sound blaster extigy

[trilogia]

anyone heard of this external sound card yet? anyone own and operate this? was thinking of getting this for transfering vinyl and others to cd possibly. i cant find much information other than on the soundblaster site and im sure they are a bit biased. let me know your experiences.

[RetroSmith]

Guy, Dont use ANY soundblaster card for transferring vinyl.

The SB line is designed for gaming, not audio editing. The converters on these cards are el cheapos....and you can really hear the difference when compared to a GINA or LAYLA card.


Mikey

[trilogia]

look, i know theres people who obviously hate sound blaster from what ive read. but this this is supposed to be geared towards audio recording and what have you it sounds like. i dont even think its geared towards gaming at all. im looking for anyone who has had experience with this card first hand on the recording end. i dont have an ear or the money that some of you people have in here so i dont have many options.

[Doug Hess Jr.]

How about some recommendations for sound cards and their prices. I want decent sound, but I'm not forking over $500 for a card. For that much I might as well by a regular music only cd recorder. What about Turtle Beach?

[Sckott]

Turtle Beacher's are usually cards with someone else's chipset on them. I can't speak for current models, because I haven't seen them, but it's very true - Soundblaster cards are good for gamers and some on a budget. There are many better cards out there for under $200.

But a Soundblaster of any type beats the pants off of Crystal (Cirrus Logic), ESS and VIA onboard chipsets. There's those who have SB's and those who have enough to make beeps and bloops, and not much else.

Here's a review (http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/02q2/020405/index.html) for ya for the Exidgy. Enjoy!

[Grant]

From everything i've read in other forums, the Extigy is no better than the Live cards. It does NOT record in 24-bit like advertised!

Stay away from Creative cards!

I use the TB Santa Cruz card. It really is much better than any Creative card and is cheaper. It uses 18-bit converters which means it will record more accurate 16-bits. The internal converter has been reported as being so good the 48k>44.1 is transparent, and I can hear the transparency. It has very low jitter and a essentially flat frequency response, which makes it very suitable low-cost way to make LP to CD transfers. It is also quiet with low distortion.

[Sckott]

Grant,

What does the SC have for a Chip/DSP? Not sure if ya know... J/C...

[Grant]

Originally posted by Sckott
Grant,

What does the SC have for a Chip/DSP? Not sure if ya know... J/C...
Cirrus Logis Sound Fusion DSP. BUT, before ya go judging by that, go to www.pcavtech.com Then listen to it.

[Loud Listener]

I use a Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe. It is the quietest, most neutral, most versatile card there is.

It is a recommended componenet in Stereophile.

They are $399 at their website.

You might be able to find them elsewhere cheaper by searching http://zdnetshopper.cnet.com or http://www.dealtime.com.

:p

[trilogia]

do you need a pre-amp when recording vinyl to the computer with a turtle beach card? the pre-amp i have is crap. it has way too much hum.

[Sckott]

If your cartridge is Moving Magnet, which it usually is, yep.

If you have an outboard Phono pre, it works best, but if you're only with receiver, you'll have to use an appropriate output (like the Headphone jack) to jump it through. It'll do.

[Patrick M]

Originally posted by Sckott
If your cartridge is Moving Magnet, which it usually is, yep.
What does MM or MC have to do with it? Besides levels, obviously. Either way, you need the EQ adjustments from a preamp.

[GregY]

Anyone have a good recommendation for a laptop sound card? I was considering the Extigy but I'm not sure if I should go down that route. I listen to an awful lot of music every day at work and the inboard ESS sound card on my laptop is pretty much the pits.

[Sckott]

Laptops aren't the best choice because of the really poor on-board sound chips they put in em. Enough to hear your bleeps and bloops, but not enough for good sound editing, true.

Then again, trying to connect an external sound through a laptop (USB, Firewire) is asking for more problems than solutions. The desktop is best, for obvious reasons. Nothing wrong with ESS chips, but they're not preferred.

I just feel bad for the miserable people who are stuck with the VIA on board sound! That's just crap, all around.

[Todd Fredericks]

Here's a nice trick to learn something about cheap soundcards. Use on of your favorite audio software for this (which you can see a proper waveform). Record a track using line in with no signal. If you "see" some waveforms there, that's the noise from your computer that the soundcard isn't sheilded from. It will "color" any recording (polite way of saying it). Some higher quality soundcards that have a breakout box help avoid some of those nasties...

Todd

[RetroSmith]

Todd is right on the money. The only way to really shield the audio from all that nasty Computer interference is with a breakout box.

The EVENT audio series of cards uses a breakout box, and I've never had one ounce of backround noise/interference using it.


Cheap soundcards = Cheap Sound

[Grant]

Originally posted by mikey5967
Todd is right on the money. The only way to really shield the audio from all that nasty Computer interference is with a breakout box.

The EVENT audio series of cards uses a breakout box, and I've never had one ounce of backround noise/interference using it.


Cheap soundcards = Cheap Sound

The Delta 66 and 88 cards also use breakout boxes. But, the better the card, the less sensitive it is to noise. Also, the CardD and the Echo Mia do not have breakout boxes.

So, I can't buy the idea that only breakout boxes are the only way to go. In fact, some interface connects used in breakout box setups can introduce jitter.

In the end, consider your purposes, buy the best of what you can afford, and pay less attention to features and price, look at the specs, and listen!

[Todd Fredericks]

Grant, I agree with your post. I just was trying to give an example of some less than obvious problems with cheaper cards. I use the Gina 20 bit (got it before the 24 bit one was introduced) and I've been very happy with it's performance. Research (as with all things) is key here...

Todd

[Joe Koz]

Are any of you familiar with the Terratec EWX 24/96 Mastering Soundcard. It comes with Gigasampler LE, Fruity Loops Express, Arturia Strom, Logic Storm Steinberg Wavelab Lite & Buzz. It's in Musicians Friend. Street price is 169.99. Would a mastering soundcard
for recording be good for transfering vinyl to CDR's?

[trilogia]

damn, it never even occured to me to try running it out through my receiver's head phone jack. just tried it and am getting serious hum again. its not the receiver, its looking like its my cheap *** soundcard. man, audio sure can be one serious pain in the ***. someone at work told me that someone told him they make some kind of shielded rca plugs designed for transfering vinyl to cd. anyone know of this? sounds like i might have to try the turtle beach soundcard out. speaking of terratec another guy out at work does a lot of home recording i guess and he has a terratec and claims it is pretty good. he told me that they make a card specifically designed for this, maybe its the one you are talking about joe. i just dont know, spending damn near 200 dollars just to record some vinyl to cd doesnt seem like its worth it sometimes.

[Grant]

The only way someone can make a card for this is to include a phono stage with or on the card.

Running the sound through the headphone jack is NOT the way to do this. Just run the turntable through your phono stage on the amp, or get a phono amp from some Radio Shack or on the net then run the amp line out to the card. Simple as that!

[trilogia]

yeah, i bought a little pre-amp off the web awhile back. a bozak madisson. with that, i was getting a little hum, not nearly as much as i just got when trying to go through the headphone jack, but definately more hum than i want. the hum is my main problem, other than that ive been pretty successful in doing this task. ive had some cd's come out nicely, but the hum is annoying. even though you can really hear it when the musics playing, just knowing its there bugs me. where is the hum coming from? the soundcard? how do i get rid of it???

[reidc]

Hi Trilogia,
Same problem here- so I can't be of much help. My humm got worse when I hooked up the ground cord from phono to receiver.

I have tried powering the units on seperate circuits, moving cables, twisting cables,, etc. Do you hear hum when you play an LP, or ONLY when you use the slider control for your mixer into the PC?

I am quiet as a mouse upon LP playback. However, when I dump into the PC through the soundcard and use the mixer- and increase (volume???) thats when I get the hum.

I was planning on upgrading my soundcard anyway, and am not sure if my SB Live is adding to things, but it going shortly.

Chris

[Grant]

Hum is your problem?

Have you thought that your CABLES could be the culprit?

How close are they to power cords?

Do they NOT cross at 90 degree angles?

Are all inputs OTHER than the line-in muted on your soundcadr's mixer?

Are you plugging your RCA cable into the LINE INPUT of your soundcard, NOT the mic input?

These are all the things that can give you hum when recording into your PC.

Check these things out before doing something that will cause you to needlessly spend more money.

Also, if your phono cartirdge is causing the hum it won't be obvious until you record it into your PC. See, I use a Grado cartridge that produces hum, just like Tom Port said. Right now I get around this by filtering it out in Cool Edit Pro. I'm still producing great-sounding, clean CD-R transfers by doing this. The only reason I haven't gone back to my previous cartridge is because the Grado sounds very good.

[trilogia]

i used to have a grado and yeah it likes to hum. i now have a shure cartridge and other than trying to hook it up to the computer i never hear a peep. you dont even want to know about my power chords man. its a mess, and nightmare for now. but that will all change this year.