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40 Comments
- aragon127, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19The comment about PCI-e is dead on. These cards have 2 purposes, surround-sound gaming and surround-sound HTPC use. Since HTPCs tend to be smaller and quickly use up PCI slots (2x cable 1x HD for most) having a PCI-e version would free up your other slots. I for one would love to fill my empty pci-e 1x slot with an audio card.
- doubleshot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Funny, the way I read it, the author perfectly understands the difference between "designed in" and "made in". Ever hear of subtlety? He was making the point, which I actually found slightly amusing, that the manufacturer is very image-focused -- black board, "money-green capacitors," gold back plate and I/O ports. Putting "DEVELOPED AND DESIGNED IN USA" in all caps is part of that image at which Auzentech is aiming, apparently. But then the article points out: A) the board's actually made in Korea, and B) it doesn't really matter where the thing is designed, developed or made. What matters is how it performs, which you never found out because you were apparently more interested in appearance than performance as well.
By the way, it's spelled "benefit." - Aender, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12This is great article.
It confirms what I thought: DDL is worth it only if
you are ready to give up on true EAX and accept slower frame rate in games.
There is also no benefit for music listening unless you are ready to swap the opamp for a better one
and accept inherent instability of such solution.
You are trying to suggest Geoff Gasior does not understand the difference between "designed" and "manufactured" when he laughs flipping the card to see it's actually made in Korea - despite bold marketing claims about US design.
I am sure he understands the difference. You see, it is quite common to have product design in US or Europe and manufacturing process in Asia. I guess 90% of companies do that? There is nothing to be pimped about this. Geoff finds it amusing that a company is trying to sell an obvious fact of business life as if it had any meaning.
Let me go one step further: OK, you assume that product designed in US and manufactured in Korea might be seen as better then product designed in Taiwan and manufactured in Malaysia, perhaps? Why is this? Not that they lie, not at all. They can't say "made in US" so they say "designed in US". Next year, perhaps, when they sack their US designers (example, I do not know about such plans ;)) and hire chepear ones in Beijing, they will perhaps come up with another claim "invented in US" (because "designed in China", "made in Korea" does not sound well for some self-obsessed *****). I'll laugh with Geoff again, you know, and you will claim he does not understand English this time, perhaps?
I do not quite agree with PCI argument you made, either.
You see, you are right about bandwidth but only if you view this alone.
But you must know in case of PCI devices this bandwidth is shared with network cards, ata controllers etc.
I would much prefer to be on the safest side, especially for audio.
In the end there actually ARE PCI express pro cards on the market already.
PCI is on its way out and PCIe will take over. You know there was the same talk when PCI took over from ISA "why do we need this?"
Now, how do I rank you down? ;))
As for your general view about TR article I could not disagree more.
First of you do not appreciate sense of humour involved - falloutsyndrome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I got excited. I thought, maybe there was a high end soundcard out there that I could use with linux. But sadly no, they're as bad as creative, 0 linux support.
- generalleoff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I have zero interest in C-Media. I care more about what M-Audio has to compare with Creative.
- Oxygen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I have to admit, my sound cards are pretty nice
- kevinmoore, on 06/13/2009, -6/+11Just "so your safe," people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
- Bonez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I hate to say this but the bigger question now really is if EAX will be able to be used AT ALL in vista.
There was a great article about this problem on ign last week.
For example games like WoW and Half life 2 wont have hardware accelerated sound at all (not from Creative and not from Oxygen) in Vista which sucks big time.
Check out the article here: http://pc.ign.com/articles/759/759538p1.html
And if you like it digg it here: http://www.digg.com/software/Sound_Off_On_Vista
(see I'm not shamelessly plugging it, I genuinely believe people need to know what's going on in Vista and wait before they buy any sound card in the near future) - FiZiX610, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I haven't owned a Creative Labs card in probably about 5 years because I won't buy anything without Dolby Digital Live. I don't know why Creative refuses to support this technology. The sound quality is FAR superior and there are 2 to 4 less cables to deal with.
- catalysis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5EAX doesn't work in Vista I heard, because they removed the hardware abstraction layer. I bet this card is also not designed for vista. Removal of the HAL is a good thing in the end though, because it will allow for unadulterated low-latency audio and vista will finally be on par with macs for pro-audio.
- spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5dugg for pimping foobar2000. Best audio player interface ever.
- ScottMaximus1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Thems the breaks when you're using an alternative OS
- ReVRiN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Cloakeddagger - seriously are you new to The Tech Report?
The author knows exactly what he is talking about and even though Aender stole a lot of my thunder you make make the assumption that he is being childish. The fact that people take pride in items 'Made' or 'Designed' in the USA is great absolutely nothing wrong with that. However it is ironic that they are trying to capitalize on that American pride about it being 'Designed' in the USA. Yet in the fine print on the back it says made in Korea. To me that is marketing magic!
I too would be happy to use my PCI-E 1X for a sound card or anything that would take advantage of that socket.
My RANT to you cloakeddagger is that there is nothing like reading the 3 paragraphs and bitching for 6, and the fact that you are spelling at a Grade 6 level does not help either. I assume fammiliarise = familiarize or should I have stopped reading there and just thought you were 11 years old? Or could you not read the button that says Check Spelling either? - Aliarse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3If my onboard Cmedia "soundcard" is anything to go by, then anyone buying one of these best be ready for the crappy software that comes with it.
I've had numerous crashes due to their software, so now i simply disable it. Luckily, i can still do the things it did by using the excellent Foobar2k player.. - RadiatedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3if you can replace the op-amps im in!!!
- deviationer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3no company is ever going to be able to compete with creative and their sound cards until another standard (like EAX 3/4/4HD) is created and apoted by many game devs. Most non-creative card only supports EAX 1 and 2, if even that, because creative won't license the higher standards. So you buy a non-creative card and you get less performance in gaming because of it.
- kida001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ummmmm, I don't get it. I have a X-Fi Platinum and have ONE Optical Audio Cable going out of my PC Media Center, and into my Receiver- and it supports DTS and Dolby ProLogicII/5.1 no problem. I don't know why this guy goes on saying that the Oxygen HD is the only card that can do it through one cable.
- tardmongerster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I tried a Razer Barracuda AC-1, which is another card with this same Oxygen HD chip in it. It sounds great for everything except games. It's crap when using SLI. I got an X-Fi and have been very happy with it for games, music, and movies.
- spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Aender hits the nail on the head. I opened this article, searched for EAX, and was not surprised to read:
"The chip offers no hardware acceleration for positional 3D audio, and its EAX support tops out at version 2.0, which limits the number of concurrent 3D voices to just 32. These days, EAX goes all the way up to version 5.0..."
EAX is the reason why I replaced my onboard sound (EAX 2) with an Audigy 2 (EAX 4). The audio effects and clarity are far superior on EAX 4, which I recently confirmed by playing Dreamfall: The Longest Journey with both audio solutions.
I'm frustrated by Creative's crappy support and high prices but if you're a gamer there's no other option. - lowlight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Tell me about it! These $100 soundcards should only be listened to on $15,000 speakers! What a disgrace!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Excellent, I'll take a look. Thanks for the advice :)
- spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm exceptionally pleased with my M-Audio Evolution X-Session UC17 midi controller and would definitely buy from M-Audio again -- if their cards have full EAX support. If not, then I'd stick with Creative.
- LabThug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I dont get it."
Maybe you should check his username. - jellygraph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1does it play 16 bit sound? yes? ok, in that case, thats all i need to know
- tenken, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I would love for someone to give Creative a run for their money, but sadly this card doesn't look like it'll do it. It's yet another card that is staking its success with its on-the-fly transcoding ability. Sure it can do DTS, but as the article stated in its conclusion, transcoding to DD/DTS is something only beneficial to HTPC enthusiasts. It's also adding another layer of compression to the audio scheme, which is never good no matter how great the codecs are that they're being upscaled to.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A little off-topic, but what sound cards would you guys recommend for home recording in the sub-£200 bracket? I'm not sure what that is in USD at the minute, perhaps $350 or similar?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Vista turns off the AC3 and DTS encoding for this sound card, and all others from C-Media. Even the $500 cards with special amplifiers. Makes the special features totally useless, as only the re-sampled "Vista version" of the audio is output to the card. The special chipsets in the card just sit there doing nothing, they can't get the raw data they need.
Yes, it is a big deal. It's also the reason EAX had to be re-written from scratch by Creative - and the new Alchemy EAX compatible layer still doesn't support Audigy 2 and 4 class products. - SamX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I am have to agree, lack of linux support made me return my x-fi card although I loved the quality of the audio.
- 2tec, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0perhaps the M-Audio Audiophile 192
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile192-main.html
or the M-Audio Delta 44
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta44-main.html
I've the Audiophile 2496, which sounds real sweet - matho53, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Does anyone who has commented have one of these cards?
Anyway i do.
Reason: I don't buy ***** from companies that don't look after their consumers, that don't make a polished product, that don't keep the older products and their accompanied user base informed and up to date with latest driver offerings!
I once owned a creative live the orig one (i believe it was the model called "does not do what the marketing says it should"), anyway since then i decided this company is crap; I'll take my money else where... In the end that was the on-board solution until i heard and read and researched about this card and this company (plus i was getting annoyed with the crackly sound from the AD1980 - AC'97 SoundMAX® in Battlefield 2).
I can say hands down this is the solution i was after!
I didn't want to put money in the hands of a monopolistic, down right dirty company that creative is, and i wanted awesome 5.1 Surround Sound (thru a Yamaha TSS-10 via optical fiber).
All games are yes a tad slower, I'm talking a couple of frames... woopdy f'n do... if the game is running over 30 frames then really who cares... All i care about is the sound quality with genuinely playable game. F.E.A.R is awesome (Dolby Headphones and DTS interactive) i clocked it once with the on board then had to do it again as the sound now coming out is frigging awesome. I swear every time i seen that girl this time round i really knew about it.
Also this has probably been said by everyone who owns one but you will listen to all of your music collection again as the clarity is a grin bearer (you'll have a big grin on your face when listening as you'll know it was money well spent!)
Enough praising by me of the greatest card to compete with creative, if not show them the features we really all want (DTS, Dolby Digital Live)!
I so wish Auzentech had the marketing dollars that Apple have to make adds putting down their competitor! - Vladekk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0E-mu 0404 or E-mu 1212M
http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?product=9872
Superior to everything up to 1000$, then lynx two comes to play - frumpsnake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Whilst I agree that's not exactly the best listening environment, it doesn't make a difference to the tests that matter -- ie RMAA measuring Frequency Response, Noise level, Dynamic range, THD, etc. as well as EAX 5 vs EAX 2 and CPU usage during general use and DTS/Dolby encoding.
I'm not one to trust subjective listening tests that aren't particularly well documented, especially those conducted in a group setting. How many times was each tested? Were the "differences" they heard in the X-Fi or Oxygen repeatable? Were the listeners able to talk amongst themselves and did this sway the opinion of others. In this regard a proper conducted ABX test could have helped.
Whereas the other tests were much more interesting and important to me. - abxy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1ffs. This article is 22 pages long. Save about 10 minutes of your life and just read the last concluding paragraph here.
From the article:
In the end, we can only recommend the X-Meridian if you have a specific need for real-time DTS or Dolby Digital Live encoding or if you have a set of high-end OPAMPs burning a hole in your pocket. Auzentech may win some fans simply by providing an enthusiast-friendly alternative to Creative's much-maligned dominance of the audio card market, but there are precious few scenarios where we'd rather have an X-Meridian over an X-Fi. - acc355, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1WTF, sound quality test using Logitech Z-680?! Pathetic...
- Vladekk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0high end soundcard is lynx two, but not this crap
- fivestarsoul, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Nice effort, what with trying to come up with some ***** relevant to the article just so you can argue about some stupid grammar. Freakygeeky is right: it's _you're_, not your. So there goes any authority you believed you had over the writer of the article. Don't you hate when spell checkers don't warn you about spelling a word incorrectly based on the syntax? :)
- SuperBTZ, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I dont get it.
- cloakeddagger, on 10/12/2007, -27/+21no offense, but the writing of this article is awful, 10th grade level at best and the author clearly doesn't know what they're talking about...
take this for example: "boldly silkscreened with the proclamation that it's developed and designed in the US. Amusingly, flipping the card reveals that it's actually made in Korea."
perhaps the author should fammiliarise themselves with the subtle difference between the terms "designed in" and "made in".
here's another moment of idiocy: "We're not too concerned with where the X-Meridian is made, but the card's PCI interface is a little irksome. As PC enthusiasts, we'd far rather see the card riding a PCI Express interface"
pardon? what kind of a sound card would require more bandwidth than the PCI slot provides? any pc enthusiast should know there would be no benifits to having the sound card use the pcix bus....
i could go on but that would require reading the rest of this awfully uninformed crap... - bandito604, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4I'm glad your ms word grade leveling works for you. Computers are amazing!! ..no offense either, but 'benefit' is spelled as is here.. and 'an' precedes words with vowels.. I'm sure all that's not covered till grade 11 though so your safe.
I think the article stands on its own merit. It asks a question. It reports results. It reaches a conclusion based on these results. You can agree or disagree.
I could care less about sound cards. I'm no audiophile. Especially in the price range this article is taking about. But it's good that someone takes the time to create an article that gives an opinion to generate discussion.. based on the audio tests alone, it looks like he crossed his T's. - cloakeddagger, on 10/12/2007, -21/+3if your going to digg down an multi paragraph comment/argument, then you should at least post a counter argument...
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