Sounds Sweet

I bought a new sound card on Thursday becuase the old one stoped working after I reinstalled everything. It was a shit $20 one, so good riddens. The new one is so awesome I cant even belive I put up with the shit that I did. Presenting the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Value.

• It plays DVD-Audio (I pee'd a bit when listening to it for the first time)
• Dolby Digital EX (for DVD's)
  
• 7.1 surround sound (I only have 2 atm...)
• Digital Output (weeeeee)
  

The installation was pretty easy, just plug it in and run the software on the CD. Restart. Hey presto we have sound. its probably twice as big as the old card and doesnt have the old school game port... And it's black. The board is black, it looks pretty amazing. I would of liked to get the ZS (the next model up), but that was over my budget, but I would of got DTS, THX and gold plated connections.... Firstly I don't have and dont plan on getting THX speakers for my computer, secondy DTS may be technicly better, but I'm unlikely to hear the difference sitting next to my computer, which I like to call windy........ Gold connection would of been nice, considering I had to fork out $90 for the damn thing. It was worth it though.

The first thing I played was the DVD-Audio sample disc that came with it. The sweet awesomness that followed is hard to describe, its basicly a case of, no one can be told what it sounds like, you have to experiance for your self.... especialy since I mainly listen to mpthrees.

Over all everything sounds better, I can crank the fuck out of my speakers now and I get no distortion. Previously I thought it was the speakers topping out. But no, its the sound card was crap. Now I have no fear in turning it up. Games sound better, the "stereo" is just more distinct. Also there seem to be more notes in everything. Especialy down bellow and at the top. Espeicaly the bottom end, so many more notes. I thought the step up to a decent set of speakers made a huge difference, but now its just so much more complete. More variations....

Overall the sound card as it says, is good value. The main reason, is that you can play Dolby Digital and have a decent number of outputs for that 5.1 setup I intend on now buying. Plus you can play DVD-Audio. Not that I have any, but I'm sure in 5 years time this machine will still be going, probably as somekinda media center pc. Another thing is that there is less usage of the CPU now. Which means things are running faster because most the sound processing is done on the sound card unlike crapcard.

I dont think I will ever change from soundblasters ever again. My first sound card was a sound blaster. And for somereason I reasoned that a cheap sound card for this puter would be ok. Clearly it wasnt. But I was able to upgrade.