speaker setup (5.1 setup coming soon!), I decided to purchase the Accousic Edge.

Hope this information is useful.

Asus A7V133
Athlon 800@900
512 Megs PC133 RAM
ATI Radeon 32DDR
Philips Accoustic Edge
Windows 2000 Professional w/SP2
 
Add on to my previous post

Add on to my previous post

Forgot to mention what I tested audio with.

I used Unreal Tournament, MDK2, and Giants to test Environmental Audio.

I used PowerDVD to test DVD playback.

I used Windows Media Player to test DIVX movies.

I used Winamp to play many hours of MP3s. :D

Again, I hope any soundcard shoppers find this information useful.
 
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