# Looking for a hi-fi sound card



## Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Can anyone recommend an audiophile-quality sound card? Nothing fancy, no 5.1 or anything, just a simple two-channel card that’s quiet and clean.

Regards,
Wayne


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## MrPorterhouse

When you get into nice cards, they automatically come with 5.1 or 7.1 capability. I would recommend a Creative Audigy2 ZS. That's what I use and its amazing. Its 24-bit 192kHz with a 108 S/N ratio. Talk about clean, this card is pure heaven. It has a lot more features then you'll need, but you might find yourself using more than you think after you start playing with it. It also supports DVD-Audio, which is awesome.

You can find the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS for about $75 from newegg.com and other online retailers.

Here's a link to Creative's website.
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=205&product=4915


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## Sonnie

This does seem to be a very popular card. You can read reviews on it at newegg too.


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## JohnM

M-Audio make some nice products in this area, e.g. http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/AudiophileUSB-main.html

Digigram make a large range of professional-quality soundcards, the VXPocket PCMCIA cards are populare for mobile use. http://www.digigram.com/products/index.htm

RME Audio also make professional-quality souncards, http://www.rme-audio.com/english/soundcds.htm


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## Josuah

If you walk into a place like Guitar Center, you can find their computer section and look at the variety of cards they have available. I would not recommend Creative cards for high-quality audio work, but maybe I'm just biased because I think their cards have been **** since Aureal left the market. I'm sure a look at Sweetwater, Musician's Friend, or FullCompass would also give you some good information.


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## MrPorterhouse

The Creative Audigy2 ZS is the only aftermarket card I've ever had, so I have no history of comparison, but I do know that I'm extremely happy with its performance. It's sounds amazing. There are many out there though.


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt

So apparently it’s hard to find a simple stereo card. I assume the 5.1 cards have a regular stereo output? Sorry for such a noob question, but I’m practically a computer illiterate.

Regards,
Wayne


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## Josuah

5.1 cards will have stereo output on their 1/8" output jack. The 5.1 will only come out from pre-outs or digital. At least that's what I recall from all the cards I've seen myself.

I would still suggest calling your local Guitar Center or Sweetwater and asking what card they would recommend though.


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## MrPorterhouse

As Josuah said, of course you can just use stereo with the Multichannel cards. Its a lot like buying an A/V Receiver that's a full 7.1, but only using it for 2-ch duty. You've got expandability built into it, which is always a good thing.


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## bobgpsr

The problem with the Creative Audigy2 ZS is that it can not do bit perfect 44.1 kHz stereo CD playback (transfer via S/PDIF to the AVR). I have one in one of my PCs and its limitations (internal sampling/clock of 48 kHz or multiples) frustrated me. The later more recent Creative card solves this problem. No problems with my M-Audio Firewire 410 (but it is not cheap). 

Bob


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## MrPorterhouse

bobgpsr said:


> The problem with the Creative Audigy2 ZS is that it can not do bit perfect 44.1 kHz stereo CD playback (transfer via S/PDIF to the AVR).
> 
> Bob


Yes, that's true over digital, but if you're a 2-ch purist and just plan on listening(not mixing/sampling), you can just use the analog connection. And, I gotta tell ya, my card is sweet, clean, clear, and completely uncolored. You make a good point, though. The newer cards(and other brands/models) offer more features. The Audigy2 ZS is(I think) a 2003 model year card, so as with anything, newer models come out with more features at similar costs. There's lots of options of there, and the PC sound enthusiasts seem to frown on Creative in general. I haven't had any issues or problems so that's a good thing.


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Bob,


> The problem with the Creative Audigy2 ZS is that it can not do bit perfect 44.1 kHz stereo CD playback (transfer via S/PDIF to the AVR). I have one in one of my PCs and its limitations (internal sampling/clock of 48 kHz or multiples) frustrated me.


I would only be using my computer’s internal CD drive or playing MP3’s on my computer. Any problems there?

Regards,
Wayne


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## MrPorterhouse

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:


> Bob,
> 
> I would only be using my computer’s internal CD drive or playing MP3’s on my computer. Any problems there?
> 
> Regards,
> Wayne


You can use either an analog cable to connect your pc speakers or you can use a digital SPDIF cable. If you use the analog, you'll get bitperfect(no encoding/resampling). If you use the digital SPDIF and play a 44.1 kHz signal, it will get sampled to 48kHz. Probably 100% of people who are just playing music files through their PC speakers will never know the difference. 

What speakers do you have?


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt

> What speakers do you have?


Swans M200, analog inputs only. So I guess I’d be in business with the Creative card. 

Regards,
Wayne


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## DWJ

Wayne, I've heard nothing but glowing reports of the quality of this card. Granted, it's geared more towards studio use (i.e. clean), but Creative cards are usually geared towards gamers. 
The card I use in my recording rig is no longer made, so I can't steer you there.

Heres the linkhttp://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/MAudio-Audiophile-2496-PCI-Digital-Audio-Card?sku=701341

Price is none to shabby either.....


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## khellandros66

Wayne those are some gorgeous sepakers. The Creative Labs card does upsample to 48kHz, in my past experience with a few of their cards I did notice some higher frequencies sounded a bit harsh. 

Cards that allow Bit for Bit at the original Sampling rate, either over analog or S/PDIF

M-Audio
HDA (Auzentech) - Allows sample rate to 44.1kHz, 48kHz, or 96khz (user defined)
Sabrent (1 model only)

~Bob


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## JCD

With absolutely no personal knowledge, only the recommendation of someone I know (and trust), M-Audio is supposed to have some good cards are reasonable prices. 

JCD


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## MerlinWerks

Just saw this post so perhaps I'm a bit late but both of these are very well thought of:

http://www.floridamusicco.com/proddetail.asp?prod=juli&partner=google

http://www.jdsound.com/Terratec-Phase-22-P6752C0.aspx

I have the Phase 22 and it sounds and works great. I think I paid $99.00 two years ago for it so shop around. However if I were in the market for a 2 ch card today I would be very tempted to get the [email protected]

Good Luck!


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## RSH

M-Audio Audiophile 24/96. 

I have been using it for quite a while with great success.


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## Guest

For those of you interested in a true audiophile quality soundcard, you might want to look at these products:

Lynx Studio LynxTWO
Lynx Studio Aurora
RME DIGI96/8 PAD
RME Fireface 400
Echo Audio AudioFire8
E-MU 1212M
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum

The soundcards from Lynx, RME, Echo Audio and E-MU are all used by audio engineers, musicians and enthusiasts. They have very good quality DACs and ADCs. The analog output from these products rivals anything you will get from audiophile DACs. They can be pretty expensive. The RME Fireface 400 is new and is probably a very good product. The external soundcards will be more appealing to people who are concerned with any electronic noise from their computer getting into the signal. BTW, almost all of these products have better DACs, opamps, etc., than you will find in popular A/V receivers (even the more expensive receivers).

Unfortunately, most of the pro-audio soundcards mentioned above don't provide some features useful for home theater, like bass management. This will change with Vista, because the home theater features will be part of the operating system. See this thread for more info.

Creative Labs owns E-MU (they bought them a few years ago) and now some of the E-MU technology has filtered into the X-Fi products. Creative still uses fairly cheap interconnects and assumes they will be connected to cheap PC speakers, but the internal components are similar to the ones used in some of the E-MU products.


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## khellandros66

Greg if you can provide us with a box with firewire connection that can

Re-Encode EAX 1.0-4.0 to Dolby Digital or DTS

Parametric Analyze and EQ (30 bands per channel)

Bass Management 1Hz - 150hz in 1Hz steps for all channels including sub. (ie the sub reaches it -6dB at 18hz you can filter the FS below that as to lessen the risk of damaging the speaker)

SPL Leveling per channels in 0.5dB steps

Real Time Variable Mater Clock

User Selectable 44.1khz, 48Khz, 96kHz, and 192kHz Resolutions

32bit Float DSP with 32bit EQ Float DSP

Eight 192khz/24bit DSD Quality or better DACs

96/24 ADCs

Midi

Gold RCA Connections with Coaxial Digital Out

I will definitely buy if you can give me all that in one package.

~Bob


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## Guest

Bob-

We are still in development. Actually, we are at a fairly early stage, having just completed the conceptual prototype. We are now working on some of the components for the working prototype. I have a few questions for you regarding your list:

*Re-Encode EAX 1.0-4.0 to Dolby Digital or DTS* - if you are outputting multichannel analog, why would you need this? Isn't this a feature useful for people that want to decode multichannel DD/DTS with their A/V receiver? 

*Parametric Analyze and EQ (30 bands per channel)* - we are planning to include EQ, but just haven't decided on final specs (I used to work for Sonic Foundry and we developed some excellent parametric EQ features for our apps)

*Bass Management* - this is definitely something we have been planning to include. However, bass management will be native to Vista, so we have to rethink how we are going to approach this.

*SPL Leveling per channels in 0.5dB steps* - can you explain how this works with your A/V receiver? We are trying to decide on the best method for volume control. The best technology is pretty expensive, especially when applied to 8 or more channels. If we were to build digital volume control into the drivers, you would lose resolution that might effect sound quality. There are many options for analog volume control and some perform better than digital volume control. A lot of this depends on the price our customers are willing to pay.

*Real Time Variable Mater Clock* - Our prototype has a built in low-jitter internal clock and supports FireWire SYT recovery and sync to external clock (like a lot of the good proaudio soundcards)

*User Selectable 44.1khz, 48Khz, 96kHz, and 192kHz Resolutions* - This isn't a problem (and will also be easier in Vista). However, some people would rather have the application (DVD software player or audio software player) set the sample rate. Are you asking us to automatically upsample each channel in the stream to a user selectable rate? I've use some audio cards that do this and wasn't very happy with the sound quality. There are some software programs, like J.Rivers Media Center that seem to have pretty good quality upsampling.

*32bit Float DSP with 32bit EQ Float DSP* - our prototype is using a 1.6 gigaflop 32-bit floating point DSP. We may upgrade this in the future, but the performance is pretty good.

*Eight 192khz/24bit DSD Quality or better DACs* - The quality of DACs, along with the analog section of opamps will be very high quality. Comparable to that found in high end dedicated DACs. What sort of dynamic range would you like us to achieve? Again, this is a feature that will depend somewhat on what people are willing to pay.

*96/24 ADCs* - The ADCs in our prototype (there are 4 2-channel ADCs actually) and they are 24bit/192KHz. The final number of ADCs hasn't been decided.

*Midi* - MIDI I/O is currently included in the prototype

*Gold RCA Connections with Coaxial Digital Out* - Since the signal path is balanced, we have XLR outputs. However, we also have built in amplifiers, so we have binding posts for connection to the speakers (we used Cardas binding posts in our prototype, but they might be too expensive for the commercial product). Again, since we provide the amplification, I don't know if we will offer a S/PDIF output. Can you give me a good reason for this feature?

Thanks for giving me these suggestions. We have our opinions of what we think would make a good product, but those opinions aren't as important as potential users. So I really appreciate any feedback.

BTW - I'd really like to create a new type of audio product. Instead of a closed box, like current receivers and amplifiers, I'd like something a little more like a personal computer where you can choose whatever, motherboard, CPU proc, RAM, video card, case, power supply, etc. We would like to build something that is pretty modular. So you could pick from a variety of different DAC options, amp modules, power supplies and case designs.


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## Exocer

What about the Chaintech Av710?
It does spdif-> receiver excellently. Also ,IIRC it has one decent 24bit dac in its rear channels for analog stereo output. 

Used it before receiving the X-fi Fata1ty as a bday present


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Thanks to everyone who responded. In case anyone’s wondering how the story ended - after seeing REW in action when Sonnie was here a couple of weeks ago, I decided I had to have it, so I ordered the Creative Sound Blaster MP3+ outboard soundcard it requires.

Didn’t take long to figure out that I could use it for my desktop when I wasn’t REWing – win, win! Don’t know if it’s considered “audiophile quality” or not, but it’s dead quiet, and with my Swans MS200 speakers it sounds as good as a CD player direct (a real one, not a portable). So I’m a happy camper, and it only cost $40 or so.  As an added bonus, it also has digital ins and outs, should I ever need them.

Regards,
Wayne


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## Guest

I've been using this [email protected] soundcard from ESI, for two channel listening and ver yvery pleased with it 
http://www.esi-pro.com/viewProduct.php?pid=43&page=2
and now another dedicated two channel card which i have yet to open 
http://www.audiotrak.co.kr/audiotrak/prodigyhd2gold.php


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## akardash

Prodigy HD2 Gold sound card looks very promising, and I'm already willing to get one myself, but as far as I know this card currently available only for Korea and Japan markets, and I don't know how much longer I have to wait till it gets to Australia. (if it will at all).


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## Wayde

Great thread!

I know I'm late on this one but I have learned a lot and got some great options. I think I will go with something below $200 myself Wayne. But those Lynx options look pretty sweet, maybe someday.

Now that Vista is out I plan on researching and testing out some of its advanced audio features.

Thanks for all the advice


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