New Audigy 2 - 24/192Khz

[weissi]

Look at the used DAC! very interessting, 3 i2s lines!!! But is there a good way to get that signals out of the box???

[MWP]

Originally posted by jgwinner
I'm a bit confused as to why everyone says REMEMBER when this is something that's only been on the shelves for a WEEK.

We are clued in that this is an Audigy 2, right? It's a whole new board

A week?
Not quite... reviews have been around for a long time and there are plenty of ppl with them here in Australia.

If you want sound card reviews, head to www.3dss.com .

The Audigy2 is a new board, but the DSP it uses isnt too different from the first Audigy.

[jgwinner]

MWP:

What I was basing my note on was the fact that someone said it wasn't true 24/96. The Audigy isn't, but the Audigy 2 is.

I bought it so I'll give everyone a listening test soon

I'm still working on my Thor's and my 6 channel Opti-MOS though, so a true test will have to wait until next week.

The main reason I got this board as opposed to the M-Audio Delta 410 is that this board will be more compatible for the occasional game I play.

I had thought of routing the output of my old SB Live! into the inputs of the 410 to get around this problem. If the Audigy 2 doesn't sound great, this is what I'll do.

[kristijan-k]

Hello,

I am also looking for the new audio card.
I find two of them that I would like to use.
Both are from the Creative Labs, and the price
is the same.

- EXTIGY
- AUDIGY 2

Which one to choose ?
Does someone tried and compared them both ?

Best regards,
Kristijan Kljucaric
http://web.vip.hr/pcb-design.vip

[halcyon]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but Audigy 2 (Yes, Audigy 2, not just Audigy 1):

1) Resamples all 44.1 kHz / 16 bit data to 48 kHz. You cannot circumvent this. This is due to the AC97 mixer and the associated hardware designed around it. The upsampling algorithm produces some peculiar effects, if you look at the IMD data at digit-life.com tests

2) The 24/96 recording/playback ability is lost the instant you apply any sort of effect/mixer setting on the card. It will again use the same built-in mixer and after that it's down to 48 kHz, 16 bit interim, after which it is upsampled again to 24 bit and 96 kHz so it will appear 'correct' to a layman.

3) Audigy 2 only supports Asio 1 interface and cannot be upgraded to support Asio2.

Otherwise it looks like a nice card, but it cannot pass through PCM data without resampling to 48 kHz.

The only Creative card able to do that is the as of yet unreleased Audigy Platinum eX, which is a different board design and should come out Q1/2003.

Of course other manufacturers have their own 6 channel sound cards that can do bit-perfect pass through + Asio2 support (Terratec DMX 6-fire and M-Audio Revolution).

I'm not trying to put down this card, it's an excellent gaming card and a decent home theater card for DTS/DD passthrough, but for measurements or PCM playback I'd consider twice before using it for serious use.

regards,
Halcyon

[jgwinner]

Halcyon:

1 and 2 are issues for me, 3 I don't think is.

Do you have references for 1 and 2? I'm not disputing you, I just want to read up on it, especially as I am considering writing some custom software.

I read the review on digit-life.com and it seemed to indicate the opposite (again, not arguing, just trying to get the full story)

A frequency response will also be a useless parameter if you don't account for the fact that a manufacturer can get it wrong. The Audigy, in spite of 24bit 96kHz supported, couldn't produce the whole frequency range in this format accurately, - it converted it into 16bit 48kHz and had a bad cut in the HF audible range (attention! it's only for the 24/96 mode).

In the Audigy2 the conversion is removed and the frequency response is corrected. It would be better if Creative gave in specs the frequency response for the audible range. Luckily, it's possible with the RMAA program. Well, the Audigy2 can produce the whole range in the 24/96 mode without even a hint of any conversion and with a remarkable FR similar to that of professional cards.

I do note:

However, this time we also do have some complains. The tests results indicated that 44.1 kHz to 48 kHz unswitchable resampling is still used.

At this point, this isn't a big issue, we'll mostly be playing DVD's with this system. Still, if the Delta 410 doesn't do this it might be better.

The other advantage I'm thinking of with the Delta 410 is that multiple cards can be combined - I was thinking of digital domain bi-amping.

[halcyon]

1) Resampling 44.1 kHz / 16 bit data

Refs:

- http://www6.tomshardware.com/video/0...udigy2-10.html
- ... and the Digit-Life review you already read.

2) Resampling of 96 kHz / 24 bit data if effects are used

Refs:

- http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/features...reativePT.html
- http://www6.tomshardware.com/video/0...udigy2-20.html

cheers,
Halcy

[jgwinner]

Ok, thanks. I didn't read the interview part of Tom's hardware's review.

I don't usually apply effects, but I'd wonder if the same engine will resample if I use speaker calibration.

Damn!

[Brian Guralnick]

If you think any Creative Junk is any good, just try this:

Make a 10 minute 440Hz sine wave sample at around 10% intensity.

Get a pair of headphones, turn up the volume to full & listen to it for a few minutes while you work.

You'll see what I mean...

Having an external DAC wont solve the problem, it's been there since the first SBLive Value.

[theturtle]

From what I've read, it doesn't relly matter that the audigy 2 disables spdif out when playing dvd audio, as spdif doesn't have the bandwidth to do dvd-a anyway. If your looking for dvd-audio passthrough you'll need a card with firewire output for dvd-a. Which afaik is not around at the moment.

chris(TheTurtle)