yo gluegun, some of your knowledge plz.....

[Roj]

Several answeres in one shot:

To Squirrel meat:

A soundcard should NOT emphasize the bass or colour the sound in any way. If you want that then go get a speaker system with overwhelming bass like the Klipsch Pro Media line or the Logitech Z-560s.

To CrawlingEye:

I'm not biased - I just happen to prefer clean, accurate, neutral sound. If that isn't your thing then that's fine. Also, if the same differences I hear can be heard by many others then it's not a bias is it now...

"I agree that the sound quality of the Audigy is inferior to the Turtle Beach, but the EAX3 makes a VERY big impact as well. "

You DID read the title of the review, right? The Santa Cruz is not for hardcore gamers - the Audigy is better suited to that task. It's for people for whom sound quality is the driving force with gaming secondary.

It's amusing to see you attempt to split hairs and wriggle around details even though it's rather obvious you have no arguments to get around them.

To pbirkett:

I await your findings on the Live! comparison with interest since I did own a Live! and tossed it after a month because of how it sounded (it was replaced with the Santa Cruz I now own). Heck, The PCI128 I owned before the Live! sounded better than it did and after seeing the mneasurements on both cards it became aparrent why.

[aeflux66]

Originally posted by Squirrel Meat

very well said, i couldnt agree with you more. but i still think peoples opinions are what help make a decision. after all, thats part of what a forum is for right?

Oh I'm all for opinions... just don't put your faith into them when buying a product is all. Maybe I'm just anal-retentive of how I spend my cash but I like to do a lot of digging for reviews. I take the opinions and hunt around, comparing each factor before I finally settle in on buying something. So far it's worked great -- I haven't made a purchase I've regretted.

If someone on here asks about a product specifically I'll try to stay on track and not go off on my own "well you should get this instead" trip. Unless the product in question is known to be faulty or have some kind of technical issues, I believe it deserves a fair chance, even if it does 'suck' to me.

Ugh need reformat... getting infinite loop errors up the wazzoo no matter what drivers I use. NTFS this time, oh yes... send a search party if you don't hear from me in a few days.

[pbirkett]

Originally posted by Roj
I await your findings on the Live! comparison with interest since I did own a Live! and tossed it after a month because of how it sounded (it was replaced with the Santa Cruz I now own). Heck, The PCI128 I owned before the Live! sounded better than it did and after seeing the mneasurements on both cards it became aparrent why.

Well, here is the most of it.

However, I will add, that my ears are adjusting to it now, and it is clearly better than the Live. I noticed a bass drop too, but the result it clean and natural rather than muddy, which I am now starting to like. I have EQ'ed it a bit, as sounds to me a bit clinical, but the EQ is very high quality I notice for a piece of kit this price, and the end result is extremely musical

Having said that, I had to boost the bass and treble on the SB Live to get a "satisfactory" sound. I had mine at about 58% bass (any higher was asking for trouble) and about 75 - 80% treble (anything less seemed tragically nasty). The sound has always had a cold hard sound on the soundblaster with muddy exagerrated (I now realise) bass.

One thing that took me by surprise though was when I put Quake 3 on. Not only did the game seem maybe ever so slightly smoother in terms of FPS (more a case of less stutter than anything else), but to me, the sound quality was considerably improved over the SB Live, which I didnt expect to be the case. It just sounded more realistic, to me at least.

The only things I would say against it are, 1. To someone not so into high quality music may not appreciate the difference, but these people are not the kind I would expect to be into any sort of Hi-fi, and probably say they cant hear the difference between a £100 mini system and a £1000 seperates - you get my drift The 2nd thing is that I've noticed all of a sudden that my 192k mp3s sound magnificent, but that doesnt bode well for the 128K stuff Funny thing was, I didnt notice as big a difference with the SB Live. I wonder why that was...?

Sorry for going on, but to summarise, I am very impressed with the Sonic Fury, and am pleased to have a now Creative free machine!

[Squirrel Meat]

Originally posted by Roj
Several answeres in one shot:

To Squirrel meat:

A soundcard should NOT emphasize the bass or colour the sound in any way. If you want that then go get a speaker system with overwhelming bass like the Klipsch Pro Media line or the Logitech Z-560s.

if you noticed in my sig, I do have the logitech z-560's. and what do you mean it shouldnt "colour" the sound? isnt that what a sound card is for? i mean, speakers are only as good as the sound card right and vice versa?

[Gluegun]

Nothing should intentionally change the sound from accurate unless you tell it to do so.

The SBLive intentionally colors the sound, as does the z560. The TBSC and speakers like the MH-505 do NOT intentionally color it...

[CrawlingEye]

Originally posted by Roj
To CrawlingEye:

I'm not biased - I just happen to prefer clean, accurate, neutral sound. If that isn't your thing then that's fine. Also, if the same differences I hear can be heard by many others then it's not a bias is it now...

"I agree that the sound quality of the Audigy is inferior to the Turtle Beach, but the EAX3 makes a VERY big impact as well. "

You DID read the title of the review, right? The Santa Cruz is not for hardcore gamers - the Audigy is better suited to that task. It's for people for whom sound quality is the driving force with gaming secondary.

It's amusing to see you attempt to split hairs and wriggle around details even though it's rather obvious you have no arguments to get around them.

I'm not trying to discredit the Turtle Beach, I'm simply stating that it's not for everyone. I've even suggested it in other threads.

Your review still compared the Audigy vs Turtle Beach a lot, which was a very poor comparison. It's like comparing a Dodge Caravan to a Dodge Viper GTS-R.

Both are great in their own right, but they're not comparable.
You can't universally suggest a single card, as is what's been being done in this forum with the Turtle Beach.

[CrawlingEye]

Originally posted by Gluegun
Nothing should intentionally change the sound from accurate unless you tell it to do so.

The SBLive intentionally colors the sound, as does the z560. The TBSC and speakers like the MH-505 do NOT intentionally color it...

I'll say the same as I always did. If sound coloration wasn't intended, speakers wouldn't be made. There would just be one "microsoft of speaker companies" producing flat speakers, and that would be that.

A lot of speaker/audio companies pride their products on favorable coloration.

[1ctabor]

Originally posted by CrawlingEye


I'll say the same as I always did. If sound coloration wasn't intended, speakers wouldn't be made. There would just be one "microsoft of speaker companies" producing flat speakers, and that would be that.

A lot of speaker/audio companies pride their products on favorable coloration.

NO, audio products should not "color" the original form of the music. Any true high quality audio equipment will not do this.

[Gluegun]

Yea...

High end audio companies that DON'T RIP PEOPLE OFF actually make an EFFORT to make their speakers as neutral and flat as possible...

The Sblive has a bass boost inherant in the system, as does the z560. Things, IMO, should *come* neutral, and then let YOU change things, based on your preferences...

The reason that there are so many speaker companies is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get truly accurate sound... so different speakers use different ways to try and get accurate sound, use different designs, which some people favor over others. Yes, there ARE speakers that advertise the fact that they are meant to color the sound, but *I* will never want to buy one--this goes against the REASON an engineer mixed their mix the way they did it in the first place!!

[CrawlingEye]

Actually, the larger half of speaker companies *try* to color their sound.

True flat response speakers are made, if you'd like, I'll link you to a pair?

[choatie88]

Originally posted by Gluegun
Yes, there ARE speakers that advertise the fact that they are meant to color the sound, but *I* will never want to buy one--this goes against the REASON an engineer mixed their mix the way they did it in the first place!!

I actually remember reading somewhere that some stuff (eg. Top 40) is mixed to sound good on consumer audio equipment and consequently sounds tinny/bright on high-end stuff.

Not that I should be listening to Top 40 anyways. No, I'd know nothing about that...

BTW Gluegun - the KSC35s rock! They look really cheap, but they definitely deliver the best sound at that price point... actually almost comparable with my "real" Senn cans.

[Squirrel Meat]

Originally posted by Gluegun
Yea...

High end audio companies that DON'T RIP PEOPLE OFF actually make an EFFORT to make their speakers as neutral and flat as possible...

The Sblive has a bass boost inherant in the system, as does the z560. Things, IMO, should *come* neutral, and then let YOU change things, based on your preferences...

The reason that there are so many speaker companies is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get truly accurate sound... so different speakers use different ways to try and get accurate sound, use different designs, which some people favor over others. Yes, there ARE speakers that advertise the fact that they are meant to color the sound, but *I* will never want to buy one--this goes against the REASON an engineer mixed their mix the way they did it in the first place!!

who says you cant change the way the z-560's sound? every one can tweak the way ANY sound system sounds, thats half the fun of a sound system to me. i can make my z-560's have virtually no bass. you cant do it just by the control center but if you put the bass in windows down to nothing there will be almost no bass at all. so in that situation there is no "colouring" of sound.

[blppt]

Originally posted by Squirrel Meat


who says you cant change the way the z-560's sound? every one can tweak the way ANY sound system sounds, thats half the fun of a sound system to me. i can make my z-560's have virtually no bass. you cant do it just by the control center but if you put the bass in windows down to nothing there will be almost no bass at all. so in that situation there is no "colouring" of sound.

The problem with using the windows bass control is that it also affects the midrange/high bass that the sats are playing, so you end up having the satellites deficient in bass response while trying to calm down the hyperactive Z560 sub. Thats why i dont think thats a great solution. I wish Logitech would have done something about that minimum bass level.