The best sound card for HTPC HD - Page 3

Thanks for the reply.

I just skimmed through the poorly written manual. I could be wrong, but am I to understand that it won't decode DD or DTS without 3rd party software decoders? It has limited inputs, although it's cheap enough compared to a pre-pro. I think the non-shared IRQ requirement is a bit much in this day and age. I haven't built a PC in a while, but my P4PE doesn't have one slot where the IRQs aren't shared, I don't think. Am I also to understand that the bass management is for LFE only? I wasn't too clear on how the bass management works. But bass exists in music not just LFE.

If it sounds good, the cost is a definite advantage. However, I must consider the convenience of a pre-pro. I'll check to see if some of the events for volume are exposed in girder. Perhaps there's some plug-in. But it appears my mindset is heading in the pre-pro direction.

Do any of these cards support 5.0 sound, routing the subwoofer to my mains?

I run without a sub since my mains go down to 20HZ.

- Rich

Normally when you say "Large" on a pre-pro or AVR the .1 channel is routed to the main left and right speakers. I'm not certain about these cards, but I imagine they should work the same way.

I used to think that too until I bought my HD-A1 DVD player. It just dumps the bass in bit bucket

I decided to go for the X-FI Elite. While popular opinion favors the X-Meridian with new OpAmps, I wanted a card with the following:

- Bass routing
- Good performance
- Clean accurate sound
- DVD-Audio, LPCM, and BD/HD Audio support

I wonder about some the statements made about one or the other card. Most speakers and listening environments have huge gaps in their performance. Often more that 6DB and yet they can hear the difference in some of these DACs?
That may be, but they would have to have huge performance gaps. There may also be interactions that are system specific. Some speakers may sound better to people with different cards, but would not sound good in my system. I guess I will find out soon. I have a good friend who likes to build his own speakers and he loves the Creative crystalizer. I can understand that because when I am over there I find that it has a familiar/Club sound. Not to my tastes but somehow appealing. I am 100% certain, I will never use it

To ground myself, I remember that my 4 year old Panasonic RP82 sounds pretty damn good outputting DVD-audio with analog outputs. It sounds bad if you let it up-sample DVDs, less fluid and a bit scratchy. This is probably because the DACs in my Integra 7 preamp are much better, so DACs matter.

I think it is probably a bit easier for any of these card to perform well with HD audio. Even the Asus ALC850 AC97 sounds quite good with HD Audio. For example, I bought the Blu-Ray 5'th element (as I am new to BD) and found that indeed the picture did suck, however, the LPCM audio was really wonderful. It was sooooo much better than the DD sound track I could not believe it. Sounds became instruments, voices were clear without the boxy sound of many sound tracks. The center channel was used correctly. Really excellent. This just drive home to me as I move to HD video and sound, that I will never play a DD or DTS standard sound track when there is any HD sound option available. So my needs are narrower than most

Hopefully the X-FI Elite card installs without incident. The review measurements I have read show it to have good to excellent performance.

I wish I had the time to try both of these cards out, but after spending about 20 hours reading about these sound cards, I have to get back to work

Thanks all,

-- Rich

Rich, I'm sure you'll enjoy your purchase.... I know I really like mine! And someday real soon now I'll be putting in the new National Semi opamps and I'll be sure to let you know if it makes a big difference.... my guess is that it will.... enjoy!

How many are on the card. I thought this was not so easy to do with the X-FI?

- Rich

I have just completed setup on PowerDVD for HD DVD and Blu-Ray playback using my motherboard ALC850 analog outputs.

The sound from LPCM and DTS-HD on Blu-Ray is quite good. However, on HD DVD DD+ and DD TrueHD, they are overloading the center channel and sound thin with a bit of echo. Not good at all. The is no comparison to my HD-A1 analog outs. I am not sure if this is software or the motherboard sound.

I should get a SoundBlaster X-FI Elite Pro sound card today, so tonight I can see if a top flight sound card can help.

- Rich

It probably will jim. I suspect that the sound that I heard from my X-FI elite Pro was heavily colored by the OpAmps. After going through half a dozen OpAmps now. One thing I am COMPLETELY certain of is that OpAmps affect the output characteristics greatly. Anyone who says otherwise is deaf or doesn't have good equipment. I don't mean to be harsh, but its that obvious. With certain OpAmps, I have heard the X-Meridian sound a bit muddy and not as precise as it is with the LM4562s. You should get a nice little increase in resolution after the mod. After that you need to do the DC Coupling mod.

Hi guys,

We all know that the X-Meridian uses the C-Media CMI8788 DACs. I've got a Pioneer Elite VSX-74TXVi receiver which has the Burr Brown DSD1791DBR DACs. If you had both this receiver and the sound card, would you use the digital or analog outs of the sound card? What I'm trying to find out is which unit has the better DACs?

SOMEONE would have to search on Google for the data sheets on both DAC chips, do some comparisons, then factor in the (un)likelihood of high quality op-amps in the Pioneer and think about it for a while.... while you're waiting, give it a try

I got the X-FI Elite Pro. It sounds good on music, I need my switch to come in to A/B test it against my DVD player.

The DVD-Audio playback does not work with the analog outputs. It shows it playing but there is no sound. If I cannot get that working the card goes back.

HD DVD Playback is stil busted in PowerDVD 7.1. No bass is sent anywhere, Perhaps to the sub, but I do not have that connected.
Blu-Ray LPCM works great in PowerDVD 7.2. So I guess this is probably a PowerDVD problem.

I cannot find a way to configure the speakers for 5.0 (no sub). I just cannot believe that this is not supported.

It is times like this, I wonder why I bother with an HTPC. These companies ship such garbage. I guess they cannot spell QA

I guess I have to try to get some support from Creative....

- Rich

X-Meridian uses CMI8788 chip and AKM AK4396VF DACs. There are more to the sound than DACs and OPAMPs, you need to try out which is better, no one can say which is better just by looking at the spec alone.

not much.... a few resistors for gain and a filter.... the active components account for probably 98% of the "quality" ....

OK.... I can assume from your response that the two are probably somewhat similar and it would really require an A/B test to determine which was superior. Had someone said that one would be the obvious superior I would have ended up not bothering with the A/B test. I'll do the A/B test and figure it out then.

DVD-Audio works great on my X-Fi Elite. The DVD-Audio player has its own mute and volume control. When I played my first DVD-Audio, the volume was turned all the way down on the player and no sound came out.

That is NOT the DAC. That is the DSP chip which is a BIG difference. Personally I don't even care much for the 8788. The AK4396 is the DAC and its the same one used on the new $2000 Slim Devices Transporter which has been hailed by Stereophile as one of the best sounding and perfoming D/A units they have ever tested. http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_transporter.html

Hailed as the "miracle DAC" by others. This is one uber DAC. The 8788 is just the processor so to speak.

I think the only thing you can assume is that no one here has answered your question. They might sound DRASTICALLY different. I don't know the answer to this question, but from reading neither does anyone else who has replied.

I can say this with 100% certainty though. The AK4396 and the LM4562 are two of the highest performing chips on the market today. The combination of these would give almost any D/A a serious run for its money. If not flat out kil it. My Outlaw preamp was bested convincingly by this combination on my X-Meridian.

@jimwhite,

I'm just curious, how did you setup your surround speaker with your X-Fi anyway? For 5.1 setup, do you put the rear speakers behind you or at the side? Dolby suggests that the speakers should be placed at the side with slightly angled to the back but in THX console, I can only get the angle down to 120 degrees, I can't set it lower than that.

gee whiz... all along I kept saying the X-FI and the Lynx (and now the XM) had the same DAC (CS4396).... well, the X-FI Elite (and the EMU's) have the newer CS4398 which actually has slightly better distortion numbers

alg7_munif - my rears are about 100°, so the console's 120° isn't that terribly far off....

Mute was off, volume was up. I think I tried it all. Still no sound with DVD-Audio.

- Rich

Better numbers than the Meridian? Or just better numbers than the regular X-Fi?

Just wondering whether you are just "testing" with a downloaded DVD-A or you did the test with an original DVD-A. You shouldn't answer this in the public though. My only DVD-A, Hotel California works without a problem on my X-Fi. If there are some punk rock albums on DVD-A available, I would definitely buy more DVD-A but now I can't find any other DVD-A that suits my taste.

No problem. This is the real Seal DVD-AUDIO disk.

- Rich

You comparing the CS4398 to the AK4396? They are not even made by the same company, and actually the AK chip is much newer.

HI

I've had problems in the past playing some dvd-a discs if anydvd was running. If you have that (or similar) running, try disabling it.

What are you folks using to decode dolby digital and dts? Are you buying the audio decoders with the dvd software?

Crystal and AK have been slugging it out in this market for years now and the only remarkable thing about this is that there is so little to differentiate the two.... at any given time, each company's flagship DAC is functionally and sonicly indistinguishable

that said, I was surprised that the Elite Pro had a newer and slightly better DAC than the Lynx..... I was confused on the XM

People complained on Creative's forum before about Jamicon caps being used for X-Fi, did Creative use them on Elite Pro as well?

I'll let you know when I yank it to change the op-amps.... but seriously, the Jamicon cap fiasco involved Low ESR caps on ABIT motherboards, initially, didn't it ??? IIRC, that was a batch related issue.... seems it should have nothing to do with current stuff except as urban legend....

How do these cards (x-meridian, elite pro) compare to a mid pre-pro of caliber like a NAD T163 or Rotel RSP-1068?