High End Soundcards?

[mart_man00]

Im looking for a high end sound card for linux, something where its at Windows quality(driver wise). Im thinking Creative is out(since there great but only in windows).

Any recomendations?

[hard candy]

How much? Hammerfall (http://www.computersandmusic.com/xcgi/SoftCart.exe/store1/rmeaudio/rme_cardbus_pci.html?L+mystore1+nels7678+106704619 1)

Linux Journal Hammerfall Howto (http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7024&mode=thread&order=0)



Some a little less (http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/quality/#pro)

That sound right? :)

[deanrantala]

Ah.. some of the stuff I see computer geeks publish on the web....

To set things strait (for those of you who followed the last couple links), the best card you will find available for Linux is the SB Live 5.1.

To correct the misinformed page, the Live 5.1 and Audigys are very well capable of passing pure digital PCM data from in to out without resampling. This feature, however, requires additional EAX features that are not present in iether OSS or ALSA drivers at the time. Furthermore, it is inseresting to note that there is no sound quality difference between the Live and Audigy series under Liinux - you will find that 24 bit/96 khz HD audio is not really supported under current drivers as of yet. And most of the rest of what you pay for on the Audigy is for firewire and extra EAX features - EAX features that linux does not even support for the 5.1 yet.

It is also important to point out that for a person who is looking for a good "movie theater on your desktop" soundcard - the hammerfall is not the best choice. The hammerfall is just as the manufacturers site describes it, "a high end card for proffesional studio use". It is geared towards ultra conectivity - nnot cutting edge surround sound effects as the audigy and Live are.

Also, a point to note is that the bit-for-bit sound quality performance when compared between the Audigy and Hammerfall is no different. Both have 24 bit/ 96 khz audio resolutions and both have identical singal to noise ratios. Only technological difference that the Hammerfall might have over the EMU-based cards is that the hammerfalls use exclusive Analog Devices DAC's - a plus with some of us ultra fussy audiophiles. However, you will never hear a difference - especially if your using some cheesy "designed for your computer" speakers (i.e. one of them cute all-in-one subwoofer, satelite systems). If you also take time to notice what these recording studios (who use hammerfalls) use, you will usually see JBL Pro Audio, or (my favorite) M&K Sound. You will also see they dish out 5 - 15 thousand dollars for these speaker systems and have them specially placed throughout the room for the audible differences to even be noticed.

Furthermore, if you are a hhardcore gamer who enjoys your High definition EAX enabled games (i.e. Medal of Honor, UT, etc....) then the Hammerfall is not for you.

As for the Live 5.1.. It is cheap, offers the same bit-for-bit sound quality as does the audigy at 16 bit depths, and is actually better supported under linux. Why? Mainly because of the good support it has proven with emu-tools - an advanced toolset for setting all the advanced surround sound settings on the cards. Currently, I can easily get a 5.1 working nicely with the following features...

up to 3 SPD/IF Digital ins
All SPD/IF digital outs working
Bass/Trebble controls - hardware enabled
Basic EAX settings
Prologic Dolby surround
Matrix Surround
2.0, 2.1, 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, and 5.1 audio modes with digital speaker output
CD Digital (spd/if) audio in w/ level control
Support for standard sound fonts
Surround sound test modes - independently sends test tones to each channel
Real-time control of all these settings via a nice (gtk) front end - "sbconf"
Of coarse, all the normal features are available :)

Note s well, that the Audigy DOES sopport emu-tools, but I have found the audigys to be picky with the emu toolset and work with mixed success.

As for you, martman: I hearby sentence you to 50 lashes with a rubber penguin for such a question.

And for anyone else who would like to join me and my evil audiophile sidekick apprentice, martman on IRC, you can do so on #audiophile on freenode.

[mart_man00]

However, you will never hear a difference - especially if your using some cheesy "designed for your computer" speakers (i.e. one of them cute all-in-one subwoofer, satelite systems).
Whats the problem with them?

I though when i bugged you before it was just the price that was bad.


So for Audiophile 101, whats after the 5.1 sound card? Is there anything externel that will add the extra features? Can you send raw data to it instead of sound so it will sound how its supposed to? Under Linux(at this point ill take dean's beloved beos)?

[hard candy]

The Turtle Beach Santa Cruz is what I have- it works well with alsa and oss. It has good sound with the Logitech Z640 speakers. It's not as good as my stereo set-up but for games and computer music it is fine for an amateur. The sound card and speakers together are $140 (probably cheaper if you find a sale).
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/santacruz/indetail.asp)


Logitech Z640 (http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm?page=products/details&contentid=5047&crid=2&detail=2&countryid=19&languageid=1)