SoundBlaster Live questions

[mikiem]

Hi all

I'm trying out a new SoundBlaster Live MP3 5.1, bought mainly because it was on sale and the Santa Cruz wasn't -- can always take it back...

I know there are noise issues with via chipsets, and as Doc has said, these cards can conflict with graphics cards when both fight over the same portion of the bus. So far, knock on wood these are much of a problem for me.

What I'd like to know is if anyone has a fairly recent live card, have you had any problems with the front & rear output being out of phase? *IF* the tests I've run are the right ones, this seems to be cured but wanted to try and make sure.

I'm more concerned about this second question though... Has anyone tried video capture with the hacked ASIO drivers?

Apparently the live cards and the higher end APS live cards are similar enough that with this driver set you gain an astonishing amount of control, albeit at the price of having something fairly difficult to configure, or just plain figure out initially.

While it seems pretty cool so far, it seems the only practical way for me to go at the moment given the huge, HUGE registry bloat the live drivers cause. It's really obscene!!! And at that size it does cause me problems with windows and other software.

For anyone interested, http://people.freenet.de/apslive/ is the url for this driver setup. Please forgive if you already know this --ASIO is an audio standard that allows for a reduced latency with some mid range and up audio software. Figuring this driver setup out takes a while, it's not for gaming, you lose EAX and all that, but retain soundfonts. And in the end you have more control over the sound card then I at least ever thought possible for something less then $75 US. Seems very cool if you do (or want to) your own audio tracks.

Thanks Much
mikie

[Karlson]

No probs with APS Live 1.84. Not problems with Creative Lifeware either. So the difference is mainly the low latency, if you want to play some soft synths with a master keyboard.

Works for Win98SE and Win98ME. Will not work for W2k. I had never problems capturing HuffYuv up to 704x576 (PAL) onto a Samsun UDMA66 drive without RAID. With audio. Works with both, APS Live and Creative drivers.

[mikiem]

Hi

Thanks loads!

mikie

[Dr Mordrid]

There are differences in sound quality between the SBLive and the TBSC as well (to the TBSC's advantage). The numbers can be compared here;

http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/index.htm

Dr. Mordrid

[Indiana]

Great link, thanks!
Confirmes what I always was finding when comparing soundcards with my ears (and my Onkyo/Elac). The SBLive! really sounds crappy and even more so when using the digital-out (look at the "fair" rating for the digital-quality - puts it nearly at the end of all cards!). Hell, even a $20 Terratec card I have has better sound quality than my Live"Platinum" (talk about abuse of words) - even though no features at all, maybe except playing sound...

Although it's a pity he hasn't included the Terratec ESW24/96: quite pricey and no fancy EAX/A3D 3DSound featurs but NICE sound-quality - and to me this is the most important thing about a soundcard- guess I'm a "Matrox" soundcard user (you can compare Creatives hifi abilities to NVidias 2D quality, I guess).

When I want good audio-quality, I still keep reverting sometimes to my old Amiga with a MacroSystems MaestroPro card - although this is not really a soundcard (it's merely an SP/DIF interface) and wasn't really made for the consumer market (at a price tag of $700). But connect it to the DAC of e.g. a SONY DAT and you'll get clear fine sound.

[Dr Mordrid]

Know the MaestroPro well. Been an Amiga user myself since the early days of the A1000. I still have two on the network, an A3000T and an A4000T. Both with Video Toasters.

Dr. Mordrid

[Indiana]

So you'd only need a PPC card and MorphOS...

[Rob100]

Hey, more Amiga users ;-) I thought I was the only one left...

Don't use mine for video, but just for all my e-mail (using YAM) and it also acts as the firewall/gateway to my LAN of PC's using Miami Deluxe. Still occasionaly use Photogenics on it when I just can't do what I want with Photoshop... Hopefully my miggy will keep going for many years to come.

Anyway I'm drifting OT here...

Rob.

[Brian Ellis]

The reviews are far from unanimous that Turtle Beach is better than Live!, either on subjective tests or on measurements. The "crisp" sound of TB is because of non-linear frequency weighting which has been deliberately added to make it sound better to untrained ears.

[dchip]

Hmmmm... I'm not a TBSC user (yet) but, Brian, it's the untrained ears that I really want to impress. Mine are untrained too. I don't care how they did it. If it sounds better, it...

The two year old SBLive! I have now makes nice sound with my Cambridge SoundWorks, but hearing so much about this Turtle Beach card does whet my appetite. I was talking to a computer "expert" at Best Buy about it recently (I kept referring to it as the "Santa Clara," ) and he finally said, "oh, the Santa Cruz, yeah, that's a really nice sound card.

BTW, I run the SBLive! with default drivers in Win98SE. None of the Creative package is installed. None of it.

[Brian Ellis]

dchip

I looked at all the reviews I could find on the net, especially comparative ones. Having heard so much about the Santa Claus Tortoiseshell, I was wondering whether I, too, shouldn't change. I came to the conclusion that I had nothing to gain by so doing except a few dB in S/N ratio. If I outputted to VHS, this would be lost entirely and, although my capture is at CD quality, any VCDs are at 22 kHz sampling rate mono, to save on file space, so these dB would be entirely lost, anyway.

Apparently, there is no noticeable difference in system resource requirements.

I use the SB Live! v. 2 drivers and these suit me fine.

[Hulk]

I have the original Soundblaster Live!

What drivers do I install to avoid installing the Liveware?

I would like to do without Liveware if possible.

Thanks,

Mark

[dchip]

Hulk, in WIN98SE I just put the sound card in and let the system find it. I think Windows has compatible drivers that will spring into action when a program needs the sound card. It works well. Sometimes I think we all worry too much about special drivers when what we need is right there in the operating system. Of course you have to rid your system of all that SBLive stuff first.