Soundcard roundup: Audigy wins !
Reply #4 – 2002-06-19 16:09:11
That's also what I thought. Note however that the reviewer specifically states that the Audigy is the best audio card for MUSIC. For gaming, he recommends the Acoustic Edge. Now that we've said all that, if we had to pick an overall winner, we, umm, wouldn't. Instead we'd pick two: the Sound Blaster Audigy for music and the Philips Acoustic Edge for games. Many may find our choice of the Audigy ironic considering how hard I slammed on the card earlier, but the Audigy's sound quality (especially in the MP3 playback) is head and shoulders above the other cards here. The results of the listening tests are mentioned on page 12 of the review. lucpes, I checked out the Santa Cruz review on Digit-Life, and I didn't really like this part:"At first differences can be heard at once and without any stupid "blind" tests. In general, I liked the Live more although it reproduces music more noisy and "dirty" but sound is true and natural. The Santa Crus reproduces music without noises but lifelessly and unnaturally as synthesizer does. Instruments timbers differ significantly from the real ones. Sound is too "flat". That's all." And now briefly about my impressions. Frankly speaking, I was bowled down a bit but in general I liked the sound. Firstly, there were much less noise and distortions. Secondly, high tones were very pure and "ethereal". I noticed only two drawbacks that are a poor "panorama" (no sense of "volume") and some "dryness' of sound (though some individual like the latter). To summarize, I would like to note that I hoped for better things from 20-bit DAC. Damn:( Well, I supposed I'll be able to draw my own conclusions within a couple of days.