sound card picking again

  • Thread starter Thread starter warlock110
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warlock110

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here we go
i want an upgrade for my computer since i'll be doing some recording, just for fun, here's the contender

audigy 50 bucks
audigy 2 100 bucks
M-AUDIO Revolution 7.1 100bucks
Turtle beach riviera 40 bucks
Turtle beach santa cruz 60 bucks
Turtle beach catalina 70 bucks
M-AUDIO Delta 410 120 bucks

i've tried the audigy, didn't like it's recording compacity, so that one might go out before it actually enters the list, i'm in consideration of the turtle beach sound cards, the santa cruz is highly rated for it's clean line in, but i'm wondering if the riviera can have that same capacity for 20 bucks less, i'm on a tight budget, so any card above 80 will be hold off till i get more money, so of those cards under 80 which one is the bang for the buck? man i really like that riviera if it's good, here's the list of spec from turtle beach.com
http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/soundcards/comparisons.asp

hehe, if the santa cruz is 50 then i would get it, but it's 60, i don't feel that it's worth 60.

thanks.
 
Since you seem to be looking at a low-budget solution, take a look at the M-Audio Audiophile 2496. I don't own one (I own their 1010lt, like it), but it's name comes up a LOT around here, there's a ton of people who swear by it, especially considering the price, $150.

http://www.zzounds.com/a--2676837/item--MDOAP2496
 
What something cool said.

Save your money for the Audiophile. All the cards you list (except for the 410) are gamer cards - the manufacturer may say they can be used for recording, but the truth is they're not up to it like the Audiophile. They are cheap for a reason.

I wouldn't touch the 410 because its discontinued. Thats why its so cheap. I've been down this road before when starting off and thought I would save money and buy something not being made anymore. BAD IDEA! Discontinued means no tech support and updated drivers.
 
Another vote for the Audiophile. I have one. I used to have a 410 but sold it because I had no use for the extra outputs but I did for a midi interface.
It has worked flawlessly since the day that I got it. It works great with games as well.
You could call it an industry standard.
 
ABC - Anything But Creative. Stay away from "gamer" cards.

Any of the low-end cards (Audiophile, Echo Mia, Terratec) are going to give you terrific sound better than anything Creative can give you. For $100-150 you'll have better sound than any high-tech studio did up through the mid-1990s. And that's the LOW end of the 24-bit soundcard range.

Just go for it.
 
TimOBrien said:
For $100-150 you'll have better sound than any high-tech studio did up through the mid-1990s.
Click to expand...


which raises the question "do we with our low end 24 bit ADA convertors have better sound than all the big pro studio's had 10 years ago?"
 
Depends on what kind of signal you have going in. For $60, the Santa Cruz gives you 4-in/4-out recording capability. I've used this card in a system for a couple of years now and considering I paid $75 for it new, I'm completely satisified. Make sure if you get the Santa Cruz it's the retail version otherwise the "versa-jack" is crippled. Anyway, for 4/4 recording on the cheap, the Santa Cruz is definately a no-brainer.

Of course, my Delta 1010lt died on me and I'm in the process of trying to get the bastards at M-Audio to play nice and give me a RA#, but they're terrible to deal with. So, I'll be using the Santa Cruz a little more often for a while.

Oh, my initial point was that shit-in = shit-out. If you're using a POS low end mixer and mic pres then it really doesn't matter what card you're using it will still sound small, constricted, and amateur. That's why the Santa Cruz is your best bet unless you are feeding the card a good signal.
 
I currently have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, but I'll most likely be getting an Audiophile 24/96 within a couple of weeks.

The Santa Cruz is nice, but I have unworkable latency (20ms) with it. I'm going to upgrade my memory from 256 to 512 soon to see if that helps any, but I doubt it would be enough to get it under 10ms, which is generally considered the threshold for workable latency. The Audiophile is supposed to have better drivers which allow for faster performance (lower latency). Also, I want to be able to record at 24-bit, while the Santa Cruz maximum I believe is 20-bit although I haven't been able to get it to record higher than 16-bit.

I sympathize with the budgetary concerns - that's one of the reasons I just went with the Santa Cruz initially, but now I find myself upgrading anyway, so it might just be worth saving up the extra beans for a little bit higher-quality card out of the gate. Good luck with whatever you choose. :)
 
i'm in debate between the santa cruz and the riviera, both are made by the same company, riviera came out later, about 3 years later, and is 20 dollars cheaper, but i can't seems to find any info about it, even on the Turtle beach website, don't even know what chip it's using, I'm recroding some very basic stuff, i don't think i'll need anything extremely good, i might have to buy one each and tests. anyone used a rivera before?
 
update, check this out, for some bizzard reason, i've found out of all the card, the reviera and the audigy both doesn't record as well as the SB live!, they do sound better though, i've also tried the philip sonic edge, and it's sux at recording. alright, in about a week, i'm gonna go pick up the santa cruz n see how it performs, if it comes to the worst i'll take 30 bucks and go with the live, too bad it doesn't play music and games as good as all the card listed above.
Audigy has the semi best playback, but it's too "unreal"
reviera comes in as best playback, clear and clean sound
comes the sonic edge for best bang for the bucks, sounds real good for only 30 bucks.
 
warlock110 said:
update, check this out, for some bizzard reason, i've found out of all the card, the reviera and the audigy both doesn't record as well as the SB live!, they do sound better though, i've also tried the philip sonic edge, and it's sux at recording. alright, in about a week, i'm gonna go pick up the santa cruz n see how it performs, if it comes to the worst i'll take 30 bucks and go with the live, too bad it doesn't play music and games as good as all the card listed above.
Audigy has the semi best playback, but it's too "unreal"
reviera comes in as best playback, clear and clean sound
comes the sonic edge for best bang for the bucks, sounds real good for only 30 bucks.
Click to expand...


Why did you bother posting in the first place then? You just ignored everybody's advice. :rolleyes:

Good luck with your $30 soundcard. You get what you pay for...
 
i'm just testing out the water, i'll keep the advice in mind though, i've seen alot of post about sound cards and stuff, but most of the sound card adviced is just too expensive, so i'm just trying to find an alternative, i guess there's really no alternative, u get wat u pay for. :(
 
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