Good, compatible 5.1 sound card?

[sparkman]

Okay, finally spent the big bucks on a Klipsch Promedia 5.1 setup. Went to connect to my Soundblaster Live 5.1 card and... There's no center channel! Apparently the "5.1" is only for speakers that connect to SPDIF. Argh!

Am I missing something obvious? It's a shame, becuase despite all the grips I've had zero problems with the card and drivers.

So what card to you guys recommend? I want something 100% problem free (which is why I went with the "standard" Creative card) in games. And I want the 5.1 support for analog speakers.

Suggestions greatly appreciated!

...Ray

[Michael Fortson]

I've seen nothing but praise heaped on the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, supposedly better than anything Creative has ever made, and with dramatically fewer "issues".

thrifty too

http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/santacruz/producthome.asp

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=57&manufactory=1431&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1

[Met_K]

Same. The Santa Cruz suggestion is seconded. Great card. Cheap too. And no broken promises like certain... other... companies.

[Alan Dunkin]

Hercules' two soundcards (the Fortissimo and Game Theater XP) are both very nice. The former you can typically buy for cheap, the latter comes with a breadbox that's fairly handy (though the USB is unpowered).

--- Alan

[Jason Cross]

I've had very good results with the Philips Acoustic Edge. Good sound and thus far the drivers have been very reliable indeed. I'm curious to hear the new Audigy 2, but even more curious to find out if their drivers still piss me off at every available opportunity, starting two weeks after my review goes to press (and not a single flaw until then). :x

Lloyd Case may have tried out more sound cards than I have, maybe he'll chime in.

Hercules' stuff is pretty good, but I've had one or two driver flakes. Better than Creative, but then again, I've used Creative cards a lot more and I'd expect to run into more problems.

By the way: are you sure you don't have a third 1/8" minijack on the back of that Live 5.1 for the center/sub? There are so many variants of Live cards, I forget which ones have which connectors. But I *THINK* there's a 1/8" jack on the back that's an "analog/digital" connector, which is alternately for digital SPDIF or for analog center/sub, whichever you plug in.

[Alan Au]

Rumor is that Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000063WQ0/qid=1032846413/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-9947188-9685635?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846) has it for $45.99, and I may end up picking one up if for no other reason than I can finally ditch my ailing SB64 AWE.

- Alan

[Michael Fortson]

Some of those Hercules kits are rebadged Santa Cruz boards, I think I read someplace (convincing, eh?).

[Wholly Schmidt]

Alright, stupid question: How does the turtle beach card you linked to do 5.1? I know nothing about how 5.1 works other than through optical cables from my Xbox to the receiver in the living room.

**EDIT**

Nevermind, I just didn't read far enough :)

[Mark Bussman]

Dammit, I just ordered an Audigy and I find out there's an Audigy 2 out there now?! :evil:

[Lunch of Kong]

I have owned all three cards: audigy, santa cruz, and philips audio edge.

If all you want is dolby 5.1 for DVDs, then it doesnt really matter which you pick. More important is the fact that you may have to upgrade your DVD playback software. The budget stuff that comes packaged with video cards and DVD drives are unlikely to support the required AC-3 decoding.

PowerDVD has a version that supports AC-3. That's what I use at home.

For gaming, I prefer the audigy because the drivers are stable and it supports eax 2.0.

For MIDI I like the instrument set of the philips card the best.

For digital audio recording, I liked the clarity of the santa cruz.

[Brad Grenz]

For gaming, I prefer the audigy because the drivers are stable and it supports eax 2.0.

But worth the $30 Creative charges for them?

[Lunch of Kong]

But worth the $30 Creative charges for them?

Newegg lists both audigy and santa cruz at $60.00.

[Xaroc]

Hercules' two soundcards (the Fortissimo and Game Theater XP) are both very nice. The former you can typically buy for cheap, the latter comes with a breadbox that's fairly handy (though the USB is unpowered).

--- Alan

Avoid the Game Theater XP like the plague. Go read Hercules (now buried) forums to read about all the fun you will have with it and XP or 2000. I don't think they ever wrote good XP or 2000 drivers for it. Based on my experience with (tons of problems) it I won't ever buy another Hercules product.

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz would be my vote.

-- Xaroc

[Brad Grenz]

My Game Theater XP is just about the best purchase I've ever made. I'm running Win XP have have never had any problems whatsoever. There aren't new driver releases every week, but since I never have problems with the current ones, who cares? And they keep adding features. The GTXP which was originally a 5.1 channel card can now function as a 7.1 channel card with the latest drivers.

[Jason Cross]

For gaming, I prefer the audigy because the drivers are stable and it supports eax 2.0.

But worth the $30 Creative charges for them?

Huh? I just went and downloaded the Audigy drivers on my work machine today. Free.

[Xaroc]

My Game Theater XP is just about the best purchase I've ever made. I'm running Win XP have have never had any problems whatsoever. There aren't new driver releases every week, but since I never have problems with the current ones, who cares? And they keep adding features. The GTXP which was originally a 5.1 channel card can now function as a 7.1 channel card with the latest drivers.

Maybe I gave up on it too soon but it was literally months before they even put out an updated 2000 driver and then it didn't even work right. They advised you to turn down graphics settings because it would interfere with the card. The card wouldn't work with more than 512mb of memory in win2k either. I have seen some pretty bad forums before but people in general were pissed off in the Hercules forum back then and rightly so. It took Hercules forever to update the drivers and they still didn't get them right. The one good thing that came out of that purchase was I ended up with a Santa Cruz.

-- Xaroc

[Brad Grenz]

But worth the $30 Creative charges for them?

Huh? I just went and downloaded the Audigy drivers on my work machine today. Free.

Maybe it's changed, but for a while if you wanted to get the latest version of Playcenter and everything you had to pony up cash and they'd send you a disc.

[Alan Dunkin]

Something funky happened on my system and I think my Game Theater XP, along with my firewire card and the secondary IDE suddenly went Tango Uniform. It is very odd, and I'm suspecting it might have been a surge of some kind, but not quite sure what exactly happened. Anything plugged into the 3 says that the drivers cannot be loaded (running XP, by the way). So far stuff I've plugged into the GTXP hasn't responded so I think it may be semi-fried.

Guess if I can't find a sound card around here to try guess I'll go look for a Turtle Beach..

--- Alan