Audigy 2 sucks! 45Euros beats it

[michaelpage26]

I always thought that Creative Audigy 2 was a capable performer, with similar if not more capabilities compaired to <700Euro CD-Players. One day my father's Aiwa cd player (compact) broke down so a replacement was needed. We found a quick replacement in LIDL (Yes!) and it was a 3- cd players ()(compact hifi from WELLTECH made in Germany, only for 45 Euro)(). We bought it and we found that it easily beated the sound of our aiwa, (using Aiwa's loudspeakers instead of Welltechs el cheapo ones). So it stayed in the hands of my father. After a month or so I wanted to experiment with it as it showed really good driving capabilities, (better than Aiwa's own amp), driving the Aiwa loudspeakers. So as it seemed to have a really good sound quality potential, I connected it with my Thule IA100 amp and Audio Pro Avantek Six. Wow boy what a difference! I couldn't imagine that a price of 45 Euro hifi piece could beat a 120 Euro Sound Card like Audigy 2. The sound was more rythmic, open, airy, dynamic, and full bodied! It was "faster" too! Now the Welltech is used as a cd-player instead of my pc! The cons are a little bit noisy output in ultra low volume <50db, not much difference in noise compaired to Audigy 2 analog outputs. Also the output is a little less powered up, but it's not compressed like in Audigy's sound. And don't forget the 3 years guarantee

P.S now I connected the Playstation one and one chinese dvd-player BlueSky, and both of them suck in terms of sound quality compared to Welltech. The PS had acceptable quality but very slow sounding!

P.S.2 Many people here in Greece may have bought their Audigy 2 or Audigy 4 as these cards where reviewed (the first one) by Greek Magazine Hitech, and they say that they had better sound quality when used in HomeTheaterPCs than cd-players costing 2000Euros and were on par with a very good universal player from denon costing 4000Euros. These are clear ********, so be careful. They drived with it some Nautilus 801 and Magnepan 3.6, with Mark levinson Monoblocks. Could they be right?

Sorry for the long post

[DonoMan]

Creative's consumer stuff has never been known for SQ. If you want a SQ card, you go Audiotrak, Creative's EMU line, etc.

[Tekko]

YUCK Soundcards in general sucks. I´d never again buy an internal one, i´d buy a external usb one powered by a well filtered wallwart and has OPA opamps and a good quality usb/analog onverter

[michaelpage26]

Yeah, I use(d) the Audigy 2 as a cheap solution. But how they dare to say that Audigy 2 could "drive" through the ML the 5 Nautilus 801 unsurpassed quality (especially with DVD-Audio)?

Regards Michael

[DonoMan]

I'd take an Audiotrak over USB ANY DAY.

[michaelpage26]

DonoMan, how do the Creative E-MU and Audiotrak compare to expensive cd-players/dacs?
Thanks in advance.

[demogorgon]

well, horror story two:

I found an old Fisher CD player on the garbage heap one day, you know, another one of those types that came to be when cdp's became cheap, like todays dvd's.

now, i took it hope, changed the rectifiers and output opamps, and pow, it beat my buddy's pioneer PD-S06 with flying colours.
simply everything was better.

oh how i envyed him that cdp for the longest time..
but then again, it's nice too, when you unexpected get great sounding stuff cheap or free.

oh, btw, i agree that the audigy is overrated.
you cant really enjoy music with it.

[Madmike2]

What about those of us that are building slowly their media PC's? I have all my music on my harddrives and external BUP's . When i wanna listen i just clcik and walk away. If the creative Audigy 2 sucks (i have one now ) what do WE do. I ripped all my CD's precisely to avoid having a stand alone player

Will a better card do me or do i have to get an internal pro DAC and output the analog that way. Or just get an external DAC and keep the AUdigy in there doing nothing but 'feeding' a Digital Signal out?

[JWFokker]

If you're really cheap, a good upgrade from an Audigy 2 is the Chaintech AV-710. It's based on a Via Envy24 chip and goes for about $25-30. It sounds considerably better than my old Audigy 2 card. Much better soundstage and generally clearer. From what I understand, the M-Audio Revolution 5.1 is even better (not the 7.1, as it uses a lesser DAC than the 5.1). It's another Envy24 based card, but is a higher end design. The only downside to Envy24 based cards is that they have higher CPU utilization when playing games. Audigy cards are known for great game performance, usually in the single digits for CPU utilization. Envy24 based cards are in the 10-15% CPU utilization range if I remember correctly.

Even further up the sound quality ladder are the EMU cards, the 0404 which goes for ~$99 and the 1212 which is a bit more expensive, but better still. The downside to these cards is their lack of analog surround sound. You'll only get surround out of them with digital out (don't remember if it's coaxial or optical). Game performance also leaves something to be desired (they're worse for CPU utilization than the Envy24 cards), and I don't think they support EAX either. But for music, they're excellent. You can get even more expensive. Supposedly the M-Audio 2496 is very good, but I've not heard it.

[Madmike2]

I will spend the money if it is an improvement in sound. I cant DIY a soundcard even with persistence. The 4040 i have heard mentioned alot . It is someting i will look into when i get these speakers sorted out. Thanks for reply.