Turtle Beach sound cards

[lenl1]

I am having a tough time finding a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard in this city. Winnipeg Canada. Cannot find Turtle Beach products here anywhere. Have the usual Future Shop, BestBuy, CompuSmart, Computer Boulevard, etc... and they all carry Soundblaster or generic cards. I can get Turtle beach on line from Tigerdirect but not the Santa Cruz. These are whats avaliable
Turtle Beach Riviera 5.1 Digital PCI Sound Card (OEM)
Turtle Beach Riviera 5.1 Digital PCI Sound Card
Turtle Beach Catalina 7.1 Digital PCI Sound Card (OEM)
Turtle Beach Catalina 7.1 Digital PCI Sound Card
Are they all equals to the Santa cruz,
i.e.Not a buss hog!
Oddly enough Circuit city in U.S. has them but they dont ship to canada!
Go figure Eh.

Thanks,
Lenl1

[Dr Mordrid]

Avoid the OEM's if you can, they're a bit inferior to the "normal" cards.

Dr. Mordrid

[lenl1]

I was reading the specs on the Catalina and the Riviera and the do not have the same chipset as the santa cruz - ( Cirrus Logic CS4630) so Im not sure if it makes these cards an equal to the santa cruz?

Thanks
Lenl1

[Elie]

Santa Cruz for me produces the cleanest audio! In fact I use it in my NLE rig.

Regards,
Elie

[lenl1]

I have been looking around and they are hard to come by ( Santa Cruz) It is because they cannot get the Cirrus Logic chip anymore! I did Get one off eBay for $22.00 US hope it works, just waiting for it. I am not sure if the rest of the Turtule Beach lineup ( Catalina, Riviera)is just as good ie does not hog the buss. I know they have different chipsets in them and the reviews I have read were not to promising.

Lenl1

[UtwigMU]

Hercules Fortissimo III, GTXP and Digifire 7.1 also have same chipset as TBSC.

[Elie]

The Fortissimo 4 is better with support for 7.1 and 24/96

Review here...

http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20050127/index.html

Regards,
Elie

[lenl1]

Well it will have to be a Turtle Beach santa Cruz because mine just came by UPS today. Just installing it, its slightly used and so far seems to work. Just looking for latest drivers. I did see a couple of the otheres mentioned byUtwigMU on eBay as well, pretty cheap to!
Thanks.
Lenl1