Best Sound Card for Vista x64?

Computer-Ed · Nov 29, 2007

I am looking to put in a new sound card, I am currently using the onbaord realtek I have. I am wonder what the current best sound card is for Vista x64? I game, watch movies and o music so my sound is a big deal. My experiences in the past with Creative products have been that they have great hardware but crap for drivers.

Asky · Nov 29, 2007

Creative Drivers have Improved recently,browse through the Creative forums and then decide.
Would also suggest the ASUS Xonar D2 ,dunno how good/bad it is but supposedly works well under Vista X64.

coolchris · Nov 29, 2007

The Auzentech prelude is just about the best card you can get so far. Check it out. I have the Auzentech Meridian and its superb, but lacks EAX..if thats you thing then get the Prelude. It has the Meridian music quality combined with EAX for games. Well worth the dosh.

FightingScallion · Nov 29, 2007

I've had really good luck with my Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer. Like Asky said, creative drivers are starting to improve.

JaxMacFL · Dec 12, 2007

I went from a X-fi XtremeMusic soundcard to the Azun X-fi Prelude 7.1 and couldn't be happier.

soldatz · Dec 12, 2007

I was looking for an alternative to Creative products so I chose this for my system: HT Omega - Striker7.1

It's worked flawlessly, so far.

I've had 2 Creative cards die on me in the past 4 years, so I thought I'd give a competitor a chance. I'm glad I did.

MrHope · Dec 23, 2007

M-Audio products are recently Vista compatible. They tend to have very good sound quality and stable drivers. A very common soundcard solution is the Audiophile 2496 (from the Delta family of soundcards). 64 bit drivers are on the way if they aren't already here.

ltwally · Dec 25, 2007

Personally, I usually recommend Creative Labs products. They aren't the cheapest, don't always have the highest audio quality (fine for all but audiophiles jacking into $10,000 stereo systems), and Creative isn't known for high quality software....

But they have one thing going for them that makes their products worthwhile: market support. You can be certain that your audio card will work just fine in whatever OS you're using 5-10 years from now. And you can be sure that whatever driver/software problems crop up for your device, there will be enough other users out there that the developers will fix the problem.

The same simply cannot be said by many other sound-card brands. Although I know nothing of the Auzentech brand that was suggested by another poster, I have seen too many smaller soundcard brands come and go in the past 15 years... When you buy Creative, you're also buying some insurance against your soundcard not working with an OS down the road.

Question of my own: The Auzentech brand seems to be little more than re-branded Creative products, possibly using higher quality DACs and including some extra capability. In fact, from what I'm seeing on their website, even their software tools look the same as the Creative software (which is good from a compatibility perspective, but bad from the perspective that Creative makes shoddy software). If that is the case, do they have any basic driver compatibility with stock Creative drivers? If so, that would mean that Auzentech would also be a nicely future-proof choice.

ltwally · Dec 25, 2007

MrHope said:
M-Audio products are recently Vista compatible. They tend to have very good sound quality and stable drivers. A very common soundcard solution is the Audiophile 2496 (from the Delta family of soundcards). 64 bit drivers are on the way if they aren't already here.

You make an excellent point for not buying M-Audio products. Hold up before you get too irate!! I'll explain myself:

Vista has been out for over 1 year at this point. Yet there are still no drivers for x64. I wonder: How long did they take to roll out x86 drivers for Vista?

If you had a Creative Labs product, you would have had complete driver support before Vista reached RTM.

I'm not saying that your audio card isn't super-high-quality. But unless you're an audiophile or audio-professional... the extra quality/power is neither noticable or needed. On the other hand, a possibly over-priced lower-quality soundcard from a company like Creative Labs will ensure that your card will work with just about everything. They're just so ubiquitous with computer audio ... you know it will always be supported.

Just my $0.02. I'm not an audiophile or audio-professional, though.

FightingScallion · Dec 25, 2007

ltwally makes some really good points. You're going to have to decide based on your needs. With Creative, I'm not really sure what's going on. I either have exceptional luck with their products, or other people are making mistakes somewhere. It's hard to tell.

MrHope · Dec 25, 2007

ltwally said:
MrHope said:

M-Audio products are recently Vista compatible. They tend to have very good sound quality and stable drivers. A very common soundcard solution is the Audiophile 2496 (from the Delta family of soundcards). 64 bit drivers are on the way if they aren't already here.

Click to expand...

You make an excellent point for not buying M-Audio products. Hold up before you get too irate!! I'll explain myself:

Vista has been out for over 1 year at this point. Yet there are still no drivers for x64. I wonder: How long did they take to roll out x86 drivers for Vista?

If you had a Creative Labs product, you would have had complete driver support before Vista reached RTM.

I'm not saying that your audio card isn't super-high-quality. But unless you're an audiophile or audio-professional... the extra quality/power is neither noticable or needed. On the other hand, a possibly over-priced lower-quality soundcard from a company like Creative Labs will ensure that your card will work with just about everything. They're just so ubiquitous with computer audio ... you know it will always be supported.

Just my $0.02. I'm not an audiophile or audio-professional, though.

You make some interesting points. The irony is that there are a lot of (semi)-pro audio companies similar to M-Audio who don't have out vista compatibility or who are just recently making their stuff vista compatible.

coolchris · Dec 26, 2007

To answer Itwallys question about Auzentechs drivers for the Prelude...they are made in conjunction with Creative...sort of a joint venture, however merely within a couple of months the Auzen techies have done what Creative by themselves have not been able to achieve with the XFi....Digital. Seems (Un)Creative needed some brains and a kick up the ass.
I think you can tell that I ain't a Creative software lover whatsoever. Hardware fine..in-house software development useless.

Clevo · Dec 26, 2007

I trust if you are going to buy a decent sound card you are going to buy probably something else that will make the difference between onboard or dedicated sound card even noticable in difference....

the Speakers!

Some of the sound cards mentioned above are excellent but are only as good as the speakers you are listening to.

If you are going to insist on spending money on a decent sound card I would suggest buying decent speakers first and try it on the realtek onboard HD sound.

Anything else and you probably couldn't detect a difference.

So the questions realy is...what's the best speakers?

coolchris · Dec 26, 2007

Well as far as I am concerned...look at my sig. Great amp and I have £600 speakers attached. I would say that pretty much covers it for the time being?

Clevo · Dec 26, 2007

coolchris said:
Well as far as I am concerned...look at my sig. Great amp and I have £600 speakers attached. I would say that pretty much covers it for the time being?

you would agree with me then that awesome speakers make a huge difference....

coolchris · Dec 26, 2007

Absolutely..100% agree!

Clevo · Dec 26, 2007

coolchris said:
Absolutely..100% agree!

Would it be reasonable to suspect that the OT and perhaps even several of the repliers have great sound cards and cheap speakers but feel good in knowing they have what they think is a great sound card?

Of course great speakers probably make the onboard realtek sound card sound pretty darn good enough for most other than sound engineers and dedicated sound enthuisats..... :D

coolchris · Dec 26, 2007

Well I would not like to comment on other peoples capabilities, but, Personally speaking I think that the majority of high definition sound card users have sourced out what they want and it seems logical to assume that they know what good speakers are as well.

FightingScallion · Dec 26, 2007

Some of us are also taking advantage of the ability to get our sound processing off of the CPU. Improvement of FPS and the like. Sound quality isn't the only thing you get out of a sound card.

coolchris · Dec 26, 2007

FightingScallion said:
Some of us are also taking advantage of the ability to get our sound processing off of the CPU. Improvement of FPS and the like. Sound quality isn't the only thing you get out of a sound card.

Agreed. Depends on what the individual wants..be it for gaming or hifi. Best of both worlds...Auzentech Prelude

Best Sound Card for Vista x64?

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