Sound card

[clint e.]

A friend of mine bought a new sound card, Club 3D Theatron Agrippa DTS 7.1 for 69 €, which blow me away...it has the AK4396, a killer Dac from asahi-kasei.
I think that's should be my next comp upgrade.

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[Hilltroll]

Home theater for your computer? What's that about?

Bob

[clint e.]

Most of the sound cards nowadays allow us to choose between two or more speakers. My actual sound card is a X-Fi 5.1 from Creative. Of course, i use it only two channel mode, but my kids have a set of 5 small speakers plus the subwoofer also from Creative and plug them only for games.
The reason to choose the Club 3D Theatron Agrippa DTS 7.1 is the AK4396 dac - which is awesome. The other sound cards from Club 3D doesn't use this dac.

[JimmyNeutron]

Clint, how does the card compare to the X-Fi soundwise? How does it sound in 2 channel mode with lossless playback?

Jimmy

[clint e.]

Hey Jimmy
Well, let me tell you that is the best sound card I ever listen to.
Very detail, great soundstage & imageing and naturalness plus very controlled and wheighty bass, and the dynamics are smashing...
IMHO, it's a better card than my X-Fi.
And yes, you could use it only in 2 channel mode with lossless playback.
Just one more thing. The card needs a long break in period before you can judge it`s sound.

This post has been edited by clint e. on June 14, 2007 10:37 am

[clint e.]

Talking about sound cards...Something about Creative X-Fi soundcards:

Creative spent money on a new DSP and architecture. With its 400MHz core speed, 51 million transistors and 10,000 MIPS, the X-Fi, according to Creative, has 24 times the power of an Audigy 2 ZS and equals the power of a 3.4GHz general purpose CPU.

Creative build the X-Fi into three distinct PCBs, with four versions of the card available at retail:
The basic X-Fi XtremeMusic features a multichannel 24-bit Cirrus Logic DAC, a Wolfson 24-bit ADC, and 2MB of “XRAM.”
The X-Fi Platinum adds a bay adapter to the XtremeMusic.
The Fatal1ty FPS uses the same DACs as the XtremeMusic but ups the XRAM to 64MB and gives you a status LED.
All three can hit 109dB SNR, which is just a tick better than the 2 ZS’ 108dB. The Elite Pro can hit 116dB thanks to its higher-end AKM dac.
What’s XRAM for? They say, it act as a local audio buffer eventually...

One more thing, X-Fi is the first card to combine technology from Aureal, Sensaura, and Creative. As you’d expect with that kind of pedigree, it sounds pretty fantastic.

[clint e.]

RMAA 5.5 SoundBlaster Testing Methodology from Creative

X-fi Series Testing Methodology

Audigy 2 ZS Series Testing Methodology

Audigy1 Setup Guide

RMAA 5.5

This post has been edited by clint e. on September 03, 2007 05:50 am

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[clint e.]

A cheap and simple option from Behringer. No drivers or other setting changes required either.
It has a digital out option, so you could continue to use your favourite dac, or not...

http://www.behringer.com/UCA202/