Razer AC-1 Barracuda?

[Arkangyl]

The temptation to jump on the $60 Barracuda deal has been growing steadily for the past couple weeks now. I've been on an Audigy 2 ZS for a few years now and while it sounds okay, I feel like it's getting a bit dated.

I know the typical response to these inquiries are to get the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude or the Asus Xonar DX2 and while they do seem to be the best out there, I'm not going to spend over $100 on a sound card. Honestly I'd just rather spend the money on either water cooling gizmos or other hardware gadgets (new video card takes priority).

My interest in the RaZer is largely due to it being on such a sale. Thus the question is: Is the RaZer AC-1 a good sound card or is it crap that's trying to be sold off?

Oh, and ATM I have the Logitech Z-5500's and some Grado Lab SR-60s (which I hook up via the headphone-out of the Z-5500 box), I plan to hook the speakers up via optical.

So XS, what's the line on this card? A steal for $60 or overpriced at that mark?


EDIT::
woot has this card as the woot-off for $55 shipped. I'm weak and couldn't pass up the deal. I'll leave this thread up both as a place for others to answer my question and for me to follow up with my impressions of the card when it gets here in, err, 5 business days I guess :-P

There doesn't seem to be a good thread on this card, so any and all please share your impressions (and please don't just say the X-Fi / Prelude / Xonar are better without anything to back it up, I'm all for calling out a bad card and listing options, but lets offer some data with the claim!)

[ROBSCIX]

OK, well the Prelude and Xonar are better. They use better components and offer better support and better drivers and much better sound quality. The Razor is a generation back in the 8788 days. The trouble with those cards(there was a few) is they rely on C-Media to write their drivers. Even the custom razor drivers are C-Media at their base. I am not even sure they have Vista drivers or not yet, actually I think they may. You might have to use drivers from another card. They aren't bad card for $55 but they won't compare to the Prelude or Xonar lines for sound quality and support. Not to mention they only support EAX 2.0 in software. I have used a 8788 card before, actually the best one. The X-Meridian 7.1 There is a bit of good news with that card: You can use that Razor AC-1 with your Audigy 2 and get EAX 1,2,3,4 and OpenAL through hardware. If you use some software we developed called VelBac you can have all the features of the Audigy2 and the sound quality of the Razor... Won't give you a Prelude BUT would be better then a stock AC-1 in games. I can tell you how if your interested....

[Arkangyl]

Yeah, shoot me a PM (if you can't just post it for all to see), sounds intriguing :-)

I'm away the RaZer, even with MSRP at $200, isn't the same caliber as the Auzen or Asus. Like I said, I'm just not that critical of a listen. My roommates are music students with professional monitors and all, while I can hear the difference between the raw audio tracks they play through those (raw as in freshly recorded and being mastered at the time) and the low-quality mp3s I play through mine (the difference between the base mp3's and the FLACs from Saul Williams online album was rather astonishing), I really can't justify spending $180 on a sound card to myself.

So long as the RaZer is better than the audigy I'll be happy. I have no plans to go to Vista any time soon so that bit of the driver support doesn't really bother me.

[ROBSCIX]

Well then the Razor would be a great deal for $50. The 8788 cards were great when they were released and the X-Meridian is still considered to be one of the best card to have. Many avoided the Razor because of gaming standards etc..and music HTPC lovers went to the X-Meridian 7.1
Buy it up for $50, you can't lose... We can talk about Velbac later...just don't sell the A2.