Creative Labs next sound card?

boe · Post by **boe** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 12:49 pm

Hello,

This isn't so much about silencing my PC but it is why I want a quiet PC. I currently have an Audigy 2zs. A very nice card but I want to hook it via optical to my preamp. I have some very nice speakers/sub/amp and would much rather hook my pc up to them for gaming than a cambridge or other speaker system. The cambridge do something my preamp can't though. Since the Audigy does not support all surround out formats as it does not have an encoder built on, my preamp will play stereo only for some games and other sources. Creative has confirmed this but they also mentioned that the price and technology are now favorable for putting them on a card. They didnt' give me any details on what model (if any) it would be available on or a release date. Has anyone heard any details?

Thanks

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:04 pm

After the SoundBlaster Live! nightmares I wasn't interested in Creative anymore.

Look elsewhere - specifically http://www.terratec.com/

I have the DMX 6/Fire card. At the time it came out it was top of the line (for $250). The Creative Audigy "24-bit" soundcard was a complete piece.

Spend a little more $$$ for German Engineering.

Nebor · Post by **Nebor** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:13 pm

Simply put, there's nothing out there, aside from Soundstorm (motherboard exclusive) that can encode things to a DD signal for your reciever. Any other sound card you can get will give you 2 channel only in all applications that don't have DD or DTS encoding.

You did bring some good news in letting us know that the Audigy 3 will have encoding abilities though. That makes me happy. It should be out by christmas.

mpteach · Post by **mpteach** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:15 pm

if your running digital out get the M audio Audiophile 2496.

discdude · Post by **discdude** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:56 pm

Nebor wrote:Simply put, there's nothing out there, aside from Soundstorm (motherboard exclusive) that can encode things to a DD signal for your reciever. Any other sound card you can get will give you 2 channel only in all applications that don't have DD or DTS encoding.

You did bring some good news in letting us know that the Audigy 3 will have encoding abilities though. That makes me happy. It should be out by christmas.

CMedia's upcoming CMI8768 supposedly can encode things to DD as well. Good news is that it is pin-compatible with the old 8738 line so soundcards based on this new chip should be extremely cheap.

http://www.cmedia.com.tw/product/CMI8768.htm

boe · Post by **boe** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 6:51 pm

As for the post someone mentioned the Audigy 3 - I haven't heard anything about this - are you saying you have? Or were you interpreting what I said as me actually knowing something about the next sound card? If so all I know is creative has told me the technology is now reasonably affordable and fast enough to put on a card. They didn't say if they were or they were not including it on their next card. That is why I'm asking if anyone has heard any details on their next card- encoding release date etc.

I'm reasonbly happy with the Audigy 2zs short of the surround out. I would be open to alternatives as long as they were well supported by games and had the EAX technology. Is that proprietary for Creative or are there other cards that have this?

Here is one of the better threads I've found about my issue - http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.c ... adid=55606

mpteach · Post by **mpteach** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:25 pm

hopefully creative improves the audio quality and drivers for the new audigy.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:19 pm

If only they'd deal with the resample issue...

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:40 pm

Edward Ng wrote:If only they'd deal with the resample issue...

I wish they would do that too...

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:03 pm

Personally, I recommend Echo Audio's Mia MIDI to people wishing to have clean, sample-rate locked digital output with full software support for kernel streaming and ASIO, as well as a proprietary mode that accepts Wave Out sourcing but bypasses Kmixer resampling (Echo's proprietary PureWave mixer mode), useful for simpler software that only supports WaveOut, such as MusicMatch. Be aware, however, that the car is not for gamers or people interested in surround sound output, as it's more of a budget, semipro musician's card, geared more towards stereophonic utilization. For audiophile grade digital stereo reproduction, however, I rather think it a wonderful product!!! The mixer console has full control over sample rates with a full user lock option, and supports both forms of digital out, S/PDIF or AES/EBU! Again, that feature is easily controlled through the mixer panel of the latest drivers.

-Ed

Nebor · Post by **Nebor** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:22 am

Edward Ng wrote:If only they'd deal with the resample issue...

I would expect resampling to 48khz in the Audigy 3 as well. The fact is, more small time developers benefit from it than audio enthusiasts are hurt by it. The good outweighs the bad. Creative's official response is that 48khz is an industry standard; all the CDs you hear are recorded at 48khz and downsampled to 44.1khz for production. Resampling just doesn't cause a huge hit to audio quality. I'm sorry, it doesn't. There may be a slight difference, but it's not so huge that you can quantify it in most cases.

And seeing as how Creative never budged an inch on resampling before, I seriously doubt they will this time. I don't expect them to. I wouldn't mind if they didn't. I'll still buy an Audigy3. My Audigy 2 plays back music good enough for me, but the true difference is in gaming. Those of you with Audigy 2s, try a game w/ EAX 3.0 vs. EAX 2.0. EAX 3.0 is MASSIVELY better. I was shocked when I tried it with Call of Duty.

Anyways, enough of a rant. Here's hoping the Audigy 3 has DD encoding, and comes out before Christmas.

boe · Post by **boe** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 5:52 am

I'd suggest if enough people ask, they might start releasing info or at least make sure that it is on their next card - [email protected]

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 7:31 am

Industry Standard for CDs is 24bit, 96KHz, then downsampled to 16bit, 44.1kHz. This is shifting to 192kHz, though.

You can hear the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96. Of course I do record music, so I'm probably biased.

deathbyburrito · Post by **deathbyburrito** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 7:54 am

If you're simply looking for the same effect as Soundstorm (encoding to DD) the latest version of ac3Filter contains a software encoder that may accomplish what you are looking to do.

boe · Post by **boe** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 4:56 am

I guess I'm a little frustrated by the lack of news. ATI, nVidia, Intel, AMD make announcements about what to expect about 6 months in advance. With Creative, it is usually when the product is about to ship.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 6:32 am

POLIST8 wrote:You can hear the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96. Of course I do record music, so I'm probably biased.

I wonder... We already know that the OUTPUT gets resampled to 48kHz. Do Creative (and other) card's resample the input?

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 6:45 am

The Echo Audio Mia MIDI does not resample input signals. Can't speak for other cards.

boe · Post by **boe** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:34 am

I've had no luck finding anything out abou their next sound card. Does anyone know what the next expo Creative will be at?

markjia · Post by **markjia** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 9:31 am

M-Audio's Revolution 7.1 card is supposed to support EAX, so it should work with your games. It probably doesn't have all the features of the Audigy line, but the sound quality will be no comparison.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 9:46 am

markjia wrote:...but the sound quality will be no comparison.

Except in games, where full support for up to EAX4 will allow the Creative cards to pull away, not just featurewise, but also qualitywise (because EAX4, as a feature, improves upon the sound effects quality in games). Really depends on how you interprete it.

Of course, it also depends on how much you care about support all the wya to the latest EAX version and what games you play/how much you game/how seriously you take your gaming.

I think many of us care more about the quality of our music than the quality of the sound effects when we game.

Personally, I just said screw it; built one rig for high fidelity music reproduction and a separate rig for gaming. Of course, I do know this is not a viable solution for most people...

-Ed

Nebor · Post by **Nebor** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:34 pm

I notice games sound much better w/ EAX 4 compared to EAX 2.

But I cannot notice a quantifiable difference between playing a CD through my audigy 2 to my gigaworks speakers from playing a CD on my denon stereo to my mission speakers.

I'd say sure, they're different, but I can't definitely say that one is 'better.' So because of that, and the huge difference in gaming, I'll continue to go w/ creative.

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