creative Extigy card

[tunakdude]

hi folks, i just found out about this card, saw it for the first time- and i was wondering- well, how is it- i mean, i've been lookin at gettting a laptop to take to college and somewhere down the line getting a big fancy sound card with all the inputs (like a layla or motu) but for starting out i just want something thats functional and has 24 bit/96 khz sound-
so how's this- its an external usb card, so i could use it with a laptop- but how does it compare to the soundblaster live card i've been using-
i've been told that the problem with a soundblaster card is that it uses the computer's processor to do processing, thus when i'm doing heavy sound operations- it bogs down- but the professional cards do their own processing

is this like a professional card

it looks quite a bit like the audigy- but external and usb, and for some reason, 50$ less, so, do you think this would be good and functional to do some personal recording with a laptop

(i'll be using sonar 2.0- and i do a lot of overdubbing- with plenty of effects and synths- could a creative card handle me?)

[Styrerra]

Sound blaster products sound like crap!

SB can read 24bit \ 96 but they can't record at that rate.

Get a real soundcard like the Audiophile same if not lower price I forgot.

you will spend you money foolishely if you get SB

[wetwareinterface]

blah blah blah....... :)

an audigy is an okay card. it sounds decent and has extremely low asio latency. who cares about 24/96 anyway? you have to eventually dither down all your audio to 16/44.1 so you might as well just start there and get a clean recording and use that. also i would hate to be laying down 6 tracks of 24/96 audio as it would eat up so much hard drive real estate and would also choke the hard drives bus with extra data.

i do not need nor do i record anything at 24 bit. and i have a 24/48 sound card in my other machine. it does not make a difference that is noticeable nor do you get to keep your audio at 24 bit when you make a cd so who cares?


and the audigy will record at 96 khz. just at 16 bit depths. not that i would even do that as it takes up too much room when multi tracking a song.

an audigy will make very clean and detailed recordings if you feed it a signal that isn't too quiet or above 0 db.


now to answer your original question the extigy sucks. it is not an audigy. it is a live in an external enclosure. i have one and it is buggy and laggy and basically just sits unused on a shelf now. the built in sound chip on my laptop is actually better than the extigy. the audigy makes a nice asio instrument card, and can make vey good recordings. the audiophile is a bit better but only a small bit better.

[Styrerra]

A small bit??? Man my freind has both cards (SB first then Audiophile second) (what monitors\speakers are you using?) Audiophile blasted the blaster away. I got the audiophile and guess what? It blasted the SB awaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Sweet card!


As for recording in 16 bit recording from the start? Man I advise you read up before you start speaking out. I am not going to start pointing out what is wrong with that because it does cover alot of ground.

[wetwareinterface]

if you really want to challenge my statement back it up on your end. meanwhile go here and download the song spectrum. go look at it in a wave editor and listen to it. it is the cleanest most highly compressed song with dynamic changes you'll ever see. it was all recorded at 16/44.1 on a sb live. not even an audigy but a live. it is nice and clean, no hiss, no sound defects, and is pegged to the maximum. and was done using only one synth and some drum samples so it is also multitracked to the gills.

www.hubba.com/wetwareinterface

the audiophile sounds a bit better due to its ad/da converters being a bit cleaner. don't confuse its hotter levels with better sound. this is the number one mistake rookies make when buying audio recording gear. hotter levels (a.k.a. higher volume) are more pronounced to the ear and you think it has more dynamic range cause you can hear more dynamics due to them being louder. it is a bit better. i am not saying an audigy is as good. i am saying that it is close enough to not matter too much if on a budget and you can't stretch the extra $100. if so get the audiophile. also if building a softsynth dedicated p.c. like so many do in here just get the audigy. use the extra money saved on it to buy a better recording card for the hard disk recording machine. they have lower asio latency timings than the audiophile which translates to less overall lag when running multiple synths in cubase etc..

[wetwareinterface]

oh and i'm using a combination of akg k-500 heaphones, alesis monitor ones, psb 30r mkII, tannoy reveals, and altec lansing cheapie computer speakers. i basically monitor on the headphones and the alesis monitor ones and check everything through the others for various charcateristics. the tannoys only for phasing information due to their less than stellar non flat response. the headphones are used for late night composing and stereo imaging checks. the psb's are used to check for dropouts due to the typical home bookshelf crossover frequency range and the altecs are used to see how clean the mix comes out on shit assed speakers.

and the audiophile isn't that great as far as audio cards go. my older lexicon core 2 has better sound quality its just a bit buggy driver wise and limiting due to its win 95/98/nt only drivers. don't get me wrong they're okay cards (hence my recommending one) its just that every one who posts here seems to think they're the high end of the mid-range stuff. they are in fact the high end of the low end. there are better multi i/o cards to be had used for the same price as the audiophile.