SBLive Upgrade and Modification?

[bezobraznia]

Hello, I have SBLive 5.1- I think it is Value edition because of the plastic colored outputs, but there is a difference between pins inside card, and dig-clock is smalest than i've seen on Live's. But anyway.
Please suggest some modification for a sound quality upgrade?
Till now i only replace two 4558 opamp's inside with NE5532 - the quality is better but not so accurately that I want.
Maybe some capacitors replace etc...
Thank You

[Bricolo]

I'm not sure there's much to do. And if there is, that's a lot of work.

The opamps are powered with 0-5V, and the voltage output DAC has a 2.5V reference. So the headroom is small, and everything is AC coupled

[breez]

I'd buy a new sound card.

Some suggestions:

Chaintech AV-710 (includes WM8728 DAC for stereo output) $25
EMU 0404 $100 (stereo)

[bezobraznia]

Thank you for oppinions
Bricolo, i understand now ... uh...
breez, very nice suggestion... i will search in BG for EMU

[Acid]

Yes, go for emu 0404, you won't be dissapointed, but keep your sblive if you are going to play games, because emu 0404 has some problems with games (some sounds are missing on some games).

[stolbovoy]

Originally posted by bezobraznia
But anyway.
Please suggest some modification for a sound quality upgrade?

Main problem with SBLive, Audigi, and most budget sound cards is pretty ugly sample rate conversion (44.1->48) employed to save manufacturers money on extra clock source.
Budget solution for the problem is ENVY24 chipset soundcards (ESI Julia, ESI Waveterminal, …). Not sure about EMU’s chipset but they fine too. I heard that EMU 1212 sounds pretty good.

There is another way to avoid SRC: replace clock source with appropriate for 44.1, patch drivers and/or player software and never use such sources as DVD, but I consider it masochistic.

[bezobraznia]

I agree with that ...
My final choice is between E-MU 0404 and ESI Juli@...
I send e-mail to E-MU - who is Bulgarian reseler , but no answer till now ...
Beautiful white Juli@ is my second choice because of the price...
And if i didn't recieve any e-mail from EMU, i will send to ESI...
I hate this **** support like E-MU's e-mail support...
... YAMAHA has the greatest support in the whole world!! Even their products don't cost too much... huh...

[Bricolo]

If you want to go with Envy24 chips, you can find some cards using the newer envy24HT (capable of 8 channels, and 24/192) like the M Audio Revolution 7.1

It's not pro gear, but consummer one, but still M Audio. And for less than 100$ probably. Modding this card is possible, I even think that someone posted a topic about his moded revo on this forum

[weissi]

Hi! Go for the EMU, their bang for buck ratio is unbeatable!

As for ESI (or Audiotrak): they have the best driver support along all those "cheaper" brands! Compare the prodigy 7.1, wich is basically the same card as the Terratec Aureon Space - while terratec does 2 updates on their drivers Audiotrak spoils out 10 ;-)

[neutron7]

i just thought i ougt to post this. here.

I just upgraded from the same sound card to EMU 0404. i had made RMAA test of SBlive so here is the comparison graphs.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y28.../0404whips.jpg

the pics got a bit squished by photobucket but you can see what the graphs show .

as you can see there is no comparison!
also:
the ASIO latency is much better
you can run Plugins that work on the DSP chip such as EQ. so it does not use any CPU at all.
nice mixer app very easy to use if you have ever used a mixer or a program with a mixer.
it sounds better even with mp3s
it has much hotter output (pro level? i havent checked yet) so i can turn my mixer inputs down and get even less noise.

it is not really for gaming but i just thought i would give it a try so
I played bf2 demo with it and did not notice any problems with the sound. however if you want a gaming card stick with audigy etc for the 3d.


best of all
it cost me $88.00 US new retail in sealed box.