What sound card should I buy

[littleowl]

I need to buy a new sound card so what one should it be? I keep hearing that the X-Fi is not worth the money.

[krille]

What features (EAX, DD Live, etc) are you looking for? What's it for (gaming, music, HD HTPC, professional, etc)? Budget?

[Kondik]

Didn't notice that, I'm using the X-Fi Elite Pro series, since February [ Beta drivers with fixed BSOD ofer 4 gig in x64 Systems ] no problems,
I'm listening to music a lot, DVD films, BR Films, Gaming, from time to time sound/wave editing and it works great.

The thing is how much you want to pay and do you have good pair of headphones and speakers ? :p:
After you tell us more about what you intend to do with the Sound Card we might be able to help you :hehe:

[joshd]

the ASUS Xonar range is very good.

[Nasgul]

Creative sound cards are the best IMO.

Problem is I keep hearing about how sucky their Vista drivers are and frankly, I'm having a bit of an issue with my AUDIGY GAMER (bought in 2001) which is annoying, everything works fine but that issue of having to go into the control panel to look for the features I need to turn on/off everytime is annoying, I do it though.

The Gamer Ports no longer work with Vista but most certainly, "IF" I were to buy a sound card right now? I'd go with one of the X-Fi myself.

[RADCOM]

X-fi gamer ( bottom of the range seems good value for money. I've yet to use the £50 extra X-ram on the fatal1ty but I had a warm feeling when I read the spec:sick:

[crazyea]

Come from an Auzentech Prelude to an Asus Xonar D2X and am quite happy.

[xMrBunglex]

if you must buy a sound card, get an Auzentech. Creative is an evil company. read up on how they intentionally gimped their Vista drivers and then threatened to sue that guy that fixed their broken drivers for them. they didn't want him modding and fixing their drivers for a reason - they hoped the bad drivers on older sound cards would force people to buy new ones for Vista even though they didn't need to. don't support a company that treats their customers like that.

[crazyea]

if you must buy a sound card, get an Auzentech. Creative is an evil company. read up on how they intentionally gimped their Vista drivers and then threatened to sue that guy that fixed their broken drivers for them. they didn't want him modding and fixing their drivers for a reason - they hoped the bad drivers on older sound cards would force people to buy new ones for Vista even though they didn't need to. don't support a company that treats their customers like that.

You know the Auzentech card (Prelude) is x-fi and running on creative drivers right?

[xMrBunglex]

You know the Auzentech card (Prelude) is x-fi and running on creative drivers right?

i thought Auzen modded the drivers in-house. at any rate, my beef with Creative is more of a matter of principle. read up on the driver conspiracy and see if it doesn't make you mad too.

[crazyea]

Creative is in complete control of the driver as far as I know.

[littleowl]

I play games and listen to music. I want an all around good sound card that is based more for games.
In another thread I was told this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102005) card is not any better then this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102006) card. So I made this thread to just see what cards people are recommending.
My audigy2 died so I need a new card. :(

As for money I will figure out what I will pay after I find out what is recommended. :) There is always ebay and other places to find the same thing cheaper. :)

[zanzabar]

i would get another sba2, i like mine better than the xfi i had

[littleowl]

i would get another sba2, i like mine better than the xfi i had

can you tell me why?

[zanzabar]

the SBA2 has a cleaner sound, and with the DK or xp drivers it will do 192khz with 5.1/7.1 were the xfi will not, and u only loose a few eax modes that u wouldent use, then u can get a plat pro for about $60 on ebay

[Lethal1ty]

I have the x-fi gamer and although I haven't owned any other sound cards, I can say that having the gaming and entertainment mode is very useful. Especially being able to customize the settings of each separately. I listen to lots of music and game, and it all sounds fantastic on logitech z-5500.
A friend of mine has the same card running in vista and he has never had any problems with the drivers.