Windows 7 Sound Cards

[conceptualtek]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this site, learned a lot from you when upgrading from a maxed out P4 to:
a Dell T5500 - Dual X5650, Quadro 4000, 48GB RAM, Windows 7 x64 as my first real workstation for productivity.

I'd like to add a general but respectable sound card to the system. From what I've read so far, there may be issues with drivers for W7.

Any ideas? Anyone running a sound card on a similar system?

Thanks

 

[Emperus]

There are no driver issues with Win 7.. Some folks just get unlucky.. You can safely get any sound card you like.. If you are looking for a high quality sound card then get the Asus Xonar Essence ST/STX.. If you require a more professional card however, look at the M-Audio sound card range..

www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=PCIinterfaces

 

[4745454b]

Brief background. You can run your drivers in either "Kernel space", meaning they run in the OS themselves, or "user space", which is only attached to the Kernel. (another term used is ring.) If you run in Kernel space, you get a speed advantage. If you run in user space, if the driver crashes you won't have to reboot. I think drivers went into kernel space around Win95, but it might have been in win3.x. This lasted all the way up to XP.

Vista changed this. As a result, Creatives EAX and drivers no longer functioned as they should have. Onboard and nearly everyone else was fine. Creative has only just now got back to where they were, but the old Audigy cards were never fixed to provide the same hardware support they used to. You can safely buy a new sound card and not worry about driver issues.

Does your computer even need anything better then onboard? Seems like a workstation, which wouldn't need great audio.

 

[gamerk316]

Well, the best mid-range soundcard right now would be the ASUS Xonar D1/DX and HT Omega Striker. Knowing exactly what your setup was would help narrow the field down a bit.

 

[MEgamer]

why does everyone mention m-audio when it comes to pro audio?? is that the ONLY affordable option out there right now for pro?

 

[Emperus]

Well there is also Lynx audio solutions -

www.lynxstudio.com/products.asp

 

[gamerk316]

why does everyone mention m-audio when it comes to pro audio?? is that the ONLY affordable option out there right now for pro?

Most well known. I do admit professional audio is a bit out of my area of expertiese though.

 

[MEgamer]

i also think audio is sitll processed by the CPU, and then -DAC- done by the soundcard. cos if this is true, then x-fis should definitely be out of the option (they have fairly gd sound processor not DAC wise though)

 

[chinoroy]

why does everyone mention m-audio when it comes to pro audio?? is that the ONLY affordable option out there right now for pro?

'cause its for audio recording & production. there are also other audio interface/sound card out there that is better than m-audio.

 

[MEgamer]

'cause its for audio recording & production. there are also other audio interface/sound card out there that is better than m-audio.

yes but m-audio isnt the only option for recording and production, infact tbf, the asus cards which is meant to be aimed at consumers, arent to bad at such either,

yes of course there are better options then m-audio, im pretty sure m-audio is a sister company of a main brand, (but i forgot the name of it )

 

[conceptualtek]

Thanks for all of the replys!

Emperus and gamerk316: I was leaning toward ASUS - ordered a Xonar D2X 7.1 Channels 24-bit card.

I'm not a high-end audo user... so I've chosen something mid-range because I wanted something to listen to music / movies (I don't have a separate audio or video system) and for work with Adobe Soundbooth and Premier CS5.

 

[conceptualtek]

Best answer selected by conceptualtek.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey