The best PC soundcards were made in 1999.

"mrbog" wrote in message
om
"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"mrbog" wrote ...
As stated, no audio card today (afaik) has a 4x or 2x amplified
out port.

OK. So your definition of "better" is higher-power output.

Clue: Most (all?) of the rest of us consider things like SNR,
frequency response, distortion, etc, etc, to be infinitely more
important than power output. Your mileage obviously varies.

In the future you might want to either avoid using the undefined
and ambiguous word "best", or at least define what *you* mean
up-front.

You're saying I didn't define what I mean by "best" in my post???

No, but you provided a quirky ego-centric definition. I completely agree
with Richard, most people don't judge sound cards solely based on how loud
they drive a certain pair of headphones. Most of us have more sophisticated
needs than just loud.

I told you how to make just about any sound card play appreciably louder for
about $20. If you don't like my advice, don't complain to me until I cash
the check you sent me. If you didn't send me a check, shut your freakin' pie
hole and please do beg, borrow, or steal a better perspective on life.

;-)

mrbog wrote:
Is there a soundcard available now that's as good as the ones made in
1999? Or some kind of amplification device that doesn't require an AC
adapter wasting power?

I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy who wants a soundcard that does more
than just whisper to me. Apparently, the soundcards made in 1999 are
better than any the ones made now.

[...]

As you already know, NO, there isn't.

The only way to get around your problem seems to be: buy a cheap amplifier
circuit from your local electronics store and hook it to the line-out of
whatever card you want. Power it from your computers built-in power supply
(which provides 6V and 12V lines, IIRC).

J

"Jennifer Smith" wrote in message

mrbog wrote:
Is there a soundcard available now that's as good as the ones made in
1999? Or some kind of amplification device that doesn't require an
AC adapter wasting power?

I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy who wants a soundcard that does
more than just whisper to me. Apparently, the soundcards made in
1999 are better than any the ones made now.

[...]

As you already know, NO, there isn't.

The only way to get around your problem seems to be: buy a cheap
amplifier circuit from your local electronics store and hook it to
the line-out of whatever card you want. Power it from your computers
built-in power supply (which provides 6V and 12V lines, IIRC).

In a modern computer you can easily find +5 and +12. It's on every disk
drive power cable. The red wire is +5, and yellow is +12. You might also be
able to find +3.3. The +12 is not regulated. Its voltage goes up as the load
on the +5 volt line goes up. Therefore, it is around +11.5 with a light
load, and more like +12.5 with a heavy load.

I had an AWE 64 and while it DID power passive speakers it was hardly loud
and I found with the volume high it was very noisy.

If I compare that to my Audigy with external connection box (or what ever it
is called) i have all i need for music recording and playback, whether
headphones via the external desk top connection or via a seperate amp i use.

The big advantage, it is quiet and records superbly, which the AWE did NOT.

I feel there has been a lot of improvement over cards of 5 years ago, and I
say this from personal experience and not a techies point of view.

AlunP

Arny Krueger wrote:

"Jennifer Smith" wrote in message

mrbog wrote:
Is there a soundcard available now that's as good as the ones made in
1999? Or some kind of amplification device that doesn't require an
AC adapter wasting power?

I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy who wants a soundcard that does
more than just whisper to me. Apparently, the soundcards made in
1999 are better than any the ones made now.

[...]

As you already know, NO, there isn't.

The only way to get around your problem seems to be: buy a cheap
amplifier circuit from your local electronics store and hook it to
the line-out of whatever card you want. Power it from your computers
built-in power supply (which provides 6V and 12V lines, IIRC).

In a modern computer you can easily find +5 and +12. It's on every disk
drive power cable. The red wire is +5, and yellow is +12. You might also
be able to find +3.3. The +12 is not regulated. Its voltage goes up as the
load on the +5 volt line goes up. Therefore, it is around +11.5 with a
light load, and more like +12.5 with a heavy load.

Or that. Doesn't really matter though - the power is there

J

T wrote in message om...
mrbog wrote:
It's called a surge protector. (Looks just like a power strip.) Plug the
wall wart into it and turn the whole strip off when you don't need the
wall wart powered up.

Any other problems you need solved knucklehead?


TBerk

Yea, solve my problem of idiot posters responding in a ratio of 5 to
1. I need to hear my PC all the time. Even if I didn't, how annoying
would it be to reach behind my desk and flip a switch every time I
needed to hear anything, and then again after I was done. You call
that a solution?

Minderbinder wrote in message . ..
On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 15:36:19 -0800, mrbog wrote:

Here is my cumulative response to all of your general wrongness. In fact
nearly everything Crowley, Payne, and Krueger said was either wrong or not
applicable. So much so that I feel like a troll. None of you are
addressing the issue that the average user could get a sound card in 1999
that worked better for the average user's needs than those made in 2004.

I think you've got a pretty funny idea of the "average user". The average
user these days has amplified speakers, or an external amplifier driving
their passive speakers. A sound card with amplified output does not make
sense for these people. Sorry, but it's no surprise that you got unhelpful
responses, because, reading your original post, you just bitched and
moaned about the "good old days", told us everything about what you DON'T
want, and little helpful information about your actual needs.

So now I'm told that I have to get speakers for my PC, which I don't
want, and I'll have to have those speakers plugged in all the time, and
of course they use a vampire plug (AC adapter) which over the course of
a year will cost me what- $20, $30 in power consumption?

Taking a wild guess at your actual usage, it seems that you are using
headphones, directly connected to your card's line-out. Of course, this is
just a guess because you say that you don't want to get speakers - but for
all I know you're putting your ear next to the little hole at the back of
the PC.

You're right about the power bricks, so let's focus on headphones. It's
rather strange that the sound level is too low for headphones, because my
current card (Audigy 2) has no trouble. Perhaps your best bet is to try
out an external USB sound "card" with a volume knob to control output
(these are pretty much just for headphone users, because like I said, most
speakers are amplified and have their own volume control). The Creative
Sound Blaster Extigy might be a good starting point, but there are plenty
of others.

On the other hand, if you're trying to drive passive speakers direct from
the card, you're out of luck. If you were to get hold of, say, an old
Aureal Vortex 2-based card, the support is there in Linux now, but not in
any version of Windows since 1998.

The best video cards were made in 1999. Now they're all patheticlly
quiet.

No good blowing anyone's head off - you did say "video cards"...


Good luck,
Minderbinder.


Well you response was at least an attempt to help, thanks. Like
everyone else, you're wrong and don't have a solution, but you tried.

I made my needs perfectly clear- amplified output. Whether I use
headphones or not is irrelevant. The fact that I don't use speakers,
nor do I want to plug in another AC adapter is relevant, and I did
point that out.

First of all, the Sound Blaster Extigy has an AC adapter. I'm
assuming you just didn't know that, because the same paragraph where
you recomend it, you start out with "You're right about the power
bricks". So thanks for the idea but no go.

The other problem with the Sound Blaster Extigy is that it costs $150.
This is just another case for my point that I could get a better
soundcard for the average user's needs in 1999. I pad $29.95 for my
(beloved, sadly) Soundblaster 64 AWE value. Nearly 6 years later I'm
paying $150 to get a bulkier powerhog to be a poor substitute?
Pathetic.

I'll keep looking, but my point very clearly stands firm, in spite of
the barrage of hopelessly flawed arguments against it here. I was
happier with my soundcard in 1999 than any card made in 2004 (afaik),
and the nature of my need is obviously not so extravagent.

On 31 Oct 2004 14:36:19 -0800, (mrbog) wrote:

Here is my cumulative response to all of your general wrongness.
snipped

Can't you do us (or perhaps yourself) a favour and tell us exactly
what you are using this PC for? It seems that you are an unusual user,
and therefor must give us a clue, so we can help you. Or do you not
need any help? Are you just out to make a point? In that case, why?

Per.

RadioShack has an amplifier for your purpose.

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...t%5Fid=31-5032

Cheers

On 30 Oct 2004 22:54:58 -0700, (mrbog) wrote:

Is there a soundcard available now that's as good as the ones made in
1999? Or some kind of amplification device that doesn't require an AC
adapter wasting power?

I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy who wants a soundcard that does more
than just whisper to me. Apparently, the soundcards made in 1999 are
better than any the ones made now.

Why? One reason: A 4x amplification port.

Used to be that you could get the Soundblaster 64 AWE and it had two
outs- regular and 4x amplified.

Now, you can't. Even if you use a pci soundblaster card circa 2001
that does have the amped out, you still can't use the amp port on it
because windows drivers don't support it.

So now I'm told that I have to get speakers for my PC, which I don't
want, and I'll have to have those speakers plugged in all the time,
and of course they use a vampire plug (AC adapter) which over the
course of a year will cost me what- $20, $30 in power consumption?

The best video cards were made in 1999. Now they're all patheticlly
quiet.

Oh you experts are going to talk about how the amp port was getting
some tiny bit of interference from the motherboard's power, something
that only an expert would care about. What ****ing ever. I was happy
before, now I'm not. The industry has gone in the wrong direction.

Is there a soundcard out there that's as good as the soundblaster 64
awe was?

(mrbog) wrote in news:cbd4bb52.0410302154.1cd2fb64
@posting.google.com:

Oh you experts are going to talk about how the amp port was getting
some tiny bit of interference from the motherboard's power, something
that only an expert would care about. What ****ing ever. I was happy
before, now I'm not. The industry has gone in the wrong direction.

Is there a soundcard out there that's as good as the soundblaster 64
awe was?

Not sure if this card is still available:

http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer...130/index.html

But it has an onboard amplifier. It should be able to blow your eardrums
out.

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