PCI soundcards with wavetable headers

[Locutus]

Your link doesn't seem to work...

[shad0wfax]

Just delete the "b" in "bhttp:......"

[Alistair]

I think this sentence:

Santa Cruz is definitely your best bet. Though, if card quality is less important to you than the wavetable quality, go for the Sound Blaster Live.

Is quite self evident.

The Santa Cruz is a better card, right? But if you don't care about the quality of the card and care more about wavetable synths (or gaming for that matter, i.e. EAX), buy the Live!.


And, Zemus- my ears! I used a Live! on this rig for like, 5 years. Awful noisy card that although I have nostalgia for I have nothing much else for. The sound quality was poor at best and the noise was unbelievable. Since I plugged in the Santa Cruz, life's been much easier. You can hear WAV files perfectly and get much better sound out of my Roland/Yamaha modules.

Regards,
- Alistair

[Locutus]

Well, personally I must say that I don't like the review very much. It has some interesting facts, but especially when the author gets to the listening tests, it lacks objectiveness, as the author states himself. What I want from a soundcard is to reproduce the input source as accurately as possible, nothing more.

I think, the description, that the output signal sounds "natural", "ethereal" or whatever can strongly be affected by subliminal influences and therefore does hardly belong in a soundcard test. I don't believe that anyone could possibly hear any differences between those two sound cards, given the correct drivers are being used and the system is setup correctly.

Differences might be measurable and be important for music production / mixing, but I don't think one can actually hear them. IF you can hear any difference, it's more likely that there's something wrong with drivers, system setup such as IRQ lines, mixer settings, EQ, EAX or whatever.

And I don't like the choice of the test system. Windows 98 is not exactly a stable, reliable system. There are just too many things that can affect the quality of sound output that haven't been taken into account.

I used a Live! myself for quite some time and haven't recognized any noise.

However, both cards are consumer products that are not up-to-date anymore. So, I'd just buy a Santa Cruz, work with it a while, do the same with the Live! and then get rid of the card, I don't like.

Regards,
locutus

[Zemus]

I used a Live! myself for quite some time and haven't recognized any noise.

Same here. The last Creative card I owned that was noisy was the AWE32, but given its age that's not surprising. When I do measurements and compare to the Audigy 2 I own now, I can see that the Live! is noisier, but I wouldn't call it an "awful noisy card".

And drivers or the OS... Are there anything at all about those degrading the sound quality? Not saying anyone's wrong, I just prefer documentation over speculation.

[Locutus]

And drivers or the OS... Are there anything at all about those degrading the sound quality? Not saying anyone's wrong, I just prefer documentation over speculation. :)

Well, what I can say for sure is that IRQ sharing for example can lead to pops and clicks, when two devices share the same IRQ line and if one of the drivers or the OS doesn't support this feature correctly. As for the drivers, you must keep in mind that the Live! has a whole effects processor in there which can seriously mess up sound quality if not intialized / programmed correctly.

I also recall that I had a problem with the Live! after stand-by/hibernation mode. There was a Live! driver version which caused noticeable distortion after the system wakes up from hibernation mode. Just take a look at Creative's support site, under "Details" for LiveDrvPack_Patch.exe:

Fixes & Features:
- Removes Wave distortion after system returns from hibernation state.

System configuration CAN (if rarely) affect sound quality. What I am trying to say is, that I wouldn't be so quick to judge a card simply by running a few tests with ONE driver. Also, the author describes in the article that he used a beta driver for the tests...

I am not saying that the Live! or the Santa Cruz is a better card, I am just saying that these are questionable testing techniques. :-)

Personally, I'd go for the Santa Cruz, because I wouldn't want to miss the WaveBlaster connector.

Regards,
locutus

[Zemus]

Well, what I can say for sure is that IRQ sharing for example can lead to pops and clicks, when two devices share the same IRQ line and if one of the drivers or the OS doesn't support this feature correctly.

I forgot about this one. I actually had this problem with some Asus motherboard I used before. After I changed the motherboard, everything worked fine. Not sure if it was the IRQ that did it, but there was definitely clicking from time to time.

[Ari]

I think this sentence:

Santa Cruz is definitely your best bet. Though, if card quality is less important to you than the wavetable quality, go for the Sound Blaster Live.

Is quite self evident.

The Santa Cruz is a better card, right? But if you don't care about the quality of the card and care more about wavetable synths (or gaming for that matter, i.e. EAX), buy the Live!.

OK, now I understand what you meant. I thought you were talking about the waveblaster connecter, which doesn't exist on the Live! and therefore makes the Santa Cruz better in the wavetable dept., since you can attach a Roland or Yamaha DB, which makes it superior to the Live! in wavetable synthesis as well.

[Locutus]

(...) and therefore makes the Santa Cruz better in the wavetable dept., since you can attach a Roland or Yamaha DB, which makes it superior to the Live! in wavetable synthesis as well.

Well, I wouldn't be so quick with that statement either, since to my knowledge, the Live! can load VERY large soundfonts and the MIDI reverb controller is passed through the EMU10K, which can produce a wide variety of reverb effects using EAX. But if you say, that a Yamaha or Roland daughterboard sounds better nevertheless, I tend to agree. Until now, I have listened to some really good soundfonts, but none of them (including the sYnerGi GS!) sounded as good as my DB-50XG.

Regards,
locutus

[Mike 01Hawk]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I just wanted to let you guys know that there's a PCI card w/ wavetable header available @ Best Buy for $30 U.S.

The Dynex 5.1-Channel PCI Sound Card: Model: DX-SC5.1
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7180739&type=product&id=1110267355627

It has VIA chips on it, I got one when I was testing my daughter card.  I can take Macro Pics of it if anyone wants me to.

[HondaSiR]

$30.00 for a Dynex card? You've been had my friend...they can easily be bought in ebay for $0.99. There's even a 7.1 version now for only $5.99.

For around $30.00, the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz still is the best buy feature for feature IMO.

[Mike 01Hawk]

Sulk...

Dang.. looks like you're right.  Well.. figure ~$10 for shipping and having to wait for the auction to end + shipping time.  

It was a Saturday afternoon and I wanted some good ole American Instant Gratification so I just drove down to the local BB

[BlueMax]

Don't worry - you still did okay.

[glendower]

Santa Cruze is pretty fantastic. I can't recommend it enough.

[BlueMax]

True.  Using mine right now.    Would be using the DB too....  *sniff*  but it's dead.  *sniffle*