^^ i have read that the nForce2 soundstorm is way better than SB live 7.1. It has a dedicated DSP as EMU10K1 in Audigy cards and so wont waste CPU cycles(correct me if i am wrong)…
why did ur friend move from Nforce2 soundstorm to SB live… i think the sound qual would have come down by going to SBlive…
^^Soundstorm will only sound good if you run over SPDIF. If you run over analog its the same quality as any other crappy mobo integrated solution.
The guy with the soundstorm bought it without doing his homework. So I wasnt very surprised. And chaos im not sure on the SPDIF. Lemme check on some reviews…
The others though, felt that they had been let down as it wasnt what they were expecting. So i would definitely suggest if you can try it before buying. And one of those friends wants to sell his card for obvious reasons. So in case you do decide to buy, consider buying from him.
Raghu.
Chaos, soundstorm doesnt output a 44.1 signal (read - resampling APU). It should sound like a normal integrated onboard sound solution having a SPDIF out.
Most onboard sound solutions sound just the same.
On the other hand, the Live 24 bit has acceptable Analogue quality, since it has extremely low noise components, and is on par with PRO soundcards when it comes to DR/Noise level, but is not musically upto the mark, due to the crappy resampling algorithm used by the resampling core.
Effectively it means, that the signal that flows from the APU to the DAC is reampled and is noisy (noisy in the sense tampered), but since the DAC has low noise output, the analogue signal sounds clean.
In short it means that the signal flowing through the internal components is noisy, but sounds clean through the analogue out.
what were the speakers ur friends using? anyone on atp3?
will surely consider ur friends card when i complete my researching abt the card and decide to buy…
^^ I will buy within a month.
I did some searching on the net… the cards Auidgy value and SB live are almost identical except for a line of capacitors in Audigy value that is missing in SB live… also one of the chip present in the card is different…
Here is a picture of SB live
http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/9710/soundblasterlive24bit0hf.th.jpg
Here is a picture of Audigy value… I have indicated the diff with a red box…
http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/4415/audigyvaluecdiff9rs.th.jpg
The model no for SB live is SB0410 and the Model no for Audigy Value/Audigy SE is SB0570…
will the additional capacitors bring some diff in soundqual.. and the model no for Audigy value seems to be the latest… so there could be some improvements made to the card right???
Am thinking of buying Audigy tommorrow, was quoted 1650 for that.
So what is the conclusion for this thread.
i have asked my friend to buy me a Audigy2 value😊 from us… the sale is done… got it in ebay… got it for 1850 including shipping:clap: … new card.. not used or refurbished…
will be getting the card next weekend when my friend comes back😄 …
^^ can you get 1 for me too:P
^^ sorry buddy… my friend is already overloaded with electronic items… i had opened a thread abt electronic items n customs for this reason only…
if some other friend comes back i will inform u…
naa its ok… i will buy Audigy value here itself tommorrow:)..
Trajan - makes no difference, depends on the design of the PCB.
Again they use the same DAC and also both resample.
difference b’ween audigy2 value and audigy 2 ZS
in the thread it was said that there wasnt much diff between the audigy2 zs and audigy 2 value.. also read in the net that audigy 2 value is much better than audigy value/SB live..
i think that Audigy2 value should be in the same candre of Audigy2 zs… so must be much better than Audigy value… and i guess AUidgy 2 value would utilize cpu cycles…
correct me if i am wrong…
^^
I hope this makes it clear -
Audigy series (except value and LS) - Hardware DSP with upto EAX 3.0 support
Audigy 2 series (including ZS and Value) - All have upto EAX 4.0 support
SBlive regular - all models - upto EAX 2.0 hardware DSP support
SBlive 24 bit and Audigy LS - upto EAX 3.0 support - but lack of hardware DSP
Musically and soundwise, Audigy LS, SBLive 24 bit and Audigy 2 cards sound the same.
For gaming Audigy 2 cards (be it any) are better than the above 2 cards, due to EAX 4.0 hardware support.
hmmmm… i dont see anything about rumored “reverse hyperthreading”
Does this mean Audigy 2 value has its own DSP?
yes it does
