daveczrn

I'm installing my first carputer in my 07 Tacoma X-runner. I'm a bit of a newb to all of this. I choose to post this in the high end solutions because i believe this is more of a high end setup than the normal carputer. and i'm really looking for more high end audio suggestions.

I saw a good deal on www.woot.com on the Razer barracuda gaming sound card. I figured it would be worth a try in my carputer build so i picked it up. I spent $75 (retail of $199) so i figured if it wasn't what i expected then i could use it in the computer that im building for my home.

So Far it seems really nice and it's going to do everything i could ever want out of a soundcard.


I'm really wondering if anyone see's a problem with my setup or if anyone has any experiece with the barracuda that can give me advice on the setup.

Setup so far.
Jetway J7F5M w/2g processor
1gig ram
m3-atx power supply
Pioneer DVR-K06 dvd
WD 160gig 2.5" hd
Razer Barracuda AC-1 sound card
Amplifier's that i will be installing are some old school Pheonix Gold ti500.4 to run the mid's and highs, ti600.2 for the subs but i have yet to decide how i;m installing them.

I'm going to be running sirius, Hd radio, and the silabs fm tuner.
i am planning on running Roadrunner but i'm still confused as I'm a very mechanical person, but software is my downfall. i don't understand all of the terms yet so it's kinda trial by fire now..

i have not decided on a touchscreen yet and i haven't loaded any software other than like windows xp, AVG pro. Firefox.

any one have any recomendations as to how to setup the sound? Is there any diffrence with the frontends as far as sound processing goes? is there anysoftware that i should be looking at? Any hardware i should get to go along with this?

pwntbypat

I was looking at the barracuda a little while ago. It looks like a great card built using the same chipset as the x-meridian. What turned me off was the fact that (IIRC) it only high-end op amp on the "front" channel speakers, and it had limited outputs.

For a standard card, looks really nice. For a high-end card (such as using VST plugins and console), better is to be had.

edit: wrote the wrong sound card

daveczrn

what? Pardon my newbness but can you explain this for me.

pwntbypat

On soundcards, typically each pair of channels use opamps to amplify the sound. Each model opamp uses different techniques to do so, and therefor sounds differently. It's been a while since I looked at the card, but upon looking it up, it uses six ADA4850 opamps. It must have been another card I was looking at that had only two high-end opamps on the front channels....

A card that did catch my eye (although I don't know if it has "direct wire" or compatable hw/sw) is the Asus Xonar
http://techgage.com/print/asus_xonar_d2_sound_card


If all you spent is $75, then give the card a try. That's less than 1/2 off retail so a darn good deal. Be sure to post your impressions.

daveczrn

Thank you for the info. The asus card definatly looks nice as well. Maybe slightly better than my razer. May have to check it out when i build my home system.

And i will definatly post my results.

ZenDragon

FYI, the Xonar uses the same audio processor as the Barracuda. Its a C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788. Not sure if that helps you or not just wanted to point that out.