CREATIVE Sound Blaster AUDIGY 2 ZS

[DJ-CHRIS]

You guys must not have good ears to hear the soundblaster :? and how bad it sounds

M-Audio does make some nice high end cards and nice medium end. Their 1g ish stuff is an industry standard. And you can get a nice simple soundcard very cheap from them.

And their is a BIG difference between AC97 and Soundblaster

And about the logitechs, no logitechs will make me happy. Im waiting to get my yorkies (yorkville ysm-1p's)

They maybe in a different class, but they will beat out logitechs for sound quality anyday

 

[AND_YOU_ARE]

I must agree, SB is great for audio, I dont know what you are talking about, they are much better than anything else. Even the onboard sound, it doesnt cut it.

Maybe you need to clean out your ears.

SB is definatly worth it.

 

[hu_xu]

And about the logitechs, no logitechs will make me happy. Im waiting to get my yorkies (yorkville ysm-1p's)

They maybe in a different class, but they will beat out logitechs for sound quality anyday

You are comparing PC threatre speakers against basically studio speakers. It is useless to compare them because like you said it is a different class.

In terms of PC threatre speakers Logitechs are the best bang for the $$$ but Klipsch is the best quality. Those are high end mainstream brands. Both are better than the Creative, Altec Lansing, etc. lines.

Have you used paradigm (another Canadian manufacturer)? They're great. My buddy is getting them for his home threatre setup.

 

[dale5605]

Sound Blaster only sounds like 'crap' if you are seriously into sound and have maybe played instruments in the past and have a really good ear for music. But for 99% of people Sound Blaster sounds excellent and they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the $65 sound blaster audigy 2 ZS and a $125 better sound card. The Logitechs are also great speakers without the premium price tag.

The poster should not be concerned about these negative comments since there is little difference in quality especially for an untrained ear, and in that case, I do not believe it warrants the extra investment. Some of the views are also a little exaggerated. If I listened from an audigy 2 zs and one of those high-priced cards I would probably say "I think the studio card sounds a little clearer", not "this audigy is absolute crap, why would someone buy this hunk of junk if it sounds this bad?"

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Yeah they are not in the same class

I guess i was too harsh on soundblaster, but turtle beach still offers better value for the money IMO

And about paradigm, their distributed by D&M Pro up in Canada I think, and I know the D&M guy up here

 

[AND_YOU_ARE]

I have a good ear, and have played musical instruments for many years. My room mate and I both have the same logitech speaker system, and we both can tell the different between his turtlebeach sound card and my audigy, or his onboard nvidia sound card and my audigy. I cant live with the crappy sound from anything else. I havent tested many brands, but hardware reviews have given SB better reviews over many other brands.

 

[Crysalis]

Alright. I have the card and i Love it.

Whoever said Ac97 = Audigy 2 ZS.... one word -- WOW. If they were the same, then Ac97 wouldn't be bundled (for free) with tons of mobos out there. AC97 and the ZS are no where close to each other. Then to compare RME and M-audio (professional recording equipment) with normal household PC sound cards is ridiculous. Yeah m-audio has two (yes... 2... only 2) soundcards that could compete with the zs, but not enough to the point where the zs sounds like crap. Of course if you take the other RECORDING equipment, then it will sound better - it was made to! But in the same sense, it wasn't meant for normal home users/gamers! M-audio and the ZS have the very close (if not the same) specs. There wont be much (if any) difference to a human ear. If you can hear the difference, then you must have super-human hearing or an oscilloscope to monitor every little diffrence that you wouldn't be able to hear anyway.

Poster: Get the ZS; you'll be happy with it.

 

[senseless]

When you're used to high end audio equipment audigy 2zs = ac97. I brought home a firewire-410 for gaming today, get to keep it till monday. Should be intresting, i can tell a huge difference between it and the zs. For 499$ one would expect so, But i'd say it's going to be the best thing down from a fireface 800. The boss ordered a couple revolution 7.1 cards today, i'll get to take those home sometime next week. I'll install sonar *ugh* this weekend and do some testing on the firewire-410. Also going to repeat a series of tests that were done on some audio products @ tom's hardware.

so, we'll see.

 

[Cappy]

I have the SB Audigy 2 Platinum in both work and Home PC .Those sound cards are very good . Never had a problem with them .Sound quality is excellant great features .Im a musician also , and do my own live recordings on my work PC you cant tell the difference when the songs are played back sense ive got the recording setup properly.
I have the Logitech Z560 THX 4.1 speaker system and they sound excellant .

 

[Apokalipse]

I have an Audigy LS, which sounds great. I have a set of "shark Cannon V" 5.1 speakers which didn't cost much, but are good speakers. best price/sound quality I've seen.