Soundcard Recommendations

[MDK]

Hi,

I am currently in the market for a new soundcard. Had to give up my old one due to issues with my system.

I have a 1GHz AMD on an Asus A7V-E mobo. For a vid card I have an ATI All In Wonder 128 Pro 32MB. I do mostly TV captures but am getting into Home video editing. I currently do not have a DV camera, but hope to soon.

I was hoping to get some feedback and suggestions from people in this forum as they probably know best the ins and outs as it pertains to video work.

I have been seriously looking at the Hercules Game Theater XP, it's breakout box is great.

Thanks for any and all assistance
MDK

[patrickm]

i've got an aureal vortex2 SQ2500 i'm very happy with, though the company went out of business so i don't expect many win2k driver updates... but the sound quality is very good, plus a digital output is always a plus.

but i've also heard great things about the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, (though i don't remember if it has a digital input, which i'd like on my next card). turtle beach has always made top quality stuff, so it's probably hard to go wrong with that.

[MDK]

Hi patrickm,

Thank you for your response. I too am interested in having a digital input on my next soundcard. I just checked and it appears that the Santa Cruz only has an internal digital input. The card I had to ditch was a Montego, my system had issues with the A3D chip. I agree that Turtle Beach makes some quality stuff and if the Santa Cruz had an external digital in I would consider it very strongly.

Thanks again and keep them coming
MDK

[statuspending]

i have a sblive1024 with an addon digital io card by http://www.hoontech.com it's great. coax and optical io.

if i were to replace mine, i would probably replace the sblive with an sblive 5.1 to take advantage of mpeg5.1 audio....i believe it will decode it.

i'd still keep my thirdparty addon card though

[patrickm]

[double post]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: patrickm on 2001-08-08 09:11:58 ]</font>

[statuspending]

i have thought about that... a dedicated dvdplayer/divxplayer/vcd/svcd/mp3/EVERYTHING player.

all you need is a decent processor, a decent soundcard, and a tv-out.

the coax i/o.... im not sure if it's ttl, but i assure you that the interface is identical to coax digital i/o on receivers and dvdplayers.

i don't mean 75 ohm coax...i mean rca

[patrickm]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
Thank you for your response. I too am interested in having a digital input on my next soundcard. I just checked and it appears that the Santa Cruz only has an internal digital input. The card I had to ditch was a Montego, my system had issues with the A3D chip. I agree that Turtle Beach makes some quality stuff and if the Santa Cruz had an external digital in I would consider it very strongly.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

is it a coax-level digital in or a TTL-level digital in? if it's coax, it's a trivial thing to run an external jack to it. all you need is a short piece of wire, a drill, and a $.50 RCA jack from radio shack. if it's TTL, that's essentially the same as a Toslink optical connector. with a few bucks (like $15 you could get a Sharp toslink receiver chip that exports a TTL level signal).

MPEG-5.1 would be nice though.

someone (PCChips?) is making motherboards with a 6 channel onboard thing and a $20 digitial IO daughtercard. in some sense it might be cheaper in the long term to just make a separate computer with a duron as a home theater digital component, for recording off CDs, being an MP3 jukebox, etc. because even if they implement whatever CD copy protection they want, it better play over a digital connection without errors, and with 'old' recording software/hardware it really couldn't stop you even 5 years from now.

on a semi-related topic, does anyone know where i can get an older (slow) CD-ROM with a TTL digital out and a play button? i have two cd-rw that work (just a resistor and an LED and you have a toslink) but one is my new burner and one has no play button. my cheapo cd-rom doesn't output a legal digital out signal (like 2.6Volts or something). but i'm interested in making a mini standalone cd player for my other room. (and the analog audio off a cd-rom is terrible, but digital is digital)

[patrickm]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-08 09:08:58, statuspending wrote:
i have thought about that... a dedicated dvdplayer/divxplayer/vcd/svcd/mp3/EVERYTHING player.

all you need is a decent processor, a decent soundcard, and a tv-out.

the coax i/o.... im not sure if it's ttl, but i assure you that the interface is identical to coax digital i/o on receivers and dvdplayers.

i don't mean 75 ohm coax...i mean rca

</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

well, i'm not quite sure what you mean, i was talking about the internal jack on the santa cruz, whether it expects TTL or SPDIF-Coax voltage levels.

TTL=electrical equivalent of Toslink optical 0=0V, 1=+5V
SPDIF-coax: 0=-.5V, 1=+.5V, (@ 100ma or something)

TTL is usually run inside computers, and coax on 75 ohm RCA cables.

[vanillabox]

If you want to also look at a new system (something I have been thinking of doing for my entertainment system) you may want to look at this.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/mil127.asp

[MDK]

Thank you for your responses and comments.

I think for myself I would prefer to get the digital in factory built (already a part of the card). However, I do like the Santa Cruz card. Still have many reviews and opinions to look over before I make a choice.

Thanks again
MDK