Hey peeps,.... i am looking into upgradin my current soundcard as i am sick of creative not supporting it anymore. And also i am thinking about getting 5.1-7.1 pc speakers, so i want to make use of them..... the cards i had in mind were the latest AUDIGY 2 (maybe platinum) and turtle beach cards,.... is there anything better out there at the moment? I dont really care about the software bundles it comes with, mostly about sound quality/performance and recording, so OEM cards will be good too..... thx ....

RaZoR

I am very happy with my Audigy 2 dunno why to choose something else ... you may go Audigy 2 ZS ...

and whats special about the ZS?

Why not save some money and get the audigy 1

The Audiogy 2 Zs does EAX4 in hardware, as the other Audiogy cards use Software to produce the EAX4

How many games even use EAX 3? or 2 for that matter?

lots of games use eax2 - its in my SB Live!
and i've seen eax3 support in quite a bit of newer games.

Yes, But if you are upgrading, than why not upgrade for the future?
And besides he wants 7.1 he wants the best, not what came out yesterday

The only significant difference other than software which he doens't care about is 5/7.1 so it depends on which speakers he wants. I'd go with z-680s + audigy, since those speakers own.

hey guys thx for the info so far.... to answer some debates here, i think BamaBob put it in the right perspective,

thats exactly what i need plus i need a new set of speakers too so i guess that would be another question that i would like to hear advice from you guys also.... i need 7.1 speakers that are good quality but not too expensive, i seen the Klipsch ones but are way too expensive,... i am a fan of Labtec, i think they are good but look cheesey.... thanks peeps

RaZoR

ps... can i get some links too please...
pss...so i take it the Audigy2 Pro ZS is best....

There are no GOOD 7.1 pc speakers..

Just go with a good combo = Audigy 1 or 2 if you want and z680s..

5.1 is supported in some games 7.1 I dont think in any, barely any movies have it too..


I would prefer a GOOD 2.1 set instead of a crap 4.1 set.. so do what you want..

IMO 7.1 is useless anyway, 5.1 is more than enough to give me proper surround sound, throwing in a couple more speakers just increases the systems cost and makes it more annoying to setup.

If you do not care about special audio inputs/outputs go for the Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 card (not the Pro version) which does not have the external rack, costs half the price of the Pro version and is a steal in relation to its performance. As far as the 7.1 speakers are concerned the only good 7.1 speakers i know of are the Creative Megaworks s750 ones (approx. 450 Euros/dollars) - the Inspire T7700 are way cheaper but i consider they sound too bad for my liking. The s750 are expensive but they are the best so far, with 70W per channel, near 90dB frequency response and 210W subwoofer, a total of 700W RMS for a complete home entertainment system. They are hard to find though - as for their value it depens on how you see it - i see speakers as something that i will keep for a very long time (like a PC Monitor) and this is why i make no compromises

You might want to check this out: http://www.m-audio.net/products/consumer/revolution.php

Note that that card uses the CPU so it'll suck your games' performance down.