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Whats a good poor mans sound card?

712 Views 17 Replies 14 Participants Last post by  OpTicaL, 
Phantez
my old junk sound card took a :turd: so i need something new, and i dont have a whole lot to spend because my money is going elsewhere (cars are my biggest hobby
) What a decent quality sound card i can pick up for cheap?
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bumsoil
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102010
cheep and good
OOPS that one is low profile i ment this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102012
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LiNERROR
Quote:

Originally Posted by bumsoil View Post
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102010
cheep and good
you do know that is a low-profile card, and doesn't come with a full height bracket... meaning it won't screw into a normal case...

Can you even find any specs that show that card is even a single 1% better than the onboard it would replace?
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You want a good sound card (around $50.00) that has Dolby Digital Live encoding? Get the Turtle Beach Montego II DDL. It has both optical and coax connectors, and sounds very good. For the price it is a steal. Sound quality would walk all over that Sound Blaster and you would get less bloated drivers in the process. It also encodes Dolby Digital Live on the fly which is great for multi speaker setups.

Most onboard audio would sound just as good as an Audigy so you would be wasting money.

Here is a link: http://www.amazon.com/TURTLE-BEACH-T.../dp/B0009MFQ4Y

Don't worry about the negative reviews. I personally own one and it's a great little card.
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dskina
Chaintech AV-710, if you can find one. They're usually about $24.

Review


Review
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TwoCables
Quote:

Originally Posted by LiNERROR View Post
you do know that is a low-profile card, and doesn't come with a full height bracket... meaning it won't screw into a normal case...

Can you even find any specs that show that card is even a single 1% better than the onboard it would replace?
He edited it just a little too late. hehe.


But, I can answer that question: it will definitely be better than this motherboard's onboard sound. Even the Sound Blaster Live! would be better.

But anyway, if you can afford $75.99 shipped, then get the XtremeGamer from Newegg right now. It's a limited time offer. It's normally $90.99 before shipping. It will blow away the Audigy SE.

But if the Audigy SE is perfect for your budget, then you can't do much better at this price. Besides, it's still a really good sound card.
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W
opinion removed, now just spam!
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S
Tech relative said to just bypass getting an audiocard in the newest motherboards with HD sound. Was skeptical at first, but he was (grrrrrrr) right again. Despite running Folding with the GPU and one proc @ 100% no pops, or anything.

But Turtle Beach sound cards are sweet. Even that 2003 version I had (see it lasted 5+ years even and not fry like Creative) sounded better than the Audigy and 7.1 channel Creative I got that didn't even last a year.
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R
I would not touch Creative Labs with a 10 foot pole anymore. Their software is terribly bloated, if you choose to just install the drivers you are wasting money so it's a no win there.

Besides the X-fi, that Turtle Beach card will sound much better than any other Creative card, and you get smaller drivers and the card encodes Dolby Digital Live on the fly, something ONLY the X-fi does. I have had bad experiences with cheap Creative cards as well.
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TwoCables
Quote:

Originally Posted by StarryNite View Post
Tech relative said to just bypass getting an audiocard in the newest motherboards with HD sound. Was skeptical at first, but he was (grrrrrrr) right again. Despite running Folding with the GPU and one proc @ 100% no pops, or anything.

But Turtle Beach sound cards are sweet. Even that 2003 version I had (see it lasted 5+ years even and not fry like Creative) sounded better than the Audigy and 7.1 channel Creative I got that didn't even last a year.
StarryNite: it is very true that some of the latest motherboards, especially the really high-end ones have onboard audio that is very hard to beat unless you buy an insanely high-quality sound card. But the motherboard we're dealing with here is the MSI K9N6PGM-F. It's onboard audio can easily be beat by the Audigy SE. Sure, the Audigy SE won't be a massively huge jump, but it will certainly be better. But most importantly: it will be a functioning, quality sound card that won't sound crappy like this onboard audio likely does.
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Q
Quote:


Originally Posted by bumsoil
View Post

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102010
cheep and good
OOPS that one is low profile i ment this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102012


5 bucks more for a 1" longer back plate
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S
For a separate sound card, Turtle Beach is a better, Two Cables. Built to last, and without the driver bloat. Was getting better sound out of it (tech relative used it for his HD media center even) than a $100 Creative sound card. Sampling it once, I'll never go back to Creative.
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W
Quote:

Originally Posted by ricsim78 View Post
You want a good sound card (around $50.00) that has Dolby Digital Live encoding? Get the Turtle Beach Montego II DDL. It has both optical and coax connectors, and sounds very good. For the price it is a steal. Sound quality would walk all over that Sound Blaster and you would get less bloated drivers in the process. It also encodes Dolby Digital Live on the fly which is great for multi speaker setups.

Most onboard audio would sound just as good as an Audigy so you would be wasting money.

Here is a link: http://www.amazon.com/TURTLE-BEACH-T.../dp/B0009MFQ4Y

Don't worry about the negative reviews. I personally own one and it's a great little card.
Would that beat the sound quality of something like, say, the X-Fi XtremeMusic?

I only use 2.1 speakers (from now on) and headphones.
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TwoCables
Quote:


Originally Posted by ricsim78
View Post

You want a good sound card (around $50.00) that has Dolby Digital Live encoding? Get the Turtle Beach Montego II DDL. It has both optical and coax connectors, and sounds very good. For the price it is a steal. Sound quality would walk all over that Sound Blaster and you would get less bloated drivers in the process. It also encodes Dolby Digital Live on the fly which is great for multi speaker setups.

Most onboard audio would sound just as good as an Audigy so you would be wasting money.

Here is a link: http://www.amazon.com/TURTLE-BEACH-T.../dp/B0009MFQ4Y

Don't worry about the negative reviews. I personally own one and it's a great little card.

But in this case, getting the Audigy SE would be the best bet:
  1. It's very low priced (and you can find it for even less than $35)
  2. I can almost guarantee you that it will sound better than the onboard audio on the motherboard in question, especially if you adjust the graphic EQ which will not need to be cranked as high as it would with the onboard audio.
  3. Most importantly: it will function properly since it will be new.
But hey, I'll let Phantez decide.
Besides, we never know: $75.99 shipped for the XtremeGamer might be perfectly within the budget.

Quote:


Originally Posted by Whyifide
View Post

Would that beat the sound quality of something like, say, the X-Fi XtremeMusic?

I only use 2.1 speakers (from now on) and headphones.

After comparing the specifications, I would like to say that I sincerely doubt it. I'd make comparisons, but after Googling around on that Turtle Beach sound card and also looking on Turtle Beach's website for its specifications, there aren't enough specifications listed to do a proper comparison. For example, Turtle Beach doesn't list the Signal-to-Noise Ratio. They don't list the Total Harmonic Distortion. They listed the specifications as though they believe anyone buying this sound card won't know enough to understand it anyway. But when I buy a sound card, those are two specs that I want to know about!!

So, unless it can actually be proven that this Turtle Beach sound card will sound better than the XtremeMusic (which was replaced by the XtremeGamer that's currently being sold for $75.99 shipped), I say don't waste your money. There are better things you can spend it on since you already have a really good sound card.
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Vagrant Storm
I'd bet any thing that if Windows 7 comes along you will need to buy a new sound card to get working drivers from Creative. The whole Vista sham has completely taken them out of the picture in my book.

Once we finally move and I auctually have a computer room again...and not be forced to use head phones...I am planning on trying one of those Turtle Beach porducts. I've heard the quality control is pretty bad though and it might take a few RMAs to get one that works, but they have better driver support than Creative. Which is stupid considering that Creative is probably at least four times as big as Turtle Beach.
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C
onBoard ? it's free ?
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A
If you have around $90, Xonar DX or Xonar D1 is really the best in sound quality, they also support EAX5 by emulation. No othr card can support it except Asus and Creative themselves...
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OpTicaL
Quote:


Originally Posted by Phantez
View Post

my old junk sound card took a :turd: so i need something new, and i dont have a whole lot to spend because my money is going elsewhere (cars are my biggest hobby
) What a decent quality sound card i can pick up for cheap?

Poor mans sound card = onboard sound.
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