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Picked up a couple of SoundBlasters

thinkpadmanthinkpadman
edited August 2016 in Hardware
This last week I picked up a couple of SoundBlaster cards very cheaply, an Audigy and the more recent gold-plated X-Fi XtremeMusic.

I haven't decided what machines to toss them into yet. The last dedicated sound card I ever owned during its prime was a SB Live! back in 2002. Since then, I've just resorted to the usual Realtek integrated sound like most people and as years have gone have generally lost touch with audio hardware.

Just interested to know if anyone else has one of these or used to, what they thought of them, and whether the X-Fi would be worth using in my main desktop which is an aging Sandy Bridge i5-2500K that has PCI available.
I'm not sure what sort of success/benefit would be had under Windows 10 with newer games such as supporting EAX 5.0?

I remember EAX back in the Live! series and it made a hell of a difference to games back then, but these days I'm not so sure.

Comments

  • dosboxdosbox
    I've been told that dedicated sound cards sound better than integrated sound, but I don't have one so I can't be sure.

    Initially when I saw this thread, I thought you might have found some ISA sound card.
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    Historically they used to be at least, but these days I'm not sure of their relevance unless you were having a recording studio or something.

    I have a couple of ISA cards already, best one is an AWE64 Gold in my Pentium 200 PC. A couple of other ISA cards I just have as spares but they're basically no frills CrystalAudio and some other branded card I can't recall right now.
  • BlueSunBlueSun
    I always opted for a dedicated sound cards. In general I find them to be far better than integrated. Usually for drivers more than anything else. I have an Asus Xonar DX in my current desktop and it does alright. The drivers kind of suck and haven't been updated since Vista (at least the last time I checked).

    I've been told that the best solution is to use HDMI to an external amplifier.
  • wpblogheaderwpblogheader
    I recently picked up a shrink wrapped Sound Blaster AWE32 at a thrift store.

    Any ideas on what it's worth?
  • SomeGuySomeGuy
    wpblogheader wrote:
    I recently picked up a shrink wrapped Sound Blaster AWE32 at a thrift store.

    Any ideas on what it's worth?
    Just glancing at eBay, sold prices for those are all over the place right now. They are common enough that an eBay listing won't get piles of bidders, but a long term buy-it-now might fetch a decent amount.

    Off hand I'd say perhaps $30-40 as a reasonable price. Keep in mind there are several different models of AWE32 and I'm not sure off hand if one is more desirable than another. Also if it includes manuals, disks, etc might improve the price.

    I've actually got a full-length AWE32 in one of my thing-a-majigs. Personally though, I recall the AWE32 being a bit of a pain since it was ISA "Plug and Play". On a 486 or earlier that did not support "plug and play" you had to load some obscure command-line "plug-and-play" drivers to initialize the thing during boot. But once set up, I think it was fairly backwards compatible, and not so much a PNP pain on a Pentium era system. Some games could make use of the wave table audio mixing for some awesome sounding music.
  • thinkpadmanthinkpadman
    I think an AWE32 still shrink wrapped would get a fairly decent amount on eBay actually. My AWE64 Gold for example I bought shrink wrapped only last year or so, and recall paying around $200US for it. At the time a used AWE64 in various conditions would usually fetch at least $50US, so getting a clean one with all the bits and pieces made paying the extra a more attractive option to me.

    The AWE32 don't tend to fetch as much as the AWE64 but still rather sought after by enthusiasts. One of the things an AWE32 could do that Creative made into a proprietary part with the AWE64, was the ability to use 30 pin RAM SIMMs to extend the memory.

    So I take it no one had an Audigy or X-Fi?
  • calvinbcalvinb
    I have an SB Live, solid enough. There's third-party drivers (Kx) too.
  • BODBOD
    This is a good read:

    http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/high-end- ... 32894.html

    TL:DR you're paying for features, not sound quality. In many ways you're better of spending money in the analogue part of the circuits; ie amplification/speakers.
  • underjackunderjack
    BOD wrote:
    This is a good read:

    http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/high-end- ... 32894.html

    TL:DR you're paying for features, not sound quality. In many ways you're better of spending money in the analogue part of the circuits; ie amplification/speakers.

    I think the fact that the ALC889 device they tested was a ASUS Republic of gamers board (Rampage III Formula) might skew the results a tad. ASUS puts a lot of effort into sound quality in their ROG line. That board has SupremeFX X-Fi 2. Makes me cock my head that they call SupremeFX "vanilla" ALC889. If you want to test high against low end, don't use a premium gaming board that advertises a high quality audio setup as your "low end".

    Test it against a $39 fly-by-night mobo where the analog audio traces are nice and cozy with the power traces going to the fan...that's "low end" 8)
  • rvijayrvijay
    I am a newbie here.

    About two weeks ago found a box of abandoned ancient PC cards with 2 Mobos. I decided not to get the Mobos and grabbed all the PC cards. One of then is a Sound Card and works well when it was installed on my old P4 server., it had no sound before this. I am a newbie dumpster diver, there is always hope to find older hardware from dumpster diving.

    This has been me thread about older PCs for a few years:
    http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... age27.html

    Glad I came across this forum and decided to join. The software and support here for retro PCs is very impressive. Thanks and keepup the good work. :)
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