Audio card for a Home Entertainment system

[Castyl]

What would be better to put in a home entertainment PC? SoundBlaster Audigy? Philips Acoustic Edge? or a Fortissimo III?

I am only familiar with the Soundblaster sound cards, but I am willing to try something different if it would work better.

 

[kobe8]

The 2nd two options are probably better are music than the CL Audigy, which is primarily a gaming card.

 

[umheint0]

I've had good success with Guillemot in the past, but for a good home theatre card, look into M-Audio, specifically the Revolution 7.1. It's a pro audio card manufacturer that entered into the consumer market with this card, so it does have a good heritage.

2500+ Barton 191x12@1.85v=2293mhz
Tr SLK-800
Tt Smartfan II
A7N8X Dlx
2x512MB Corsair PC3200
BBA 9700 Pro AIW
2x80GB 7200RPM Maxtor
Guillemot Game Theatre XP

 

[r2k]

If you're connecting the sound card to the home-theatre system via a digital cable, unless you don't specifically need 24-bit/96KHz precision, don't bother. Just get yourself the cheapest card with a digital output.

If however you're connecting the two with analog cables, the quality of the sound card becomes very important. You can start with Fortissimo3 and Audigy (skip the Accoustic Edge, it's older and not as good) but IMHO it's worth every penny to go for a better card. Creative Audigy2, M-Audio Revolution 7.1 (and if it's available) Terratec Aureon 5.1 Sky are your best bets here. Revolution and Aureon will have a better sound quality but are not as versatile as Audigy2 (e.g. can't touch the Audigy2 in games). If you're into PVR (watching and recording TV on your PC) avoid (at least for now) the Revolution 7.1.

 

[kobe8]

cant touch? hehe more like, everything will sound like muddled crap in games. Few cards can match Creative Labs cards in gaming; most professional to commericial cards cant do gaming sounds at all (sounds not even remotely produced correctly). However, if you are into music, then CL cards are second to anything u get

 

[Traqr]

Hey, just get a Soundstorm nForce2 mobo and link out digitally to your reciever. It's the only real-time digital surround encoding soultion I know of (that is, games with 3D audio will be output 6.1 Digital! Audigy2 only does 6.1 <i>analog</i> out real-time) that can keep up with (and <A HREF="http://www4.tomshardware.com/game/20030405/index.html" target="_new">surpass</A>) the Audigy2 in CPU utilization for games, and it still just streams the audio off a DVD. Of course, it's a new motherboard, probably new RAM, maybe new CPU...

...hmmm, a bit off the topic of good musical quality for home theatre, isn't this. oops...

<font color=blue>Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.</font color=blue><font color=green>
<i>Canadian Flight Safety periodical, ~1987</i></font color=green><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Traqr on 05/09/03 03:20 PM.</EM></FONT></P>