Sound Card

I need a new sound card. This SB Live! OEM isnt cutting it anymore... actualy it is cutting... cutting in and out with the sound on certain games. To remedy this I rounded up about $120 that I can spare and have found two good choices. It's between either the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (I have one in another system and it is good) or a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS card. It seems that the Audigy2 destroys the Santa Cruz flat out on paper, and lots of reviews tell the same story. However I have heard some people say that the Santa Cruz actualy gets better performance and has more audio enhancements/tweaking options than the Audigy2 ZS. All I want is a high audio resolution, clear sound, and to actualy have ALL of the sound come through nice and clear in my games. I liesten to a lot of music so it should sound great with that too. My gut tells me to go with the Audigy2 because of its superior specs but you all might know a bit more than me. So tell me whats the deal here with these two cards so I can fix this ASAP.


~GSD~

P.S. I have an SB Live OEM for sale... $15

I dont know, but something tells me u made an advertising flaw with ur old sound card. i thinkt he idea is to play down the badness so people might actually want the card.

The P.S.'s are usualy jokes or quips of satire or irony Wilk.


~GSD~

P.S. I'll just sell it to some kid and say it's an Audigy ZS2 Platinum

ic..

PS. Do it.

Someone help me here. I know that there has to be at least one person on this forum that can figgure this out.


~GSD~

Cutting out on certain games you say? Sounds like a software problem to me. As for a new sound card, I'm use the Santa Cruz and it is great.

The keyword here is "drivers". make sure you got them, the current ones. too many people i know forget about updating drivers. your next option is to RMA it. i dont know what kind of warrenty those things have, i use my onboard. i have actually never bought a sound card, the nvidia soundstorm(or whatever it is) kicks enough ass for me. but the important thing is to look at all your options before tossing out what i would consider a perfectly good sound card.


P.S. I'll take it!

Actualy it probably is the drivers. Here's the dillio. This card is an OEM product. However I purchased it from a store that sells OEM stuff, so it came in a brown plastic sleeve with a CD inside. I went to the Creative Labs website for a driver update, and there's like 10 kinds of SB Live! cards. So i figgure it was the SB Live! 5.1 card since it's got 5.1 surround. But all the package that it came in says is whats on the price sticker, "SB LIVE OEM" so i got the plain jane SB Live drivers figguring it would be alright. Truth be told i probably shouldnt have updated because i lost my drivers CD for it. SOB... oh well this gives me an excuse to come to the world of 24-Bit audio. Quite frankly I was planning on upgrading anyway. Funny thing is that Ive seen at least 2 other instances of the sound either cutting in and out or some sound not being present with other peoples systems using this card. So just tell me what is better so I can go buy it and be done with this mess before i go on vacation.


~GSD~

P.S. I can hear my gun shooting, but its silence when others shoot back.