Usb sound card recommendation

HuseyinOzsut · 08-26-2008, 06:24 AM

Well, I finalized my car-pc 2.5 months ago; but I can't stop now! This thing is like car modifying, it never ends! Now I'm making my new case and I need either a flexible pci riser card for my audigy 2, or I need an usb sound card. I live in Turkey and today I'll be searching for flexible riser cards; but I'm 99% sure that I won't be successful!

I don't want to waste more time and ship it from US. It will be my last option. So today if I can not find a riser card I'll be buying a usb sound card. Well since my old card is audigy 2, I want at least that quality. And as I searched in the forums there are boot time and cpu usage issues with usb sound cards. Now it is very important for me, both the boot time and the cpu usage.

My system is:

Socket 478 p4 northwood 2.6 HT
2*512 = 1 gb ddr400 ram
160gb 5400 rpm 2.5'' hdd
Avermedia usb digital Tv card
Running on xp with roadrunner and my gps programme igo8 which is integrated to rr with igo zoomer.

I can buy sb live usb, audigy nx or x-fi xtreme and I read the thread about x-fi; but I just do not know the cpu usage and boot time in my system. If my system is powerfull enough for an x-fi xtreme then I'll buy one.
If you help me I'll be very happy.

Punky · 08-26-2008, 11:14 AM

i can tell you right away that both nx and x-fi are no good.
I don't know why but creative never make drive that works well with carpc.

scott_fx · 08-26-2008, 12:34 PM

how many channels do you need? if you can get away with two channels and either use your amp's internal x-over's or get an external x-over then i'd suggest looking into a usb dac. no boot time or cpu usage penalties.

HuseyinOzsut · 08-27-2008, 03:21 AM

I have two amplifiers, one is for speakers the other is for my woofers. So I need either a 5.1 soundcard or a stereo sound card and a crossover-EQ. So I made a small research about your suggestions, and I searched for hippo DAC. They are quite expensive!! And I guess I should wait for the third group buy, if it will ever happen!? And I found Kicker kx3 and kx9. Kx3 is a crossover, kx9 is a small EQ. What do you think about them? Are they good for a big size, mid quality system? And which one I should prefer? Shipping a kx3 to Turkey costs me 60$!!! Which makes it at total 140$. hippo is 180$, if third group buy ever happens, which makes the investment 320$, half price of my total car-pc system! Maybe in the future I can make this investment...

Well then I have some more questions, I am currently using a pci audigy 2. And I'm happy with that. I don't have boot time or cpu usage issues. Also an increase in boot time about 5 seconds is not important for me. Hibernation issues are not also important. For sound quality, can I understand the differance between an usb x-fi and pci audigy 2 in windows xp?

nobb · 08-28-2008, 02:25 PM

I wonder if anyone has opinions on the creative x-fi xmod? Creative.com is having a sale at $30 each, but they are out of stock. You can get them for under $100 on ebay though.

http://us.creative.com/products/prod...&product=15913

The crystallizer function seems to be very interesting.

mda185 · 08-30-2008, 10:11 PM

M-Audio Transit USB sound card has very high sound quality and minimalist drivers that take less time to load. Also very affordable at about $80.00 online. It also has digital input and output capability. I use them in my car and home theater setups and recommend them over any Creative product. I am currently using a Dell D630 laptop running Win XP as my Car PC while I experiment with different options.

diggla · 08-31-2008, 06:57 PM

I asked the same question, now thinking about it why not just run a crossover. Thats what I am gonna do.

HuseyinOzsut · 09-01-2008, 05:15 PM

Well I found a cheap Equaliser in Turkey. In Turkey it is impossible to find kicker crossovers; but there are lots of pioneer EQ's. I bought EQ-6500 for 50YTL which is around 35 dollars! I tested it in my home setup with hi-fi amps and speakers. And I can say that it doesn't reduce the sound quality. So I am one step closer for an usb DAC. But I don't know when the third group buy of hippo DAC will happen.

bluehatch · 09-03-2008, 11:41 AM

you dont' have to buy Hippo DAC... just look them up on Ebay under USB DOC and you'll find a few, and some of them you can get for as low as $60 I think that's the rout i'll take

scott_fx · 09-03-2008, 01:03 PM

ive seen alien dac's on ebay as well

NoSGR · 09-05-2008, 10:01 AM

I am on the same stage, that i need a better sound card.

I searced a lot and i am going to buy an Maudio Sound Card with 4 RCA connectors. I think that i will have much better quality

nobb · 09-05-2008, 05:04 PM

I kind of think DACs are overrated now. My $30 Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro just came in and it sounds great, without having the limitations of a DAC. Testing it on my home theater speakers, I honestly cannot hear a difference between it and the $200 Bloat.

scott_fx · 09-05-2008, 09:16 PM

not to sound elitist but just because you can't hear the difference doesn't mean others can. but... if you can't hear the difference then your money is well spent on the $30 turtle beach. another question to ask yourself though is, will you hear the difference in the car? and do your components lend to the need for a better soundcard? Dac's are great and easy. you can get them for under 100... $50 in the case of the alien dac. you can run a digital signal from the pc to the amp inputs and have a very short rca cable to reduce noise.

so is your $30 card just as good... in certain situations to certain ears... yes. I read somewhere that The biggest myth in car audio is do it right the first time. car audio (any audio) involves trial and error. what works in one situation may not work in another.

nobb · 09-06-2008, 10:11 AM

Both the Turtle Beach and the Bloat sound great, but I just dont think it was justified (for me) to spend an extra $170 for a difference that I could not hear. Sure there may be measurable differences between the two units, but I simply could not hear them. The $170 would have far been better off spent on more sound deadening, or better amp/speakers. That is where you will hear the difference. I am not running super high end stuff, but I am not using cheap sony xplods either. I compared the two through a set of Jamo e825 speakers. But I also tried them with a set of NHT SB1s and my Ultimate Ears Super.Fi5 in ear monitors.

Unless you are a very picky audiophile with a super quiet ride and high end components, I would say you cant go wrong for $30 using the Turtle Beach.

NaMeLeS5 · 10-11-2008, 07:49 AM

I have the same problem ...with my carPc ..i use a usb audigy nx2 sound card and it slows down my pc,because it uses 100% cpu ..and i need a solution for quality sound and less cpu usage...like a better usb sound card that uses less cpu or a pci sound card?
I can't even play videos now ..

1frames/per sec

I have a liliput TC1000 ,1ghz cpu,256 ram,40 giga
Thx for the help ....

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