Favorite Soundcard - Opinions Welcome.

[TnT]

I have had absolutely no problems with my SB Live, Liveware 3, and Marvel G200. The enviromental audio sounds great and you can't get that sweet chipmunk sound effect on those AWE64 cards

[Brian Ellis]

Pertti,

About 1/3 the m/bs on the market today do not have ISA slots, and the number is increasing daily - and that does include some Intel ones with BX chipsets, as well as more obscure makes.

Whether we like it or not, I guess ISA will be a dead duck within a couple of years, so we have a choice: either upgrade to PCI sound boards or not upgrade existing motherboards to take care of new technology.

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Brian (the terrible)

[Brian Ellis]

For youse guys touting sound quality: I agree with Elie, PCI or ISA may be equal BUT a PC is not a HiFi set, no matter which you use! The analogue side of all sound card outputs and mike inputs that I have tried are ATTROSHUS and that includes SB Live!, just as much as SB16. Where Live! does win over others - and especially ISA cards - is that it is possible to input digital by a variety of means.

In any case, the background noise of PC fans, hard disks and 48 x CD drives is such that the room in which the PC is situated is not a good listening environment. I, for one, do not have a PC in my living room: I have a Class A amplifier (most commercial amps are class AB or even B, with poor crossover distortion on pianissimo passages) feeding Goodman loudspeakers and, yes, I do occasionally even listen to vinyl, as well as CDs.

Call me an iconoclast, someone

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Brian (the terrible)

[Mark F]

Oh Brian you are an iconoclast.

There, do you feel better?
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I would agree with those who say that sound quality is not a function of the bus (ISA or PCI). However the original questions was about buying a sound card NOW! The current advantages of PCI based cards out-way those of ISA. Sure your ISA cards still sound great, some even better than most PCI sound cards. However is it wort putting money into a technology that is on the way out? With fuyur MoBOs haveing no ISA slots, I don't think so. There is also the effeciancy of buss to look at. The PCI cards can better offload the sound calculations from the CPU, have better access to memory when needed, and a greater capacity to proccess and transfer larger number of sound streams.

Much as I answer friends who ask me if they should get a SCSI set up because they've heard it's faster: "If you can't tell me why you need SCSI, then stay with IDE and save a few dollars". I have a simulare view and the sound card's bus question. If you have a particular need for a ISA, that you can express, then go with the more ubuquitus PCI.

Mark F.


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OH NO, my retractable cup holder swallowed a CD