Good soundcards for headless carputer

**Tongboy** · 06-03-2004, 04:05 AM

going to be running a carputer without a head unit. wondering what good options exist for going straight to amp from the sound card. looking for good sound quality and not wanting to spend too much on a card.

going to be going to 2 - 2 channels for the fronts/rears and a larger to be determined for an amp.

I've found the various sound blasters to be what I need, either the mp3+ or a few flavors of the audigy 2.

I'd prefer straight RCA out for front/rear so that I don't have to worry about connections and losing quality through them but whatever will work with good sound quality is fine to me.

the m-audio 7.1 also seems to be another good option as well as the edigel(?) aux1

internal or external, doesn't matter to me as i'll be mounting the computer under the rear seat so wiring wont really matter.

thanks!

**Scouse Monkey** · 06-03-2004, 05:12 AM

There is lots of discussions about USB soundcards on the forum with some links to reviews etc. Soundblaster extarnals are very popular with their most basic being 2 channel.

Andy

**starfox** · 06-03-2004, 05:20 AM

SB Live! has the KX drivers which are very nice and let you do a lot more than most soundcard drivers.

**mmoeha** · 06-03-2004, 05:56 AM

@starfox : define a lot more with kx drivers

i've read alot arround here, but can't seem to find what KX drivers do, ore let you do

what i find important:
- advanced equalisation
- high pass, low pass, band pass filtering
- non fading sub-out as an extra to equalisation

but cant find out if it's possible

would you know where i can find this?

greetz

**Snootch** · 06-03-2004, 02:06 PM

Are there other brands of good 24-bit/192Khz soundcards other than the Audigy or the M-audio Revolution? I too am looking to do a head-unit-less carputer. All I really care about is output voltage, and s/n levels, since I already have 28 bands of EQ per channel, and am only going to be using two channels.

**lgbr** · 06-03-2004, 02:26 PM

I have an asus A7N8X deluxe motherboard, it has 6 channel audio and uses the nVidia nforce2 chip. The six channel audio is awesome. I run 6 RCAs from the computer to my amplifiers. It has a rear channel phase shift, can make one channel LFE (Low Frequency Enchantment, for subwoofers) and a crossover right in the controls.

**antimatter** · 06-03-2004, 02:41 PM

If you are really concerned with voltage output then get a THX certified sound card. You wont find these in the USB flavor though. Only as a PCI card. They are also expensive

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/audigy2/

**Snootch** · 06-03-2004, 03:09 PM

Yeah, the Audigy2 is probably the card i'd go with. Although the 6-channel audio on the Nvidia Nforce2 chipsets id definately cool (My Desktop) I need to go with a Mini-ITX to fit in my dash. BTW lgbr, do you have the Nvidia integrated NIC on that board as well? if so, I found a cool setting that increases the LAN throughput:
http://www.lvcoyote.com/misc.htm

**ML430** · 06-03-2004, 03:11 PM

I went with the SB Audigy 2 NX (External USB)... At $129.00 it is as much as a low end head unit but I figured if I was gonna spend over $1300.00 bucks on a carputer, why skimp on the very piece of hardware that produces all the music for my vehicle...

I tapped into a 5v lead off my OPUS to power the Audigy and it works great. I have almost zero noise in my system using the Audigy wired directly to my stock Bose amp and stock Bose speakers...