Who's sound cards rock?

also, Creative Labs is usually revered as the best
BUT nVidia's Soundstorm should not be forgotten (only avliable on AthlonXP platforms (it's integrated)

Turtle Beach's Riviera, Santa Cruz and Catalina are also nice cards, but offer a lower sampling rate (CD quality, Creative offers 4x the sampling rate)

Personally I would stick with my Auidgy 2 ZS Platinum (which afaik has been discontinued...while the Audigy 2 ZS and Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro are still out (???))


the Audigy 2 and Audigy 2 ZS are great cards
avoid the Audigy ES, and Audigy LS (and the 2 ZS Value)

Turtle Beach is the best choice if your on a super tight budget, and want a sound card (Which you buy to offload work from the CPU)

for professional cards you can look to M-Audio, E-MU, and higher from that I'm not sure (used to know the name of the Audio version of 3DLabs (3DLabs doesn't have an audio branch, 3DLabs is a Creative company, but they are also like the super elite for professional stuff, and I used to know the super elite for audio too)

I've been using Creative cards since I started building my own systems going on about...9 yrs. or so. Always been happy with them. I currently use an Audigy SoundBlaster Platinum. But no matter how good your soundcard, you can't neglect quality speakers. I have a relatively cheap set of Logitech 5.1 speakers (forget which model...Z something); cranked up, it rocks the walls.

That said, I'm pretty impressed by some onboard sound on the newer motherboards. My daughter has a cheap Biostar motherboard, and the sound was so good, I didn't even bother to put a soundcard in- it supports 5.1 sound also. I've heard good things about M-Audio also; have one of their cards as a matter of fact, but never installed it. I don't think you can go wrong with Creative. I have the internal bay for input/headphones etc- I think I chose this card when it came out simply cuz I thought having a remote would be cool. It is, but I never use it, lol.

I've always had Creative cards and been very happy with them. I just thought I should get a few opinions concerning other makers.

-JDM

Now who would you rank in second and third place?

-JDM

Wins the "budget card" category.

-JDM