Conclusion..Gaming = A2 ZS
Music = Revo/Prodigy
DVD = No difference
FAQQ. Is the sound quality of the Revo/Prodigy really better than the ZS?A. Yes.
Q. Is it NOTICEABLY better?A. Yes.
Q. Do I really need to have better speakers/headphones to hear the difference?A. Yes. Any speaker/headphone with good imaging and sound layering should have an audible difference.
Q. Does that mean if I use ZS, my normal RM200 speaker oso can lar?A. Erm, it'd be a bit wasted to pair a nice soundcard with RM200 speaker.
Q. What speakers/headphones was used for testing?A. Megaworks, modded Z-560, HP890, HD495, and yes, Zalman ZM-RS6F
Q. Modded Z-560?? How modded?A. Changed cables, and added Kenwood tweeters to the front satellites.
Q. How was the initial testing with the Gallatin?A. Very fast, very hot and noisy.
Q. Can you actually have so many soundcards plugged in together?A. Yes. At the max, 3 PCI soundcards, 2 USB soundcards, and the builtin SoundMAX was enabled on the Gallatin. Simultaneously.
Q. Is that a Praetorian mobo tray?A. Yes, it is. Removable mobo trays rock!
Q. Is Soundstorm really good?A. Gaming performance is good, but sometimes buggy. Sound quality is the poorest of the bunch. It's only for AMD platforms for the time being, so bear that in mind if ur using Intel.
Q. What about the different Audigy 1/2 variants? Do they all sound the same?A. Basically the different variants are priced differently due to features. They *should* sound the same, although I've not checked all of them personally. Gaming performance should be similar though. It is reported that the A2 ZS Plat Pro sounds the best, because it has higher quality components, but that's another story for another day. For more info on features, check
Creative's website.
Q. What specs were the benchmarks run on?A. Check
lawrencelyl's sigQ. So if i just want to buy ONE card for multipurpose usage, which one should i take?A. It'd be the Audigy2 ZS. It's priced below even the cost price of the Envy24HT cards, and offers decent audio performance, and solid gaming performance. If ur concerned about Creative's software, just install minimal drivers and apps.
Q. Would I lose out in music alot if I chose the ZS compared to the Envy24HT cards?A. It depends on your speakers/headphones. Typically, the ZS would sound great. If you've not heard either the Revo/Prodigy, most users would be satisfied with the ZS. But once u've compared with the Revo/Prodigy, then maybe u'd find that the Revo/Prodigy sounds EVEN better, or u'd know what ur missing. Whether you want to make the change or not, its really up to you.
Q. What about the Sonica Theater?A. It's included in a detailed review of the Revolution. The numbers are comparable.
Q. How do you install 3 cards at once?A. Just slap them in, and install the drivers. For gaming, switch between cards by activating the active driver in Sound and Audio Device Settings Control Panel. For music, your audio player should be able to select between the active output device. For me, its abit simple, cos I use foobar2000, so I set ASIO output device to Revo, and KS to ZS, so its just a matter of switching output plugins. Different applications have different methods.
Q. Does this mean each time I want to use a different soundcard I must reconnect the speaker wires to the desired sound card ?A. The best way would be to buy/construct a switch. Do NOT use a Y splitter to mux 2 soundcards into 1 speaker...u will kill the speaker without knowing what happened. One person i know, killed 2 megaworks like that, and she didn't even realise it was due to that... To construct/buy a switch, try consulting electronics experts there are many around here, but I'm not one of them...good luck
Q. What's the minimum height a tower case should have if we wanted to fit a Revo in it?A. This would be related to the height of the card. The Revo as well as most soundcards are full height cards, meaning only standard cases would fit. Half height M-ATX or those Mini-ITX etc cases need not apply...same goes with all other normal height cards. If you can slot in a vibra 128 I see no reason why you can't slot in a Revo.
Q. How bout SFF? In particular my Ideq 200N..A. Typical SFFs are no problem as they can use full height cards. Remember full height cards are your typical cards like graphic cards. So since your IDEQ can slot in a card like a typical Radeon/Geforce, so reason why it can't slot in a soundcard. The longest soundcard, the ZS can fit most SFFs, so shorter cards like Prodigy and Revo are also of no problem.
Q. Arent Live and Audigy processors from EMU Systems? Are those EMU processing chip that good compare wif Prodigy or Revo?A. The DSPs are mainly for audio processing, and yes, they excel in gaming, as can be seen in the results. Audio quality on the other hand, depends on a lot of other things (DACs, buffers, capacitors, PCB design etc) in the soundcard. The DSPs used on the Audigy series are the EMU10K2 and their variants etc...
Q. Why don't you consider reviewing the E-MU 1212M?A. Pro level equipment stuff like RMEs, EMUs, etc...are out of my scope. I don't have the necessary skills to be able to give a fair evaluation which would do justice to these products. I could try, but no guarantees. Sourcing these equipment are also another factor, although any interested parties can drop me a PM and we can work something out.
Q. What drivers you used to test the cards with?A. Driver revisions, were the latest as of time of testing...even the NX was flashed with the latest firmware....
Q. Why isnt your words filled with bombastic, professional, audiophile lingos?A. I'm a layman, so it'd be written in layman's terms, don't expect the full reviews to be anything on par with M&Ms of 3dss or the other established sites....and to quote CiTay of Hydrogenaudio fame, "The usual "audiophile" speak of non-audio related terms which are completely subjective and open to redefinition on a whim, are useless for any sort of progression in discussion" ... Personally I try not to use such terms, as it gets confusing and vague, when people are not familiar with such terms, and misunderstandings would result. Not a pretty picture.
Q. You mentioned M-Audio Revolution 7.1 drivers are outdated... Why isn't the company releasing new drivers?A. It's not to say really outdated per se, its just that the Sensaura library, responsible for 3D sound, is not the latest one. It does work just as well, only abit little bit slower than the latest one, which you can see in the Prodigy 7.1. Other than that, I suppose you've to ask M-Audio why they are slow to update their drivers
Q. How about the DirectWire Digital routing feature?A. This shootout is just to cover basic audio listening and gaming, for typical users...so no coverage on directwire which is used for recording purposes as well as other uses. This may be covered in the actual individual review, when it is done.
Q. I think I'm gonna buy one of these cards. Went throught many reviews and now cant decide.AudioTrak Prodigy 7.1 has better bass response and the Revo on the otehr hand has better high frequency output. Whats your opinion?A. I wouldn't really consider the sound difference to be a major factor. I know its documented on some reviews...especially one which compared the Prodigy and the Revo. Even in that review, it was mentioned that it was really difficult to hear the difference, any only careful monitoring could reveal the difference. Casual listeners won't really hear the difference. I know I didn't, but your experience may differ.
Q. When was both the Revo and Prodigy launched?A. About 2 years ago in 2003 I believe.
Q. How about warranty? Are they taken into account?A. The main purpose of this thread is to compare the performance, both in audio quality and gaming among the few "high end" soundcards for consumers. Things like pricing, stock availability, warranty etc, is up to the customer to factor in for themselves. Some users may have bought such cards from overseas, so its quite hard to say. Typically, most cards which are distributed locally have a typical 1 year warranty, included the cards in this shootout. However, it is uncommon for soundcards to fail under normal circumstances.
Q. Anyone has the Prodigy with Z680?A. I believe alkt uses such a setup...try PMing him. F33L3Lik3Hom3 also has done similar testing, his results are
HERE.
Q. Would it be great if I(harezmi) use A2 ZS with z5300 compared to my soundstorm?A. For you, anything would sound nice with ur beloved z5300s
Sorry coudln't resist taking a jab
But seriously, it *could* be a significant upgrade, depending on how you use it, for both audio quality and gaming.
Q. Will any of the cards be an improvement over the soundstorm?A. Yes, see the earlier FAQ entry.
Q. In music playback, how many percent of improvement will you give between Audigy 1 and Prodigy?A. Well considering that the A2 itself is better than the A1...then i suppose the Prodigy would be much greater than the A1. I wouldn't be able to "calculate" the percentage though...
Q. Comparing Audigy1 and SB Live Digital Entertaiment(special edition gua).. how much better is it?A. The A1 and the Live series are different generations, with the latter being the earlier generation. soundwise, the audigy is better, and also for gaming performance, the audigy has better acceleration, and supports EAX Adv HD (3.0), while the live is only limited to EAX2.0. Nowadays, the A1 or some of its variants, are not that expensive, so its a good alternative over the Live
Q. It seems like M-Audio Revolution 7.1 and Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 have similar performance. Between these two,which one will you guys recommend? I'm thinking of getting one of them instead of A2ZS.A. Assuming there is no sound difference to your ears, and you don't need the extra features of the Prodigy, apples to apples, then it depends on whether u are comfortable with the drivers or not, which is cheaper and which is in stock.
Q. What is the difference between Prodigy 7.1 and Prodigy 192? In terms of performance wise?A. Thanks to Simon (evil_one) for this email
Jun 2 2004, 11:23 PM, updated 22y ago
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