Which Soundcard

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eitai2001

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Hi.

I am looking at buying a sound card ... the sound card must have Dolby and a Optical and Coaxial output.

I am looking at these two options:
Asus Xonar D2/PM
Razer Barracuda AC-1

They are both priced roughly the same at around 1200 cost. Which of the 2 would you go for, and do you have any other recommendations. The Creative X-Fi's don't have optical out.

Thanks

Itai
 
will you ever need all that ports,I dont think so.
All you want is surround sound,why waste money,all in all get a compatble vista sound card is very important,even if you not going to run vista.
 
x-fi do have optical out on the cards that come with the drive bay thingy. i have one i would know. But they mission with vista so if you got vista rather not
 
x-fi do have optical out on the cards that come with the drive bay thingy. i have one i would know. But they mission with vista so if you got vista rather not
Click to expand...

I got XP ... but the ones with the drive bay is very expensive.

will you ever need all that ports,I dont think so.
All you want is surround sound,why waste money,all in all get a compatble vista sound card is very important,even if you not going to run vista.
Click to expand...

I need optical to run it into an Amplifier which is how I'm gonna set up my PC.
Its gonna run through a Sansui Amp (Hey ... don't judge, I got it free ... upgrade one day) which will play through Jamo Speakers. And I prefer the optical cable to coaxial ... but I would like the option of both.
 
The X-fi cards are useless if you want to use digital connectors

Creative (The most powerful sound processing engine in the world) won't spend $3.5 per card in licensing fees to encode a digital multichannel signal that your speakers can understand. They can only pass it though from a DVD or sound source that is encoded in 5.1.

CHEAPSKATES!

back to the subject

I have got the Barracuda and it is an awesome card. But I would recommend the ASUS Xonar. They are basically based on the same card. I recommend it because the Razor's Vista drivers are still a bit Flaky. You are likely to get better long term support from ASUS
 
Ok cool ... I thought they seamed similar ... Does the Brracuda come with a cable converter for that connection that looks similar to DVI ... or how do you plug your speakers into it? I think my mind is set on the Asus Xonar though :P
 
If I may throw my 2c in, may I suggest you look at one of the older Auzentech cards as a possible alternative?

They had a South African distributor listed on their website, but haven't checked lately if they still on. Those cards have Dolby Digital Live, Co-ax and optical outputs, as well as being 8 channel. The sound quality is amazing from what I understand, all the reviews on the internet noted the high quality.

I'm no home theatre expert either, but from what I have read in several magazines, unless you running over an extended distance or have signal interferance, co-ax gives a better sound quality. I have tested both at home, and I admit that my untrained ears couldn't pick up any differences, so maybe there's no truth to that.
 
Ok ... well I just ordered the Xonar D2/PM ... hope its worth the dough ... it cost more than my processor and more than my motherboard :P
 
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