new sound card time

Discussion in 'Soundcards, Speakers HiFI & File formats' started by TexasRebel, Oct 28, 2008.

  1. aweston

    aweston Banned

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    I'm afraid that's simply not true.

    a) Vista has no DirectX hardware support, period. That's why Creative falls flat on it's face. It uses OpenAL.

    b) The Asus has DirectX hardware support. In Vista, it uses the DS3D GX to translate DirectX hardware support to be the ONLY card that offers full surround sound and hardware support in Vista.

    c) It has the highest SNR of any card, 117 dB on all 8 channels, not just the front two... The X-Fi products, such as Creative and Auzentech, top out at 112 (and only on the front). To make matters even worse, the advertised X-Fi SNR is ONLY for output. Input is much lower, unlike the the Xonar.

    d) It has a sampling rate that destroys the competition. Creative X-Fi (and thus the Auzentech) is capped at 96kHz, the Asus hits a true 192kHz.

    e) The Auzentech is simply repackaged Creative X-Fi crappola, meaning it has the same hangups the X-Fi series has because Creative is the one that provided all the technology on it. Auzentech is merely an OEM that's licensed Creative's last ditch effort. Creative is going down the crapper because they dropped the ball with Vista.

    f) Just as Creative has no hardware support of any type in Vista, neither does the Auzentech.

    g) Asus uses Dolby Digital and DTS.. .Something the Creative and it's OEMs (like Auzentech) only drool about. hehe.

    If you want the ultimate audio.. Unfortunately the Creative and it's licensees (such as Auzentech) simply don't cut it.

    edit: Please bear in mind that my audio system that's hooked up to that computer is a Rotel preamp with Rotel power amplifiers bridged mono, Paradigm Reference Series Studio Monitor 100.2s, Yamaha sub and about $2000 worth of cabling.. Will you notice the finer differences between the soundcards on your Logitech speakers? Meh.. Probably not.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2008
  2. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    Incorrect, Vista has no Direct Sound Hardware HAL. Creative cards and Auzentech Prelude can use OpenAL hardware Acceleration.
    Both Provide API's for EAX. IN XP we have: Direct sound API->EAX and in Vista we have OpenAL API-> EAX. Both Creative and Auzentech cards
    offer full hardware acceleration for OpenAL games and for older Direct X games you can use Alchemy to wrap the Direct sound calls to OpenAL calls and
    again have full hardware acceleration.

    Sorry your wrong again, the Xonar line up uses a gaming effects emulation mode which is provided through software. The card has NO hardware based effects. The chip you have the AV200 which is just a rebraded 8788 is a audio controller NOT a Digital Signal Processor(DSP). There is a big difference.
    You cannot translate hardware support, What GX 1.0 and 2.0 do is translate the Direct sound calls into effects calls their AV200 software based effects can understand. So you get gaming effects within
    XP and Vista However they are nowhere near as good or refined as hardware based Gaming effects supplied by X-fi Processors. The GX drivers do increase the enjoyability of the Xonar cards for gaming if you consider the alternative of no effects and stereo sound in Vista.

    Incorrect. there are other cards out there that can smash it. The output is what matters anyway, These are not recording cards and bot purchased for that reason.
    If your serioursly into having high values for your inputs look elsewhere.
    If you change the opamp in the Auzen card the values change by alot. Also measurement rarley translate into sound quality; There are devices that measuse great, sound not so great and vice-versa.
    The Xonar cards have great sound but they are not the only cards to have good sound quality. looking at one value without understanding the others and how they relate means you are not understanding what the card is actually producing.

    Incorrect, the Auzentech X-fi card can do 24/192 fine in stereo mode. Tell me when is the last time you have seen some true 24/192 Khz material?
    Most games are 16/48 or lower, CD's are 16/44.1. Most DVD's are 16/48 or a bit better. Blu Rays support 24/96 through HDMI and possibly some day there will be 24/192Khz material
    but for now havin the options are nice but there really isn;t any readily avialable material that has a true 24/192 Khz bit depth and sampling rate.

    Incorrect once agian. Creative supplied the (DSP) -we just talked about those remember? Other then that the card is built by Auzentech. The drivers are base Creative drivers modified by Auzentech.
    they don't respond the same as the hardware is different from top to bottom. Popel who have had difficulties with CL cards can pop in a Auzen X-fi and have no issue whatsoever. To note many have trouble with any soundcards, Xonars included. I haven't had trouble with any of them this included Xonars or the Prelude.
    Again, you are 100% incorrect, Creative hardware cards and the Prelude both have full hardware support for gaming through the OpenAL API in Vista. Your Xonar has no hardware support of any type in either XP or Vista. IN VIsta they just don;t use the Direct Sound HAL anymore. Please refer to previsou answers.

    "he,he" -Wrong again, Why would they drool about something they have? The Preldue has both DDL and DTS and the New CL Titanium sereis has DDL...IIRC.
    -to note analog quality on a PRelude will smash DDL or DTS....

    Well that is a opinions like anything else in audio. You like the apples and others like the orange...simple.


    That is good for you if actually true. However you really have no clue what you are talking about in terms of soudncards or the software or hardware behind them, Not a clue. Now if you would like people to help you to get the right information then many will if you lose the nasty little troll attitude your displaying.
    When sombody says they have paid $2000 for cables I always think of the saying about "a fool and his money are soon parted" However your credibility is seriously in questions after your above example of how wrong one person can actually be with regards to a single topic. Also, if you think everybody here uses cheap speakers or cheap headphones, you are wrong once again.
    Another FACT, I have also learned about high quality audio gear is no matter what gear you have somebody always has something better and will think what you have is garbage and in the audio forums a persons audio gear is no sign of their intelligence or depth of knowledge into the subject or saying it simply, just because you have "better" gear then another doesn't mean you know more about audio then they do. Hope this helps.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2008
  3. Denny85

    Denny85 Master Guru

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    Bahahahahaaahaa...:bigsmile:

    that's some serious knowledge :)
     
  4. aweston

    aweston Banned

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    http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/09/03/asus_xonar_d2/1

    http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=21355

    http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/121497/asus-xonar-d2.html

    http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/multimedia/display/asus-xonar.html

    http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=468&Itemid=27



    These articles will say otherwise.


    Hardware sound support in Vista? Doesn't exist, as this article will point out:

    http://compreviews.about.com/od/multimedia/a/VistaAudio.htm

    and

    OpenAL is CPU dependent:

    http://www.openal.org/openal_vista.html


    I'd be more inclined to state "that's some serious LACK of soundcard (and Vista) knowledge".
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2008

  5. Tinuva

    Tinuva Master Guru

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    Well it is obvious aweston think he knows the best, if he doesn;t agree i'd say just leave it, some people will never learn.

    I have a Prelude, and can say for certain its not nearly the same as the regular creative xfi cards, in fact it is far superior and with very little trouble at all, awesome quality and yet you can still replace the opamps to make it even better.

    Id anything I still recommend the Auzentech Prelude to the OP.
     
  6. aweston

    aweston Banned

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  7. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    As for the Xonar "destroying" the Prelude

    I quote from the linked review: "In the important tests, the ASUS Xonar D2 was the superior card, but not by a massive margin."

    -Hardly "absolutely destroys" the Prelude as you would like people to believe. Also , the Prelude was tested Stock, most of us who use Prelude replace the opamps which increase the sound quality by quite bit.
     
  8. GenClaymore

    GenClaymore Ancient Guru

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    Same Tinuva when I had my prelude. If I didnt need to use the PCIE slot because of space reasons I would had kept it. Yea if they had a OPA627AU/OPA637AU(BP) in the prelude then it be a diffent story. as Rob is right most people with the prelude takes out the stock LMA4562NA and replace them with something better. And even stock it only a tad and not enough to say it destroy it.


    Then when they meant vista had no hardware. they meant for Direct sound hal is what enables hardware Directsound,If they disabled that in XP same thing would happen. OPenAL is not part of the Direct sound hal its a diffent API.

    OpenAL is software on cards which dont have a hardware chip(xonar) and its hardware on cards which have a hardware chip(Sblive Audigy2/4/XFI/prelude) Its also how Alchemy converts DS hal calls to hardware openAL on the creative and prelude cards. Also the reason why games which uses hardware OpenAL works on them without having to use a work around(DSGX). If it wasnt for GX option then you wouldnt have surround in most of the games in vista with the xonar as well as not tricking the games into letting you emulate HW OpenAL if the GX option didnt exist. as it is just a oxygenHD chip. I know because I owned a Razer barracuda which is a oxygen HD chip.

    As for me not hearing a diffent on my speakers with the prelude I did when I plug them in analog I notice it with ease. But I use my headphones in analog thats why I keep them in digital because I use the op-amp socket with my headphones with diffent op-amps. I can careless about how much you spent on your speaker setup and to me you just trying to run around going "ha ha I spent 2k on my HT setup so I better then you" type of thing People like you come here time after time. you can throw mud at my Z5500s all you want i dont really care about you and your 2k HT setup.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2008
  9. TexasRebel

    TexasRebel Guest

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    well a mod please close this thread or something? this isnt about whats better and whats not all i asked was some suggestions. ive made my decision i thank people for replying. now it has gone into a who knows what an whos incorrect and correct poast . sorry for starting such a dramatic poast
     
  10. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    Has nothing to do with you. I hope you find a card that suits your needs.
     

  11. TexasRebel

    TexasRebel Guest

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    well its a post i have created and its gone to an aruguement. one of my questions did not even get an anser. there is some other topic i beleive on the cards beeing discuessd.
     
  12. ROBSCIX

    ROBSCIX Ancient Guru

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    There is a few question back a fewposts but I though they were answered. What question do you need answered?
    Ask away I am sure somebody will give you the right information.:)
     
  13. aweston

    aweston Banned

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    Hardware and "openal" don't coexist in terms of hardware acceleration. In otherwords, there's no such thing, because Vista took the hardware acceleration support out of the kernel.

    Creative Labs themselves admit that Open AL is CPU DEPENDENT, which is in that link I provided you.

    When something is CPU dependent, those of us that know computers understand that means no hardware acceleration on the sound card.

    So.. NO.. There's no X-Fi based sound card on the planet with hardware acceleration in Vista. None. Zero. Zilch.

    The Xonar, on the other hand, does have hardware acceleration which is NOT CPU dependent. The reason for that is they convert the function calls to DirectX function calls through a proprietary API.

    This stuff is all extremely well documented.

    It's also extremely well documented that X-Fi based sound cards suffer miserably with sound issues in Windows due to the LACK of hardware acceleration support, and that's why Xonar is kicking their butts (apart from the fact, of course, that the design simply kills an X-Fi and the DA convertors stomp all over it...and...and...).

    And I find it equally funny that the people "arguing" their case have NO real world experience with the Xonar line up.. They're arguing their case with a 24 year computer veteran who's Asus (and numerous other manufacturers) authorized, actually currently owns every Creative product from the Soundblaster 16 to the X-Fi Fatal1ty AND the Xonar D2... And ALL the documentation on the internet backs me up.

    And THEN they insult my audiophile hobby on top of that. But alas, this IS a forum after all, and it is to be expected. No worries.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2008
  14. TexasRebel

    TexasRebel Guest

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    no its ok no need didnt expect this post to go off on a big ramble.
     
  15. GTstrudl

    GTstrudl Member

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    I want to learn more and the fact of soundcard & VISTA issues. Sofar this post is very educational. To sweston, ROBSCIX and GenClaymore, I fully respect your different views. Sometimes maybe MS should talk and reveal more regarding their OS.
     

  16. Tinuva

    Tinuva Master Guru

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    Actually, OpenAL does provide hardware acceleration. Have you noticed how vista's volume controls do NOT affect the volume of applications that uses openal? Try and see if it works...it does not because it bypass's vista's sound system and connect directly to the hardware driver, even when it uses software buffers.

    Then, just like OpenGL where drivers can add extra extionsions for effects which the card can do in hardware but is not yet part of the default OpenGL api, just like that you can have extensions with OpenAL, and with Creative cards you get this in the form of EAX1/2/3/4/5 and with UT3 you can actually see this dumped into the log file when it starts up the audio subsystem.

    Yes OpenAL has nothing to do with DirectX, in fact its completely different APIs, however OpenAL does make use of the direct hardware just like OpenGL does for graphics cards, and right now only Creative cards support these EAX extensions in hardware more as far as I know. The other cards that say they do, still does it in the driver, and OpenAL just connect to the driver, which is why XFi chips are superior to other chips for gaming.

    Say what you want, I know what the truth is, if you don't believe it, its ok this is my last post about it. Even a donkey learns after bumping his head for the second time against the same wall.
     

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