Audio Upgrade with $200

[senseless]

Exactly..
"Are you accusing creative of using a 48 kHz h/w sampler or whatever, and artificially up-sampling it to 96 kHz using software?.. "

Granted, 96k is only usefull if you're using a lot of instruments.. Like recording an orchestra. Anyone doing 96k recording should have a better card than the zs2. But the point is that if they false advertise about something like that.. Then what else are they lying about? Is there a reason that the zs2 has noticibly more capcitors and chips on it than ANY other audio card? The 600-700$ cards dont even have half the number of capacitors i see on the zs 2 card. I've been trying to figure out why for some time, but havent been able to find any information regarding it.

 

[PP Mguire]

you dont need 96khz anyways. Oh and M-audio males your system have lower frame rates than the audigy2zs and i cna prove that from a MaxPC issue i read a while ago. Im not taking sides at all cause i personally cant stand Creative but thats all i got to use :/ oh nd the M-audio dosent have a harware sampler of 96khz either. and the Audigy uses all them capacitors for the drive bays (live drives) and firewire conectors. The audigy gives alot more than an M-audio would. here again not on the same side cause i would rahter not use a creative. oh and since when did the Audigy2zs ever use EAX4? i thought it was AdvancedHD EAX2 or soem shit liek that. I thougth only the Audigy4 used EAX4.

 

[003]

no, audigy 2 uses eax4 advanced hd, says so right on the box. The new X-fi will use eax 5 advanced hd

 

[Chankama]

I can tell u quite safely that sampling at 48 MHz and "up-sampling" to 96 MHz in s/w is not going to give u the same signal as sampling at 96 MHz. You can't get accurate information like that :-\.. I don't care who is doing it, but if they advertise, but don't do it, that's just wrong..

They "might" have a reason for doing this though. I have a suspicion as to why this might be "ok".. I gotta think about this more before posting though.. b/c really.. IMO 48 MHz far exceeds the human hearing capabilities even when u get the nyquist rate into account.. You typical sample higher due to ur h/w and the fact that artifacts can be introduced if u don't filter properly and such.... Anyways, I am gonna think about this more before posting.

 

[dale5605]

The audigy 2 zs is superior to M-audio for gaming, it's as simple as that. It does indeed utilize EAX 4.0 compared to m-audio and others which only support EAX 2.0. Also it uses less of the processor and you get better fps in games with an audigy 2 zs than other cards. Maybe that's why it has so many things on it, because it is more powerful. Anyways I think you made a good choice mrk, except those speakers aren't very good. They are just about the same as mine which I got for $40.

 

[senseless]

and the Audigy uses all them capacitors for the drive bays (live drives) and firewire conectors. The audigy gives alot more than an M-audio would.

I bet i could open up my 400$ firewire-410 and it would have less capacitors than the audigy 2zs.. Infact, i bet my motherboard has less capacitors than the audigy 2 zs. I hardly agree that it has anything to do with their quality. If a rme madi card (has about 2/3 less capacitors) doesnt need that many capacitors, then the audigy 2zs couldn't possibly ever need them.

Also, Correct me if im wrong but wouldnt having a high speed device like a firewire port on a sound card bring extra unneeded noise in the signal? Its not firewire800, so its also got 12v of power running to it. Having fw400 channels running nanometers away from the audio signal channels would have to introduce noise.

edit:

my audio driver (maudio) is using 1mb of ram and 0%cpu at load.

 

[003]

What do capacitors do any way? All they have ever done for me was get in the way of putting a card in the PCI slot...

 

[senseless]

stuff..

Seriously though, the audigy 2zs has more processors, caps, resistors, etc, etc.. than any other card i've seen since maybe 1992. Logic would lead me to believe that adding a longer path with more stops would degrade the signal and provide a lower (not necessarily bad) quality output. Everything else that creative makes is cheap and plastic. Why would anyone ever think that they could get audio cards right?

 

[Slayer]

do the Z-5300e's use a digital or an anlog output? or both?

just analog output. and no dolby decoders or anything, every dollar goes into pure THX certified sound quality.

 

[PP Mguire]

i agree w/ alot of what everybody is saying. And that little coment on google (senseless) im gonna use against you. why dont you use google to find out what all those capacitors do? BTW Firewire dosent make any noise in my dads audigy and those capacitors i said could also go to utilizing the Livedrive. (i believe of course cause im not sure) Also ca[acitors and resistors stabilize voltage and other sorts so im thinking the more of those the more stable. and my dad has used M-audio and and Audigy and the M-audio reduced framerate in games like doom3 and farcry (cause thats all we tested) when w/ the audigy it was fine. Like i said though im on neither side cause i dont really like creative at all but its what we got here in teh house so i gotta make do.