Originally Posted by
hrahn
@Saaya: the audio quality of the Creative Emu-Chips does NOT, I repeat NOT depend on whether it is called Audigy, Live! or X-Fi. It does NOT depend on the Chip either, it depends on the DACs / ADCs which are NOT part of the chip.
These digital/analog converters are what has been upgraded the most between the old Live! series and the current Audigy generation, and since they´ve reached an almost even quality among all cards produced these days by creative it is no wonder why a "cheap" card sounds as good as an "expensive" one with a completely different chip on it - their digital audio is processed by the same chips and then sent to your speakers.
Don´t be fooled by creative, the real X-Fi chips are more expensive because they are more powerful, a completely new design from the old EMU-series (you can easily spot it, all new designs are BGA chips whereas the old ones are standard surface mounted), and they have MORE features than the audio series, not the other way around like they told you.
BTW, all features can be enabled via software which has time and again been proven by hackers (i.e. Dolby Digital decoding works on every Audigy under Vista, as well as CMSS works on most Live! cards, as do EAX4&5 (in software ofcourse, like on an Extreme Audio) - the list goes on forever).
If you just want good sound quality and do not care for accelerated audio - skip Creative altogether and turn elsewhere. For Enthusiast audio quality use good ADCs/DACs and you´re all set. Doesn´t matter what card is behind it, it just depends on the components used in the conversion of the signal and amplification stage.
If you want to build a board for gamers, use a full-blown X-Fi chip or leave it out completely. There´s no other choice.