im in the market to buy a new soundcard (goodbye sb16 old friend you have served me well) & i spotted in ccl computers (www.cclcomputers.co.uk & as its only in tong by bradford i dont have to order off the net, only a hour bus ride yipee ) a gametheatre XP going cheaper than a soundblaster audigy & i was wondering what would give me the best sound quality a soundblaster or the gametheatre XP. i ask this as im using a farely high quality speaker system (technics scd v250 component system with the signal frm my pc routed through a yamaha minidisc recorder so i need a high quality soundcard, im not bothered about gaming only music (i only have 2 games, nascar & serious sam installed anyway) oh if anyone has a game theatre or audigy can you tell me how long the cable is between the breakout box as my hifi system is on the other side of my room (hoping to use a really short high quality peice of qed interconect between the breakout box & my amp)
I own an Audigy MP3+, which doesn't include the breakout box (same card just no live drive), but I love it. Great sound quality, and will definetely get you better sound then a Game Theatre card. I would definetely go with the Audigy in this situation, expecially if your looking to route it to a high quality speaker system.
just win 98, im very interested in the soundcards that have external breakout boxes, does that mean that some of the decoding gets done inside the breakout box (trying to keep all interference away from the precious audio rout)
the only one with the breakout boxes are the hercules games theatre xp and the creative extigy....the extigy runs on ur usb port and therfore drains cpu power....the hercules games theatre xp does all decoding in pc and then the box is used as an output input box really externally so people dont have to crawl around behind their pcs....
that is a shame that is as it would be so wett, how about those yamaha external audio decoders, they plug into a usb but i dont think they drain what do you think of them http://www.yamaha-audio.co.uk/pchometheatre/processor/
anything attached to your usb port will use part of your cpu to process the data going in and out on ur usb port.... but yamaha are quite good home cinema wise but a bit clinical sound wise...
relly i fell that my yamaha equiptment is on the soft soft sode not as you would call clinical but then agian one mans trash is one mans treasue (hell you probably spent more on cable than i did no my whole setup)
sorry...cant help it.... if youre runin win 98 i would most likely say get the audigy, as it works fine under win98 (unlike XP from wat i hear) and i have the soundblaster live and i am quite happy with the results i get from the soundcard playing on my hifi....
yea well i think any soundcard will be an improvement over the one i have (sb16 lasted me through 2 completely different systems), i origanally thought the game theater xp as it was cheaper & there is the problem after my exams (6 weeks) im gooa upgrade to xo & i have linux installed as well (mandrake 7.2) so it has to work under linux as well
