Sectorgame

Okay... It's not, like, neccessary, but that's why I'm here:

I'm rooting around online, and recently came upon a 'Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum'. I asked two of my friends who happened to be online - one was utterly useless, just babbled inanely about... Something (Pigs hitting windows? o_O ), and the other one was of the opinion that this particular card would probably be a decent buy; the highest card that would be practical getting.

I do need the MIDI ports. I've found this card for ~$160 (US $), so it could be a decent buy... Besides, I've heard that getting a good card can actually speed up your computer in all spades, from the memory saving.

I have the money to spare, so I'm wondering... You guys think it's worth it?

[Please don't shoot me All this is probably pretty stupid, but I'd rather be mocked than shell out 160$ and then find out it was wasted.]

I used an Audigy 1 to do music for years. good card, but the drivers are a bit tempermental sometimes, but still worth it

Sure you couldn't buy a cheaper sound card and put that leftover cash towards say, a new graphics card or more RAM?

I could, yes, but I did just get a new video card (And it rocks ^^ ), and I don't really need RAM. Besides, my uncle tends to have surplus RAM quite often and will occasionally present us with some... >_>

I /am/ going to do music-making stuff on this. Quite a bit, hopefully. I have manymanymany song-type-things I've written, but as of now, they're all in my head - not written down. I want to get them composed and set up and stuff.

I'm looking for music-making abilities, game performance (Or performance in general, really), sound quality (though not so much).

Oh, and... Ugh, I really hate saying this... But money isn't a huge issue. I have the cash to spare, so although I'll look around for lowest prices possible, I won't be giving up if I can't, for example, find it for cheaper than 80$.

(Oh, and as a side note, this particular card apparently comes with a remote control, so you can use it's audio program and use the remote ^^;; )

Again, I don't want to sound like a total n00b, but I can't help it I am one, mostly.

I got a remote control with too, I never used it, since the soundcard goes direct to an amplifier with a built in remote anyway

How are you planning on recording the music Microphones or Midi?

MIDI, although I may use Audio-In occasionally.

Even my SB Live 5.1 has 2 speaker ports, a microphone port, a midi port and 2 Line-In's. It's worth less than £25 ($40).

Perhaps so, but ASIO support on the Live! cards is a bit dodgy to say the least. If you are planning on making music using General Midi, then a Blaster is fine for the job, but if you want to use Virtual Synths then you need ASIO supprt, which the Audigy has

Also, the Audigy 2 records at 48,000 Hz, 24 Bit resolution for normal audio, whereas the Live is 44,100 Hz, 16 Bit, so you get a higher quality of recording, which allows for more filtering/adjustment etc without signal loss.

ASIO = Australian Security Intelligence Organization.

I don't know much about sound cards sorry. I'm usually happy with the onboard surround that is standard these days.

Meh. Everything works great on mine.. as I've tried everything.

Firstly, yes, I'll start logging in to actually post after this

Anyway, you guys probably don't really care much, but methinks I am indeed going to get this card. A friend of mine requested to use my computer to load stuff to his iPod he just got, and this card has a FireWire port, which I guess is what you use for iPods...

Anyway, this thread was actually some use, and I just felt like letting you guys know I've pretty much decided, after doing some looking into this, on that card.

Danke ^_^

I would never need such a high quality sound card. The $10 one would sound the same as the $400 one to me.

:yes: Grimloq

Why MP, going deaf?