Best Sound Card for Vista x64?

[Scotteq]

@Coolchris: On your recommendations, which I gathered through lurking, I bought and last night installed an Azuntech Prelude 7.1.


(1) There are brand new drivers/software on their site which include the Dolby Digital Live patch, which is also available. Dated 12/28: Auzentech, Inc. Sound Cards. Audio You Can Believe In. World First soundcards for Music, HTPC, and Gaming. I obviously have good timing.


(2) After listening for a bit, I have (temporarily) switched to the Denon headphones which I.... liberated.... from the living room. The Plantronics headset I used to be quite happy with is now in the trash. Looking at options - Probably going to have to go with separate headphone and microphone. Hmmm... Sennheiser.... Klipsch.... Audio-Technica....


(3) I now "had" to buy a new stereo for my office. Poked around online and found a deal I just could NOT pass up: Amazon.com: Nakamichi SoundSpace 8.5 Home Theater System with Surround Processor, DVD/CD Player, 5 Satellite Speakers, and Dual Subwoofers: Electronics

So a US $200 sound card is costing me another $600.... Thanks.... <ya bastid>

 

[coolchris]

LOL. Yep, it can get quite expensive to get a good setup..but believe me its well worth it and you will wonder what hit your ears! (and your pocket, lol). As you can see from my sig Ihave the Onkyo 605 receiver coupled up to £600 speakers and have attached this to the Auzentech XMeridian via an optical digital cable. Sweeeet!
Christ..just had a look at that bargain. Man..2500 dollars originally. Snap it up!
Glad to see I have another convert to audio heaven. Enjoy.
Headphones...Sennheiser all the way. I have a pair of HD 595 for HIFi listening and for gaming I have a set of Senns with microphone..sorry cant remember the number, but its their gaming headset.

 

[DjLevel9]

Computer ED,
I use Creative Lab Xtreme Fidelity X-Fi
and use the 7-1 in and works great it was desinged for xp Origonaly but i got it to work with vista Ultimate i don't use vista drivers for use the drivers that came with and tweak it in the setting for the 7-1 souround sound works great and i'm really pleased i tryed other sound cards like my sound for my music and movies are important to me i don't listen to other people most of the times when it comes to my computer I buy products that are gonna work for me and it this sound card works for all the power it's how it set up once set i'm sure you will be happy i know .i go through my stereo with the out put not computer speakers they Distort or sound like crap also you're stereo you're useing must be aible to support it as well and use the Gold Plug connectortors the silver are crap and check the wireing cause it can fail through a power brown out and they can be fryed it happened to a few times till i got the new Power Surge Bar lol

when running our online radio stations we have know troubles cause I configoure everything to run right and make sure cause no one wan'ts to ****ty sounds that base is way off the sound bounce's from speaker s to speaker sound sound cards are only capaible to only use 46 KHZ Or Lower i use 96KHZ but depends on the sound card keep that use's it's own resorced if uses you're on board processor to runn it it goes through a lot of resorces to composate to make up the diffrence in the Qaulity use a sound card that uses it's own resorces,

 

[ltwally]

To answer Itwallys question about Auzentechs drivers for the Prelude...they are made in conjunction with Creative...sort of a joint venture, however merely within a couple of months the Auzen techies have done what Creative by themselves have not been able to achieve with the XFi....Digital. Seems (Un)Creative needed some brains and a kick up the ass.
I think you can tell that I ain't a Creative software lover whatsoever. Hardware fine..in-house software development useless.

I would totally agree with your assessment of Creative software. I tend to only install the bare minimum of their software. Like I'd said, before: I'm no audiophile. As long as the drivers don't blue-screen my system, I'm happy. (Anyone else remember the SB Live! original drivers for Windows NT 4.0? The ones that would cause a BSOD at boot if you ran an SMP kernel? Yeah. That was lovely.)

So, back to my original question: Will the Auzentech devices work with stock drivers for Creative stuff? (ie. If I install an OS without official Auzentech support, will it see it as a Creative Labs compatible soundcard and just use the Creative drivers (assuming it has them)? Or will it see it as an unrecognized device and do nothing with it?)

As I see it, one of the largest advantages for Auzentech sharing the same hardware would be being able to use generic X-Fi drivers. Just my $0.02, though.

 

[ltwally]

Well as far as I am concerned...look at my sig. Great amp and I have £600 speakers attached. I would say that pretty much covers it for the time being?

Might I inquire into what speakers?

I use a set of Klipsch Pro Media Ultra 5.1's for my computer - which for me is more than enough for a computer.

I'm not an audiophile - but I do know a couple (including my father). I grew up with a pair of Klipschorns in the living room. Brand's like Electrostat and Definitive are owned by friends, and folks who own Bose get sneared at regularly.

 

[coolchris]

HI Itwally. Well don't really know if the Prelude will work with stock Creative drivers. I only have the Auzentech XMeridian which does not have full EAX and therefore nothing at all to do with Creative (hooray).
My speakers..they are the KEF 3005. Luverly.

 

[WildEagle]

I stuck my HT OMEGA CLARO back in my system after trying two Creative cards, one an Audigy 2ZS, the second a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer card. Neither one could handle two audio sources at the same time, ie listening music over the internet and gaming at the same time, and always popping and crackling would happen.

For me the best soundcard for Vista 64 is my HT OMEGA CLARO.

 

[coolchris]

Just changed to the Prelude. Good card especially for gaming. Dolby Digital is now implemented in the drivers and DTS etc will be implemented at a later date. So far I am very impressed with this card and has some excellent DACS onboard, which incidentally can be hotswapped. Niiiice.

They have also announced a HDMI addon for this card at CES2008. Go to the Auzentech site for more details. This thing is getting better by the minute.

 

[ltwally]

I stuck my HT OMEGA CLARO back in my system after trying two Creative cards, one an Audigy 2ZS, the second a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer card. Neither one could handle two audio sources at the same time, ie listening music over the internet and gaming at the same time, and always popping and crackling would happen.

For me the best soundcard for Vista 64 is my HT OMEGA CLARO.

Which drivers did you use? Stock vista drivers? Downloaded from Creative? Did you try different versions? Creative Labs is not known for producing high quality software, so that is as likely a culprit as any. Still, you should have been able to find at least 1 driver that worked.

Did you try swapping the cards to different PCI slots? Did you check and see if there were any resource conflicts or unusual sharings? (ie. If your NIC and your soundcard were both sharing the same DMA port, it's possible that could be your problem right there.)

Do you have another computer running Vista x64 to try either card in? (Preferably another computer with a different model of motherboard!)

Otherwise, there is nothing about those cards that is inherently unsuitable for what you described doing. I've certainly never experienced any problems with audio from my X-Fi.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying Creative Labs makes the most terrific products in the world -- but what you described is unusually poor behavior, to say the least. I have a hard time believing that there wasn't something occuring to cause that kind of behavior.

 

[ltwally]

They have also announced a HDMI addon for this card at CES2008. Go to the Auzentech site for more details. This thing is getting better by the minute.

I'm too lazy to read about it... so instead I'll pester you:

Certainly HDMI can carry an audio signal... but what is the point without a video signal, as well? So, am I to assume they're going to have a combination audio/video card?

Otherwise... using HDMI for audio just doesn't make sense. That's what we have SPDI/FI/IEFEIO (yeah, I can't recall the acronym. It's 1am and I can't seem to sleep) and optical outputs for.

 

[ltwally]

HI Itwally. Well don't really know if the Prelude will work with stock Creative drivers. I only have the Auzentech XMeridian which does not have full EAX and therefore nothing at all to do with Creative (hooray).
My speakers..they are the KEF 3005. Luverly.

Never heard of 'em... the reviews that I saw were fairly positive, though... but holy crap those are ridiculously expensive speakers for a computer!

 

[ingeborgdot]

The HT Omega is so much better for sound quality than the creative card I had it's not even funny. I thought it sounded good until I put in the HT Omega Claro and my mouth just dropped as to how nice of a sound it had. HT Omega all the way baby.

 

[WildEagle]

The HT Omega is so much better for sound quality than the creative card I had it's not even funny. I thought it sounded good until I put in the HT Omega Claro and my mouth just dropped as to how nice of a sound it had. HT Omega all the way baby.

I know, I know the HT OMEGA is better. I tried a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer, ended up taking that piece of junk back to the store, told them why, including that the X-Fi couldn't handle two audio sources at one, ie gaming and listening to music, like my HT Omega Claro could.

My HT Omega Claro is sitting in my system, handling all my computer audio needs.

 

[ltwally]

two ASUS 640MB 8800GTS cards in SLI

Holy crap.

 

[coolchris]

HI Itwally. Well don't really know if the Prelude will work with stock Creative drivers. I only have the Auzentech XMeridian which does not have full EAX and therefore nothing at all to do with Creative (hooray).
My speakers..they are the KEF 3005. Luverly.

Never heard of 'em... the reviews that I saw were fairly positive, though... but holy crap those are ridiculously expensive speakers for a computer!

The speakers are part of my Home Theatre setup, so they are not specifically for computing. Its just that I have the PC connected to my amp via digital, therefore they go through to the Kefs.

 

[WildEagle]

two ASUS 640MB 8800GTS cards in SLI

Holy crap.

The two cards cost me $860.00, as I bought them from a local retailer.

 

[ltwally]

Holy crap.

The two cards cost me $860.00, as I bought them from a local retailer.

Either
A) You live with your parents
B) You have no woman
C) You make too much damn money and I need to get a job with you.

 

[WildEagle]

The two cards cost me $860.00, as I bought them from a local retailer.

Either
A) You live with your parents
B) You have no woman
C) You make too much damn money and I need to get a job with you.

I'm not in to drugs, alcohol, and I don't have a woman, and I figured I would treat myself to a decent gaming system.

 

[ltwally]

Either
A) You live with your parents
B) You have no woman
C) You make too much damn money and I need to get a job with you.

I'm not in to drugs, alcohol, and I don't have a woman, and I figured I would treat myself to a decent gaming system.

You, sir, have succeeded.

 

[coolchris]

Either
A) You live with your parents
B) You have no woman
C) You make too much damn money and I need to get a job with you.

I'm not in to drugs, alcohol, and I don't have a woman, and I figured I would treat myself to a decent gaming system.

Now thats heaven!