audigy ?

Hi Guys.

i would like to buy a Creative Audigy sound card but im puzzling about all these creative models ?!?

i have around $250 USD to spend to.

i heard somewhere it exists another brand as "Turtle Beach" or something like that which could be also a good sound card brand ?


any comments are welcome.

thanks.


hey, im a newbie, keep it easy men. be cool and be patient. thanks.

I've got an Audigy and I like it. There are others out there who like Audigy's too. The popular opinion on this board is that Sound Blaster products are crap, and in some cases, it's a well founded opinion. Just depends on personal experience and preference I guess. But you are best asking what sound card would best suit your needs rather than which card is better. Otherwise you'll start a sound card forum version of a flame war - a rather cold one.

What do you want to use the sound card for?

i also.













<pre>hmm.., flame war?!?</pre><p>hey, im a newbie, keep it easy men. be cool and be patient. thanks.

GO AWAY PROFESSIONAL TROLL!
how many threads am i gonna have to post that in.

I just upgraded from Audigy to GTXP 6.1 and i'm glad i did. Its much better all around especially if you love music.

nVidiot: Message board Troll employed by nVidia to terrorize aTidiots.

rofl.


hey, im a newbie, keep it easy men. be cool and be patient. thanks.

You can get Retail Audigy Platinum at newegg.com for 170 shipped. Newegg have great customer service.

Audigy platinum Ex is a good card ,especially if you have a MD recorder.
Extigy card is cheap and you have the option of carrying it to a laptop if you ever get one

FatBurger, i got my new headphones and amp in (Senn. HD580's and Headroom Total Airhead 9V) they kick ass on the GTXP both for games and music. 100% kick ass. The GTXP matches really well with em. Tried em on "old" audigy and they sound very harsh. So for high quality sound the GTXP's definitely there for us-)

This has been yet another public service announcement regarding the GTXP and Santa Cruz converting a former Audigy fanboy.

DBrown...i'd rather buy it at COMPUSA and get a 1 year instant replacement warranty! Greed=bad...you dont always get what you pay for either. Sometimes you get more than you pay for...like at CompUSA with their instant replacement warranty. But then you'd have to go ask them about that...people here get really hyper when i tell em about it.

nVidiot: Message board Troll employed by nVidia to terrorize aTidiots.

read up on www.headroom.com and www.head-fi.com if your interested in them. Not all Sennheisers are created equal.

nVidiot: Message board Troll employed by nVidia to terrorize aTidiots.

Yeah, I know. I'm not insterested in buying right now anyway.

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

Headphones are nice for immersion in gaming but are limited to stereo. They can't position audio in front of and behind you, which is important for many games.

Ritesh

I disagree. Headphones offer far better positioning. Especially with the Sensaura engine, that you configure to your ears specifically, the 3D positioning is amazing.

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

Have you actually listened to headphones on a Sensaura engine? I know plenty of people that will back me up on this.

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

Rear Guard Action, hold the left flank, The Klipshes and Creatives are charging tonight.

Their trying to rain on our party by telling us that because we can see too that our sense of what sounds good sucks! I say we FIGHT!

Okay, so i'm getting out of hand...its fun sometimes.

I don't seem to have any problems telling up from down with headphones...or front from back... That thing about visual cues was for you since you did seem to have a problem. I don't. You twisted what i said. Remember, A3D is designed to fascilitate 3d sound out of 2 speakers or headphones. It works too. Sensura and A3D work really well together.

The audigy does NOT have the good positioning that Sensura does...period...so its no comparison. When creative built the audigy they built it work with thier speakers. They almost completely forgot headphones existed. If you use the headphones settings in creatives drivers, your sound WILL SUCK AND BE ABSOLUTELY ONE DIMENTIONAL! Goodnight.

edited, you dont turn your head...you turn your characters head. Headphones are not like putting two speakers against your ears, far from it. Headphones are designed to do that with and they do it well. A good pair of digital dynamic headphones can do amazing things with A3D and the sensura engine. I'm not sayin EAX sucks on headphones...far from it, just that A3D is exceptionally good. I dont even friggin plug my speakers in any more...I play better with the headphones. Speakers server their purpose, so do heaphones, i can get just as good of 3d sound out of my headphones as with my speakers so i'm happy, if you cant, its your ears, its not my problem and it doesnt mean my setup doesnt work right.. actually thats not true, i just plug the headphones into the speakers headphone jack...gets exceptional THRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD audio that way. -P

Added benefit, amazing base without having the neighbors call the cops.

***Marches off to get his flamethrower + 6 of creative bane***

Peoeple have known this for years that 3d positioning was better on headphones than speakers. Why is this a problem now? Somebody infatuated with klipsh and headphone envy? Everyone's known this for years...its been written all over the sky's and the net...headphones are the only way to get up and down cues. Common sense has nothing to do with it, just science. Common sense is all too common...

yet another edit: I'm gonna keep on editing this forever cause i'm a bit t'd off...Headphones like putting two speakers against your head? Did you have your eardrums removed as a child?

nVidiot: Message board Troll employed by nVidia to terrorize aTidiots.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by williamc on 05/08/02 06:30 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

HAHAHA! Thanks guys! I have always thought even my crappy $10 dollar headphones sounded better when I played games. I just didn't have a way to argue it. Theres just something about it... it's hard to explain. It makes my reaction times a lot quicker for some reason. Yeah... they might not be 5.1, thx or whatever... but who cares if it doesn't make my game better. It may sound "cooler" but that's not gonna raise my frags.

Well...sometimes winning is having a good time-)) But i have a better time gaming with the headphones these days...better immersion like i said. So i win no matter what and have a good time to boot!

nVidiot: Message board Troll employed by nVidia to terrorize aTidiots.

Both

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

Here's one good reason to use A3D to add to the score against EAX A3D will allow a player to hear on average 2x farther when playing Counter-Strike. This is a huge advantage when it comes down to competitive play Beware of accusations of wall-hacking though, heh heh, those n00bs.

Actually it is totally possible to fool you into 2D and even 3D sound with just two speakers or headphones.

You see you only have two ears.

You brain computes not just intensity but temporal differences between the sound heard in each ear.

You have a 2D map in you brain with the angle from you determined by the time difference between the sound. For example a time difference of 0.1 ms means the sound is behind you to the right (say 120 degrees from center). (I just made those values up)

All the positioning chip has to do is delay the sound in one speaker by 0.1 ms and your brain thinks it is behind you to the right. The chip will also adjust volume levels to further improve the effect, fooling the brains intensity cues.

This is why 2D/3D positioning is even more effective with headphones.

I thought this was interesting when I found it out.

If a tree falls in a forest with no one and nothing around around. Does it make a sound?

Answer will be supplied if you manage to screw up the answer.

Someone's missing the point about just what 2d and 3d sound really is. Sound comes from disturbances in the air. The sonic boom of an aircraft is a wave of compressed air hitting your head. A symphony creates detailed waves or resonances in the air which hit your head and are decoded by your ears to create to sound or music. What this means is that "3d" sound is created by the differences in time we hear sounds and their differences in intensity coupled with our other senses allowing us to determine position of origion in 3dimentional space. Our ears are designed to create differences in sound that as we are growing up we learn to mean behind or in front, above or below. Thats trained and can only be learned in combination with other senses. Once you've learned it, you can tell whether sound is coming from above or below and you can deduce the size and shape of a room your in from echos coming from a point source sound. So, a 5.1 speaker gaming setup. You can hear left right behind and front. A headphone setup lets you hear left and right and using signal processing technology in nice headphone amplifiers and many sound cards will simulate behind, front, above, and below. When i say simulate, that means the sound card is manipulating the analog or digital signal to create air waves like those that natural sounds in 3d space would create. So, the end result of what we're hearing from a natural sound, speakers, or headphones is the same, we intercept the waves in the air around us and translate them into sound. Thus, headphones may simulate 3d sound, but the sound is real true 3d sound, there's nothing fake about the air waves the headphones make. In order to replicate the sound you get from using A3D-amplifierw/signal processor-real nice headphones you would have to have a speaker that was in reality a sphear with you hanging in the middle of it. Now that is not feasable...so for now. Live the life of the headphone fanatic for real "3d" sound.

Okay students...if you've been paying attention you should be able to answer the question at the top of this post. If you get it right you get to go buy a pair of headphones. If you get it wrong, we shall slay thee with our superior sonics.

nVidiot: Message board Troll employed by nVidia to terrorize aTidiots.

ah farg it, i had a huge response typed up and IE crashed. Typical. So, here's a short reply.

I said what the bottom line was and i had it right. Speakers and headphones both simulate 3d sound in the same way.

Christ i hate rethinking and typing all this so its gonna be really short.

Your setups you tested on are old equipment and are nothing compared to a new crystal audio sensura chipset with virtual ear technology allowing you to program the sound simulation to fit your individual head. Any headphones without a headphone amplifier gives a "blobs in the head" sound where you feel like you have an orchestra in the middle of your head. Use a good headphone amplifier witha signal processor in it to fix this and get a real soundstage coming from around you instead of in you.

I hate to intrude on your utopia but thats exactly what it is is utopia. Your non-algorythmic sound doesnt exist. What happened is you got lucky and set up decently well for your head with your speakers. Your sound card is putting out the exact same info as it did for the headphones, you just couldnt adjust those to your head and you didnt have a signal processing amplifier. What i'm saying is, your decieving yourself.

Take a step back a realize those things i've said. Your audio signal is the exact same as from headphones. Speakers require positioning and adjustment as much as headhpones. Both are simulated 3d as neither is natural. Your tests were not done on the equipment this thread is for talking about, i'm dealing with far superior equipment than you tried headphones with. What you've gone to talking about is soundstage, not 3d sound. Those are not the same thing, they're fairly close, but definitely not the same. Soundstage has more to do with positioning. 3D sound refers to the depth and artificial effects applied to simulate the environment the sound is supposed to be comeing from in whatever graphical environment your in. Soundstage and 3D sound taken individually both have to be setup for your specific hearing whether your using speakers or headphones. Todays tech allows this with either. The tech your using only allows this with speakers.

Last night, i finally finished my really nice headphone setup, and about had a heart attack when i turned it on. ABsolutely, utterly fantastic soundstage. You can close your eyes and almost feel like your there in the concert hall standing in front of a symphony. Only difference is of course, it sounds even clearer and finer when heard live as any speaker/headphone setup has lost some clarity in the signals and recording. But you can get awfully damned good with the right setup.

Headphones definitely allow for soundstaging and 3dimentional effects that could only be achieved otherwise a very very expensive Speaker setup (as in 10,000+ dollars, not as in Klipsh 5.1 PC setup).

From here, yer on yer own...i sincerely hope you dont blind yourself to the quality and ability of headphones now and its constantly growing. I dont advocate throwing away speakers-) I use em all the time, but i use headphones too for some things.

btw, when you closed your eyes you were just playing phsychological tricks on yourself. without a signal processor all will ever hear is left right and dead center of your head. Sush is life...

Do it right and you'll hear headhpones like you've never imagined. Everything i said in my previous post was 100% correct, i've double checked it and triple read it. [edited- okay that was mean, line deleted]

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the empires state building, along came goblin, wiped the spider out<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by williamc on 05/16/02 03:25 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Aureal is no more, so whatever A3D is left over in games won't last for long.