Need some soundcard advice

T

timothydog

New member
Ok, here is my situation.

I have a decent PC that I use for recording and gaming. All recording is done with Sonar 2 and a Sound Blaster Live Platinum (through my mixer into the SPDIF input). It's worked OK for me so far but since I upgraded my machine, I've noticed that my SBLive is having trouble with some games these days. We all know what a bus hog it is. I get plenty of stuttering and distortion most of the time. Big surprise.

So I'm looking for an audio upgrade now. My first thought is an Audigy 2 Platinum with the new live drive. I've been hearing some good words about this card, it has SPDIF in but it is 200 dollars.

Does anyone know of a decent sound card that supports SPDIF input besides Creative Labs? I've checked around and haven't found any.

My other option is to get a SPDIF-only audio card (similar to the m-audio dio 2448) for recording and use my onboard MCP audio adapter with my nforce2 board (a very good adapter indeed) for audio out. The cheaper the better! Can someone recommend something like this? And will I have any troubles running this type of setup?

Any help will be much appreciated!
Tim
 
God these newbies need to start reading old posts. i mean christ even the new posts. We have about 3 threads a day about sound cards.

First i'm gonna tell you creative cards are garbage for recording, they are gaming card.
There is a thread, probably on this page that is a debate on this topic, explaining why it's garbage. if you search you'll find tons of threads outlining details all most cards.

But a really good cheap place to start researching is the maudio audiophile 2496

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=83175


http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=83953

Sorry for getting pissed off, i remember when i first started here. It's just that, as you can imagine, a lot of people, especailly people starting off, have similar questions. And i've seen that question about 400 times. maybe literally. And think of the real veterans on here, how many times they've seen them! but then again i probably asked them as well when i came, so eh. But search is a great tool!
 
Well I'll let you hear some of my recordings sometime and you tell me if they're garbage. ;)

It's not what you have.. it's how you use it buddy.

Plus. I did a search but I didn't find anyone that had my similar situation.
 
I don't want a big pro audio card.
I want a simple card with a digital input.. like the M-audio Dio 2448. Are there any others like this?

You have to trust me when I say that my recordings sound better than most people I know with "pro" setups.
 
If you are on a really tight budget get a soundcard based on the Cmedia CMI-8738 chip. Examples include the zoltrix nightingale pro and leadtek winfast 6x sound. They are virtually identical to the maudio dio 24/48 and cheaper (they also have 6 channel outputs and joystick/midi port). They can use the dio's drivers if you need asio support. The digital inputs allow 24 bit recording at 44.1 or 48khz and they do not resample (a good thing) unlike creative's cards. Unfortunately the analog outputs are pretty crap (as bad or worse than the live). Unfortunately the Dio2448 is no longer supported by maudio so there are no future driver updates. Cmedia obviously is still providing driver updates but with no asio support.

If I were you I would spend the extra cash for an m-audio audiophile or echo mia. It doesnt sound like you have a good DAC so you should get a soundcard with good converters as well as digital i/o. The difference in DAC sound quality between a mia and a live is very obvious to me.

Ambi wasnt calling your recordings garbage. What he meant was why buy an Audigy (which has many problems when used for recording - do a search) when you can get an Audiophile for the same price or less.
 
Thanks for the advice.
I know you get tired of hearing the same stuff over again. :)

I guess I want my cake and eat it too in a way but I know that there has to be a decent solution out there for me. I want a good audio card for games (my machine is kickass for games ;) - including Athlon XP 2600+ and Radeon 9700 Pro ) and a simple, yet effective way of getting audio from my digital 16 track workstation into my computer.

I'm not bent on having 96khz. 48 should do fine for me. That is why I'm looking at the m-audio Dio 2448 card. Having something like that will allow me to pitch my SB-Live Platinum and use my onboard audio with my Asus A7N8X (which rivals the Audigy 2 in performance and quality). I'd be a happy camper at that point.
 
Well any of those cmedia 8738 cards will do what you want regarding digital input. There is no point getting a dio2448 when a zoltrix or leadtek is quite a bit cheaper and virtually identical and can use the same drivers (just download them from the maudio website).

However if you get an Audiophile or Mia you will be able to record 4 tracks simultaneously (2 via analog and 2 via digital). Plus you wont be able to use both your MB soundcard and your cmedia/dio card simultaneously so you will be stuck with the crappy analog outputs of the cmedia/dio when recording. And I think you will find the Mia will sound better than the realtek DACs on your asus.

If you didnt already have built in sound on your MB, I would recommend you a terratec dmx6fire which is good for both recording and games. However you dont need it since you can use the built in sound for games and get a Mia or audiophile for recording.
 
ambi said:
God these newbies need to start reading old posts. i mean christ even the new posts. We have about 3 threads a day about sound cards.

First i'm gonna tell you creative cards are garbage for recording, they are gaming card.
There is a thread, probably on this page that is a debate on this topic, explaining why it's garbage. if you search you'll find tons of threads outlining details all most cards.

But a really good cheap place to start researching is the maudio audiophile 2496

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=83175


http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=83953

Sorry for getting pissed off, i remember when i first started here. It's just that, as you can imagine, a lot of people, especailly people starting off, have similar questions. And i've seen that question about 400 times. maybe literally. And think of the real veterans on here, how many times they've seen them! but then again i probably asked them as well when i came, so eh. But search is a great tool!
Click to expand...

NICE TO SEE MY THREADS HAVE MADE THE HEADLINES HA HA HA HA ..........TO ALL NEWBIES STAY OFF SOUNDBLASTER.......
 
timothydog said:
I don't want a big pro audio card.
I want a simple card with a digital input.. like the M-audio Dio 2448. Are there any others like this?

You have to trust me when I say that my recordings sound better than most people I know with "pro" setups.
Click to expand...

I Agree with you on this 100% as i can play you a cd that was recorded by a PROFFESIONAL studio and it cost the band an arm and a leg and i can play you a cd i created on pc with a sound card that is "shit" to many (a vortex card goes up to 18bit) and you will agree with me that my recording is similar or infact BETTER.
So when you say it is NOT the equipment but KNOWING how to use it you are 100% Correct..........

Good luck to you
 
alfalfa said:
Plus you wont be able to use both your MB soundcard and your cmedia/dio card simultaneously so you will be stuck with the crappy analog outputs of the cmedia/dio when recording. And I think you will find the Mia will sound better than the realtek DACs on your asus.
Click to expand...

OK. That's what I need to know. I didn't know that I wouldn't be able to use one card for input and one for output. Maybe I will be looking for the next step up then. The Audiophile 2496 looks promising. $150 bucks is do-able.. (better than 200 for audigy 2). Then I have to figure out my speaker setup.
 
Tim, I said the card is garbage, not you.

Also just for your information due to budget reasons i'm still using a sound blaster live value.

I've gotten better results than people i've heard using much more expensive mics and sound cards as well. It's all about knowing what you're doing and spending time with mic placement and room adjustment to get a good sound, i agree.

But that doesn't change the fact that the recordings would have been a LOT better and had a lot less noise had i used a real recording card. Even if i stuck with 44/16 it would have been huge (No reason why i wouldn't go 44/24 for even bigger results, but whatever floats your boat). Also i wouldn't have been limited to 2 channels and would have had more flexibility while recording sources where my results would have been improved using more channels.

And the fact of the matter is that the drivers and softwear interfaces for soundblaster cards are made for gaming. Most recording cards don't even have any of the fancy support for games, because they are recording cards! They are made soley for that purpose and they do a damn good job, where the creative cards are made for gaming and recording is an afterthought. I suppose the new Audigy 2 has had more work into bringing up the recording side (as i hear...) but it's still not a recording card!

So yea, if you want to buy a new audigy 2 ex platinum, spend your money, i'm sure you'll continue to learn and get good results, but you could get better results using something different.
 
I know what you mean ambi. I was just a bit put off by the way you seemed to snark at me a little bit. It's all good. ;)

Yah, I've been using SBLive Platinum for 2 years now and I've got some decent results but I think I am beginning to see (hear?) the limitations. Not to mention that it is just totally killing my games with glitches and stutters. I mean, it's not even able to do the thing that it is supposedly best at, games!

Audigy 2 is looking more and more unattractive now as I delve deeper into info on these entry level pro-audio cards. My best option is seeming to be to use my onboard audio for games (that which rivals the audigy 2) and the excellent audiophile 2496 for recording.
 
That sounds like a sweet setup. I'm going to be doing the same thing, or maybe a delta 44 if i need the outputs/don't need the spdf.

Yea i was a bit snarking sorry i was in a sour mood, my fault. It's all good.

I like the audiophile 2496 for midi and spdf, the delta 44 doesn't have those. If i wanted to still do midi with a delta 44 i'd have to buy something like the maudio midisport as well as the card, or keep my creative card.

But i have a feeling for me having 4 inputs/outputs would come in handy. Especially because i could switch between monitors and my multmedia speakers usin the 4 outputs. Not to mention headphones, yikes, i'd need 6 outputs for that. I won't be using a mixer, so, i have to work out all of the little tricks.
 
Yah. I'm really happy with my computer so far. For gaming it is excellent (especially my Radeon 9700 PRO ;) ).

When I get my audio thing figured out, I'm going for some Mackie HR824's and probably another 60-80 gig drive for audio only. For the time being, I only need one SPDIF in really. The MIDI i/o is attractive as well seeings how I use deep editing with my POD 2.0 patches.
 
My system is getting a little old. Tbird 1.2 gig, 512 megs of pc133 ram (cas2), ATI Radeon 64 meg ddr vi/vo (first radeon), sb live, etc..

But it holds up for mixing and i can still play some new games with the grafix down a bit. I just bought an acoustic guitar, and when the new Yamaha p90 keyboard comes out to replace the p80 i want to get that so that i can learn to play.

And then a sound card and monitoring speakers, and then mics and preamps, and then....
my god...
 
timothydog said:
Yah. I'm really happy with my computer so far. For gaming it is excellent (especially my Radeon 9700 PRO ;) ).

When I get my audio thing figured out, I'm going for some Mackie HR824's and probably another 60-80 gig drive for audio only. For the time being, I only need one SPDIF in really. The MIDI i/o is attractive as well seeings how I use deep editing with my POD 2.0 patches.
Click to expand...

I also chose the radeon 9700 pro for my new system that will be ready in a week or so
By the sounds of it you seem to be happy with yours.
Looks like i made a good choice
 
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