19 replies to this topic

[Batty]

Does anyone have any opinions on the SB recon3D PCIe card?

Is it going to be better than the onboard sound on my aging socket 775 Gigabyte motherboard

Sale price is $112

[datafone]

It will blow away on-board sound (even in music), but It's focused on gaming and 3D (movies) mainly, if that is useful go for it.

If just looking at Music look to some of the 2 channel pro cards.

Edit: Note that Creative have never been the best regarding support (drivers), but they may be better these days, I haven't looked. That and it only has Toslink for digital.

Edited by datafone, 21 February 2012 - 03:40 PM.

[Batty]

I want it to cover music, video and gaming.

[datafone]

If it has the connectivity you need then you could do worse, I'm sure.

See if there are comparisons with other cards yet.

Edit: please be aware that I haven't been much of a Creative fan, although I did like the Audigy series.

Edited by datafone, 21 February 2012 - 03:50 PM.

[Batty]

I used to have a very early 16 bit sound blaster with a single speed CD rom in my 386-SX16

[datafone]

Creative dominated the consumer audio card market for a long time, but from the Xfi till now they have had stiff competition. Where creative have always struggled is in the driver support mostly.

Apparently their pro arm "EMU" make very good products though.

I have always been one to wait and see how a new product stacks up against the completion, before committing. But that doesn't help much if you want the best now, I guess.

[Batty]

I have a Zen X-Fi MP3 player an prefer it tp an iPod.

[datafone]

Yeah, I'm not surprised, and they do make some good stuff, for sure!

I guess It's not a lot of $$$ so, not a lot to lose and if It's anywhere as good as they tout, and the driver support is OK why not.

Edit, I'm not the best to recommend cards as I have given them a miss since having a dedicated dac.

Edited by datafone, 21 February 2012 - 10:01 PM.

[LogicprObe]

It'll kill on board.

This is my favourite SB card btw - bargain.

http://www.ebay.com....=item4162c96298

Only PCI though.
After this, they went away from the pro market and concentrated on gaming mostly.
Apparently the new cards are great for MP3!

[Batty]

Would there be a significant SQ improvement even though I am only using a NOS1543 DAC kit and a tripath amp based on the 2024 chip, I know the speakers are good (Castle Richmond 3).

Another silly Q, would it be worth spending money on a SSD drive to put in a 3 year old PC running a Q9550 cpu with 4GB ram and Win7 64bit.

[datafone]

NOS1543 DAC?
OK, now I'm totally confused

Are you using the NOS dac for music playback (stereo) via digital out, and the analogue out from the card for multi channel in games and music?

[Batty]

I only feed the stereo out in optical format via the dac to the amp for all sound reproduction.

I must point out that I do not use this setup as my main system.

The DAC only uses a single chip and cost under $50

[datafone]

So the card is going in that system, or the main one?

So if you are talking about the card being for the system that now uses the NOS dac and tripath, and it will essentially be replacing the NOS dac as the decoder, then you are talking about a stereo system? Then the 3D positional aspects of the Creative card are pretty much lost in games and movies. Will the card sound better than the NOS dac? maybe...maybe not but it will sound different.

If taking about still using the NOS dac and the card is essentially replacing the on-board digital out aspect, then I'm not sure how much better it will be over the digital out from the motherboard.

[Batty]

Options are open as to keeping the dac inline ofter fitting a soundcard, I'm not unhappy with the SQ, probably just looking for an excuse to spend $112 on the PC

I don't use the PC for movies, mainly used for games and casual listening while the wife is watching TV at the other end of the house.

[datafone]

Then, maybe it is worth grabbing the card, it could add some realism to the games, and you might prefer sound in casual listening.

But maybe you would be just as well getting the Audigy2 that Les linked, and you might get it for $10. What OS is it on the PC? Creative seem to have a win7 drivers for it http://support.creat...B_2_18_0017.exe

Edit: There is this card, and you can swap the opamps and tweak the sound that way http://www.ebay.com....=item19cdd2376b

Edited by datafone, 22 February 2012 - 03:49 PM.

[LogicprObe]

Yeah, I'm running my A2 on Win 7 64 bit drivers just fine.
The first release after Win 7 were duds but they've been fixed for over a year.

If you were to upgrade to SSD on the Quad..........8GB of RAM would be better if the board can take it on 64 bit.
Most of those boards of that era can take 8 or 16GB.
(sometimes needs a bios update)

[Batty]

It's difficult to find 4Gb sticks of DDR2, my mobo only has 2 slots.

Does the A2 have optical out?

[Time_Lord]

I used to have a very early 16 bit sound blaster with a single speed CD rom in my 386-SX16

Wass this the SOundblaster AWE 64 back then?

[Batty]

Even previous to that, it was an SB16

[datafone]

According to the specs the Audigy2 does have toslink optical, but the Auzentech X-Raider I linked has a Toslink/Coax combo connection, again according to the specs.