Turtle Beach's New Sound Cards
Posted by: Newsfactory on: 03/31/2004 06:37 PM [ Print | 9 comment(s) ] · 3954 views
Sudhian Media have thrown up their preview of Turtle Beach's all new Catalina and Riviera sound Cards
After nearly three years, Turtle Beach has finally announced two new cards dubbed the Catalina and Riviera. The Riviera is the low end, sitting below the Santa Cruz while the Catalina is a 24/96 KHz part that is priced above the Santa Cruz. Turtle Beach fans who haven?t upgraded to an Audigy 2 or Envy 24HT card should jump for joy and get out their credit cards right? This is where the fun begins and we further dive into Turtle Beach?s new cards?.
The first card to be scrutinized is the low end Riviera. For $39.95 Turtle Beach claims you get a 5.1 channel sound card that can output 24bit Digital sound.
This leaves you wondering what DSP the Riviera uses. Aside from the VIA Envy line of audio solutions, there aren?t many others that support 24bit output. But further reading shows that the Riviera can only output 24 bit/48KHz across the Optical SPDIF output.
Turtle Beach's New Sound Cards
After nearly three years, Turtle Beach has finally announced two new cards dubbed the Catalina and Riviera. The Riviera is the low end, sitting below the Santa Cruz while the Catalina is a 24/96 KHz part that is priced above the Santa Cruz. Turtle Beach fans who haven?t upgraded to an Audigy 2 or Envy 24HT card should jump for joy and get out their credit cards right? This is where the fun begins and we further dive into Turtle Beach?s new cards?.
The first card to be scrutinized is the low end Riviera. For $39.95 Turtle Beach claims you get a 5.1 channel sound card that can output 24bit Digital sound.
This leaves you wondering what DSP the Riviera uses. Aside from the VIA Envy line of audio solutions, there aren?t many others that support 24bit output. But further reading shows that the Riviera can only output 24 bit/48KHz across the Optical SPDIF output.
Turtle Beach's New Sound Cards
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chriskjell Unregistered |
#52291 Posted on: 03/31/2004 06:53 PM
Both cards have the same tech you can get on other cards much cheaper, just read the review. Shame on TB for trying to cash in on their brand name with these pieces 'o pooh. |
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vegetto34 Unregistered |
#52292 Posted on: 03/31/2004 07:27 PM
HAHAHA They use a C-Media chip on one of their "new" cards??? LOL What a joke. These cards are trash. Especially the c-media one. |
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cmsmith Unregistered |
#52293 Posted on: 03/31/2004 08:20 PM
Well, this is certainly disappointing. I was hoping for some good competition from someone as the sound card market needs it badly. Here's hoping Nvidia releases an updated Soundstorm on a dedicated PCI/PCI Express card like it's rumoured they will. |
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Pr0ZaC Unregistered |
#52294 Posted on: 03/31/2004 08:33 PM
Audigys are the way to go for audio/gaming freaks. Crispier sound and less performance impact in games. Let's wait for the off-board Soundstorm solution now. Death to CMEDIA! I hated the company ever since I heard (and saw) how poorly implemented the Direct Sound driver was. |
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digitalwanderer Unregistered Posts: 3 Joined: 2004-02-22 |
#52295 Posted on: 03/31/2004 08:33 PM
I was SO hoping these would be good cards, I love my TBSC! BAD Turtle Beach, BAD!  |
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cmsmith Unregistered |
#52298 Posted on: 03/31/2004 10:58 PM
I don't agree with this. The onboard Soundstorm solutions are great for gamers. It's positional audio Dolby Digital encoding beats Creative's hands down (EAX is really only for reverb effects, it's positional abilities are terrible contrary to what Creative's PR department wants everyone to think). Plus, tests have shown it uses a LOT less CPU than an Audigy 1 bringing it just behidn an Audigy 2. What the Soundstorm lacks are features related to non-gaming items which I bet Nvidia can easily address. They come out with a PCI/PCI Express add-on card soon, I just might bite. |
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sodapop Unregistered Posts: 0 Joined: 2003-08-10 |
#52304 Posted on: 04/01/2004 04:50 AM
Turtle screwed us this time. But does that mean i'm going to buy a creative labs card? Hell no, I'll never go back to that company even if it was the last sound card company on the planet and thats a promise. |
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thomas997 Unregistered Posts: 11 Joined: 2003-04-21 |
#52351 Posted on: 04/02/2004 04:08 AM
Correct.. and if more games start coming out in Dolby Digital, that would be very nice. DD is way better than EAX |
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chriskjell Unregistered |
#52381 Posted on: 04/03/2004 07:26 PM
To all who think nvidia will release a stand alone sound card. It won't happen. The n-force 3 chip has no soundstorm apu. They are pretty much giving up on audio. |
