is the creative soundblaster audigy 2ZS platinum any good for recording?

P

poprobot

New member
my wife bought me this card yesterday to replace the audiophile 2496 i'd been having problems with...

but it looks like the SB is more suited for watching/listening to dvd's in 7.1 surround or booming video games than for the purpose of quality home recording.

i was thinking of going with something along the lines of the delta 44 or 410... anyone here ever do any decent recording with a soundblaster audigy? or would you recommend i return it and go with the deltas?
 
All SB's are just as you say....high performance gaming cards nothing more. The delta cards are fine recording cards and Im suprised to hear you were having problems with the AP. Its a highly reliable and efficient card.
 
I'm having a few problems with my audiophile also and started thinking about getting soundblaster....what OS are you running it on? theres one guy around here that did some pretty good recordings with the audigy 2zs so i know you can get some decent sounding stuff...but everyone will tell ya that even as "suped up" as the audigy is...it still only records at 16/48 when theres 24/96 out there.
 
A simple search would have returned THIS THREAD.

Hopefully, we don't go down that path again. My advice is to return the Audigy and stick with M-Audio. Soundblaster is a step down. What kind of problem were you having with the Audiophile that made you want to give it up?
 
I have used an Audigy 2 Platinum for about one year now. I also had a Delta 44 for about one week. I layed down varies guitar tracks on both and asked if anyone could tell the difference. Out of about 10 people, only one person noticed a difference. He said one track was more trebly than the other, he was refering to the Delta.

So from my experience, the Audigy 2 Platinum is fine (the ZS is nearly identical). It is limited by only having having 1 input but that may only be a problem for some.
 
my problem with audiophile was that i was catching hell trying to get it to work on windows me....sacrificing a hundred bucks that i had saved up for monitor speakers i went and bought xp and the kinks were worked out...still got a decent pair of monitors for 300 so i came out ok....and i usually only use one input anyways
 
I'm glad you are happy with the Audigy, but I'm a little suspect of your listening test with the Delta 44.
1)What did you record?
2)How did you record it? (mics, pres, room acoustics, etc...)
3)What did use to listen to the playback?
4)What settings did you record with the Delta? It can record 24 bit/96khz, whereas the Audigy can only to 16-bit.

This is not slamming the Soundblaster, as it will record your stuff decently, but I find something must have been lacking for no one to notice a difference between the M-Audio and the SB.

dmbpettit said:
I have used an Audigy 2 Platinum for about one year now. I also had a Delta 44 for about one week. I layed down varies guitar tracks on both and asked if anyone could tell the difference. Out of about 10 people, only one person noticed a difference. He said one track was more trebly than the other, he was refering to the Delta.

So from my experience, the Audigy 2 Platinum is fine (the ZS is nearly identical). It is limited by only having having 1 input but that may only be a problem for some.
Click to expand...
 
I recorded in 16bit for both cards (i didn't think that would make a big difference). On various tracks i would mic my acoustic guitar, run the pickup directly in, and I would also mic an acoustic amp. I used all of these techniques seperately, never on the same test. I don't have the best monitors in the world, just some 400 watt logitech speakers.
 
poprobot,

I think i depends on what you plan on doing with your card. One input may be enough for your needs. The sound quality sould be good enough.

I haven't used SB stuff since SB16 but if I were you I'd check out the latency before getting a card. It can make a big difference.

Daedalus
 
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