Help me choose a solid 2Ch. Soundcard please. (1 Viewer)

[AndyVX]

Hello,

I'm in need of a new soundcard, but I'm not really sure what to get. One thing I don't need though is all the bells and wistles that cards like the GTXP and SBLive have. I just need a card that has rock solid 2 channel performance for games and playing DVD's.

Also, I only will buy a SoundBlaster card as a last resort.

I'm finding it hard to fine alternatives to Soundblaster cards here in Toronto(seems no store will carry anything else) so please if you can, provide some linkage to a sites that ship to Canada.

Thanks a bunch.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Hercules Fortissimo II. Bought one last week. Cost me £40, has solid drivers and works very well indeed. Has separate speaker and headphone outputs as well as optical SPDIF in/out. Also has 5.1 DD/DTS output. Great little soundcard, and causes less headaches on my machine than an SBLive! did. Glitches and pops I used to get when playing audio files just don't happen now.

And the best bit...

It's not made by Creative Labs.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

NOt sure what you mean by solid- but if your looking for a professional 2 channel card- check out the Echo Mia. It is a very nice, simple card with 2 in, 2 out balanced TRS connection as well as a SPDIF i/o for 2 channel PCM. Has excellent studio quality converters, and is a steal at $199.
Works flawlessly, sounds amazing and is suitable for professional applications.
http://www.echoaudio.com/mia.htm
-Vince

 

[AndyVX]

Hmm, by solid I mean no hassle's with drivers and such, plus good performance.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[CarlDJr]

You'll find that consumer cards are pretty much aimed at multi-channel sound anymore.
You didn't say what operating system you're using, but if you are using W98 or ME you could look for a Turtle Beach Montego II. I have it running in one machine and it is solid with no problems. But it is a discontinued card and the drivers won't be updated any longer. Last update on the Turtle Beach site was about 18 months ago.
Philips has several cards. The low end 2 channel card is the Harmonic Edge PSC 602, but I've yet to find it in stock anywhere.
The Rhythmic Edge PSC 703 is multi-channel but only about $35-40 (US). A good card. I have the earlier version (PSC702) but they haven't put out XP drivers for it, I'm using the 2000 drivers and they work fine.
Review:http://www.tweak3d.net/reviews/phili...03/index.shtml
Link Removed
Edit: Forgot to mention, be SURE to remove all traces of any previous sound card drivers. This is where most problems come in.

 

[AndyVX]

Thanks for the help everyone. I ordered the Fortissimo II, after reading some reviews around the net. Seems like it's the right card for me.

Thanks again.