Best music soundcard <£50

[EricB]

EMU O4O4 E-MU 0404 Digital Audio System EMU Sound Card E-MU 0404 1212M 1820 1820M Emulator X Emulator XS EMU 0404 EMU 1212M EMU 1820 EMU 1820M EMU Emulator X EMU Emulator XS (E-MU) EMU O4O4
Great sound card. Its owned by creative but is more for production than gaming

the same 2 things that I've mentioned above apply to this card

 

[Oreo]

But does it suck more than onboard for gameing ? or is it just because of compatibility issues ?

 

[Trifid]

the best sound card for music and recording. it sucks for games and isn't compatible with media center.

I look for my live cd and upload it if you want it mak

Games are not mentioned by the OP.

I'll tell you if it can't do games when mine comes (didn't buy it for them though...)

 

[EricB]

But does it suck more than onboard for gameing ? or is it just because of compatibility issues ?

all of the studio recording card are designed for one thing. recording. I had a bunch of those cards. they all had the same issues. they sounded great

I ended up compromising to the x-fi. it is the the best high quality compatible gaming card

 

[thirdshiftdj]

Your definitely not gonna get the best of both worlds.

 

[Trifid]

There isn't any 2 worlds about it. Only 1. Listening and creating music. No gaming has been mentioned.

 

[thirdshiftdj]

I was adding to what EricB had to say. Thank you though.

 

[111sins]

Not going to recommend anything else than what I said already in my first post. For audio production/recording get a pro card with balanced inputs and outputs.

Just to clear off some stuff on gaming, EAX and Vista
- which is OT to the initial topic.

So again i say that you should ge a Audigy series card. The X-Fi are wasted on Vista. There is no EAX for games. So therefor if you ahve any kind of surround sound it is wasted. Only XP can make full use of the card since Creative did not bundle the EAX with their drivers for Vista. Plus Vista doesnt allow for EAX natively.

OK, so Vista's Direct X 10 does not maintain backwards compatibility with Direct X 9 and this is the reason why older games crap out in Vista, soundwise. Creative has ALchemy which is a workaround to these Vista problems, sort of. Anyway you can still play older games in Vista with X-Fi, no problem. New Direct X 10 games come with OpenAL that works fine under Vista and still allows hardware to process audio (unlike Direct X 10). So it is not like X-Fi is not good for Vista. I have one and use it for Vista.

Still i dual boot with XP and tend to use XP instead of Vista anyway, as it simply works better for now, but that's another matter.

 

[KSoD]

the best sound card for music and recording. it sucks for games and isn't compatible with media center.

I look for my live cd and upload it if you want it mak

If you dont mind. Sorry for the late response. Forgot about this topic.:laughing:

Not going to recommend anything else than what I said already in my first post. For audio production/recording get a pro card with balanced inputs and outputs.

Just to clear off some stuff on gaming, EAX and Vista
- which is OT to the initial topic.

OK, so Vista's Direct X 10 does not maintain backwards compatibility with Direct X 9 and this is the reason why older games crap out in Vista, soundwise. Creative has ALchemy which is a workaround to these Vista problems, sort of. Anyway you can still play older games in Vista with X-Fi, no problem. New Direct X 10 games come with OpenAL that works fine under Vista and still allows hardware to process audio (unlike Direct X 10). So it is not like X-Fi is not good for Vista. I have one and use it for Vista.

Still i dual boot with XP and tend to use XP instead of Vista anyway, as it simply works better for now, but that's another matter.

The problem with ALchemy is that it doesnt work with the X-Fi cards. I got it working on my Audigy card but i had to pay for it which really ****ed me off when i found out they offered it to the X-Fi sers for free. But then again it is crappy with X-Fi so i cant complain cause mine actually works.