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General discussion

Soundblaster Live value or Soundblaster Live 24-bit

by Barbouille1 Jul 4, 2007 8:35PM PDT

Hi folks

I run
Windows XP SP2
Dell Dimension 4400
512MB DDR memory (PC2100)-266Mhz
ATI RAge 128 Ultra 16MB
SB Live value sound card

I recently purchased on ebay a SB Live 24-bit card as an intended replacement for my SB Live that came with my Dell Dimension 4400 computer. I do not play games on my computer. I only use it for the usual Internet browsing, emails, download/upload, quicken, MS Office and watching DVD movies and listening to music--CD,s, MP3,s etc...

I am starting to wonder now if upgrading my card is going to change anything. I read on the Internet that my actual card had hardware acceleration (whatever that means) and that SB Live 24-bit did not. I thought SB Live 24-bit was a notch above SB Live value.

I am confused.

My questions to you are:

Is it going to make any difference in my listening pleasure if I upgrade to Live 24-bit ?

Is there much of a difference between the 2 cards ?

If it ain't going to make much of a difference, I may as well stay put and avoid potential problems caused by upgrading. I have never changed a sound card and this scares me a bit.

Did I make a mistake by purchasing this card ($15 USD) and would I be better off to put it back for sale and stay with my Soundblaster Live value ?

Thank You
PS: Please do not be too technical in your answers. I do not know very much about audio.

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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My question.
by ahtoi Jul 5, 2007 1:13AM PDT

How much of the stuffs that you listen to are encoded in 24 bits? If not, then it won't make any difference.

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No
by jackson dougless Jul 5, 2007 1:34AM PDT

Since the Live 24-bit is slightly better than the Value, if anything, it will only enhance the quality of the audio. Of course since it's pretty much the same chip processing the audio signal, it's likely to sound exactly the same.

The 24-bit part refers more to the card's recording capabilities. It can record audio with a 24-bit sampling rate instead of the usual 16-bit. To non-sound engineers and audiophiles, this makes absolutely no real difference.

So I guess it all depends on what you're looking for in the new card. It's not going to give you any real difference in sound quality, unless you do some recording of your own audio. Unless you get a defective card, it's unlikely to make it any worse either.

To maybe put it another way, there's very little any sound card can do to enhance recorded audio. I don't want to get into the mechanics of how recorded audio works, because it about put me to sleep learning about it, but suffice it to say that how it was recorded has almost infinitely more impact on the resulting quality than the soundcard used for playback. If you have some really low quality MP3 for example, it doesn't matter if you use all kinds of professional level audio equipment, it's still a low quality MP3.

What I'd suggest, since you watch movies, is considering a sound card that has 5.1 output capabilities and investing in a 5.1 set of speakers. Then you can enjoy the surround sound audio for movies, instead of plain stereo.

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Thank You
by Barbouille1 Jul 5, 2007 2:33AM PDT

Thank you for caring to help.

It is starting to get a little clearer now.

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