Sound Tweakers COME HERE!!!! - Page 2

the psc805 isn't that good at all. but i'll agree that for $20 that i bought it for, it's really good for the price. it still gives the same hissing in the background as the onboard sigmatel does when i use my headphones though. i dont think it has a problem with 32ohm headphones but then again neither does the sigmatel. it's with these 16ohm headphones that theres that hiss. livable though i guess

Yup, I remember going from beep-beep on the PC speaker to my first real sound card. $50 and I was a very happy camper.

The sigmatel probably sounds better than that card some 16 years ago or so, but it doen't cut it against the options you have now.

Audigy 2zs works great for me, but some people have problems--mainly 9300 users.

Bose is cr@p compared to quality (and cheaper) brands such as Shure and Seinheisser.

Not sure what your talking about with regards to 9300 users. I haven't seen anyone having any real issues using the Audigy 2 ZS on a 9300. Also since there is really no difference between the 9300 and the XPS (other than the nic and some leds) your comment makes even less sense to me.

I've been using the Audigy for months without problems as do many others. One thing that differs from person to person is how its installed. For example I install nothing more than simply the Audigy drivers and I leave the sigmatel drivers also installed. I see NO point in having the Audigy sticking out the side of the laptop simply to have it reroute sound back through the internal speakers. Any sound improvement is degraded anyways due to the added lag. Not sure if this is true with playing mp3s but I do know there is a 1 to 2 second lag in sound with games and a few movies I tested with when sound is routed from the Audigy back through the internal speakers. Many other 9300 and XPS owners have mentioned this also.

By leaving the sigmatel drivers installed I can still use the onboard sound and audio hardware as normal. If however I want to use headphones (yeah my out jack is dead) or output to my external 7.1 desktop speakers or to my hometheater setup I simply pop in the Audigy 2 ZS, connect any cables and it takes over, temporarily disabling the sigmatel drivers. Note that when you plug in the Audigy you'll hear a ding ding sound and a registry change takes place. This is simply updating the registry telling itn that the Audigy is now the default audio source. When pulled out everything defaults back to the prior settings and the sigmatel drivers are enabled again.

The Audigy PCMCIA is just a good sound card no matter how you look at it, especially compared to on-board chips. The difference in for example Battlefield 2 is astounding! The added lag when routing it back to the on-board speakers is unfortunate, but it's a function I didn't count on in the first place (but it does work).

The ease with which you can use it is also a big plus. Normal sound card usage can simply be augmented by inserting the Audigy ZS and presto! No added switches or screwing around with drivers, it just works straight away.

Done with it? Just pull it out and the sound reverts back to on-board, also without switches or any procedures.

If the extra sound quality is nice to have, think of the roughly 10% extra CPU power you will have because the CPU won't be busy with those silly sound calculations. It's the cheapest CPU upgrade I've heard off

100 dollars can buy you another gig of ram. hell, upgrading to the 1.8 and doing the 2.4 pinmod (and selling your old cpu) is going to be way less than <100.

That aside, the audigy 2 zs is a decent card for games with EAX. You get a slight performance increase, but nothing drastic. I personally don't think it's worth 100 dollars. I wouldn't buy it unless it was under 50.

If you're going to nitpick:
1. A 100 bucks worth of ram won't give you a 10% CPU performance boost. A overall system responsive boost under certain conditions yes, but not raw CPU power.
2. Besides it being a risk of not working and a hell of a lot more work, swapping and pinmodding CPU's will relatively be also more expensive.

My point was; you pay 100 bucks or so for a sound card AND get a free CPU upgrade!
Can you do better than free? (the ram can't do that much).

If I sound cracky or arrogant, tough shit, I just woke up

I agree with your first comment. Ram is cheap but gives system performance not CPU performance. However doing a pinmod can be done in as little as 10 minutes (20 if you've never done it before) and can cost very little once you've resold your original CPU. I went from a 1.6Ghz CPU to the 1.8 @ 2.4Ghz and it cost me $15.00 bucks! THATS the cheapest CPU upgrade you've heard of now.

Really though yes... the Audigy does give a nice CPU boost for some games (not all though) and it can be bought new now for as little as 55 to 65 bucks online.

Have some Java dude

Yeah Bose is not really that great, they just have a wealthy marketing division. I have a pair of Etymotic Er6is which are terrific because they're compact, the sound quality is top-notch, and because they're in ear they isolate backround noise. Great for flights, and daily commutes via public transit.

ehm.. free extra CPU power is still cheaper than 15 bucks for 600MHz

Thread from the dead?

nice, i have the same setup (with the xps m170 on its way).

how do you connect your audigy to your z5500s? optical, coaxial or analog?