[kartman976]

I just installed windows 7 on my old desktop and the sound sucks. I've tried 3 different sound cards and could only get one working. The cards that I tried were Turtle Beach - Santa Cruz, Creative - Sound Blaster Live 5.1, and The onboard audio from my Abit KV7. The audio that I did get working from the SB Live sounds real hollow and crappy.


I'm looking for a new inexpensive sound card that has 5.1 digital output to my receiver.


Thanks,


JK

 

[jrwalte]

If you want future support for 24-bit 192 KHz bluray quality audio, look at an Asus HDAV Slim.

 

[soulrider4ever]

Check BlueGears B-enspirer if you just want better analog out and digital out (non hdmi)

 

[kartman976]

Anything cheaper? Just need to get a digital signal passed to my receiver. Doesn't need to be that great. I'll be getting a better card for the new HTPC I'll be building soon.

 

[James_stewart]

i'm sure any card that has an optical or coax output will do the job. If your settings are set to S/pdif the audio will passthrough to your receiver untouched. The receiver will then do all the processing.

 

[kartman976]

Just want to make sure the sound card will work with Windows 7. The 3 ancient cards I have aren't supported by win 7.... sound blaster live 5.1 sounds like crap.

 

[James_stewart]



Quote:
Originally Posted by kartman976 /forum/post/16848257


Just want to make sure the sound card will work with Windows 7. The 3 ancient cards I have aren't supported by win 7.... sound blaster live 5.1 sounds like crap.

what do you mean it sounds like crap. How do you have it hooked into your receiver? analog? does it have a digital output option?

 

[kartman976]

Sound has way to much bass, if you google sound blaster live 5.1 "windows 7", other people are having the same problems as me. The card is too old, and they didn't make official windows 7 drivers...... just wanna get an inexpensive card to replace it. would like to spend less than $50 on one. Would like a coax/optical spdif out.

 

[kartman976]

I couldn't get the digital out to work.... so I'm using analog at this time.

 

[James_stewart]



Quote:
Originally Posted by kartman976 /forum/post/16848296


I couldn't get the digital out to work.... so I'm using analog at this time.

did you play with your audio settings and select S/Pdif digital sound? The only reason I ask is because I'm also using a 4 year old SB card with optical out and it works just fine.

 

[jrwalte]

Look at the sound cards that are in the price range you want and then go to their website and see if they have a Win7 driver to download.

 

[soulrider4ever]

What receiver / speakers do you have? That would play a bigger role in poor sound coming over digital spdif out than anything.

 

[gammite]



Quote:
Originally Posted by soulrider4ever /forum/post/16849349


What receiver / speakers do you have? That would play a bigger role in poor sound coming over digital spdif out than anything.

those are my thoughts.....


or maybe an inappropriate setting somewhere.

 

[kartman976]

The problem is definitely a driver issue.


Receiver is Pioneer VSX-1018AH. It's connected analog. The digital connection wouldn't work. I tried several drivers, but they never really installed correctly. I don't think the SB Live 5.1 is supported by windows 7, It's too old. Other people are having similar problems as I am...I wish I could get a digital out. System sounded great on XP with my turtle beach sound card and a digital connection. Thinking about going back to XP on this old machine, or set up a linux media server.

 

[soulrider4ever]

OK - yea that would explain the not so fun sound.... analog out on those cards were a joke. The turtle beach soundcard, read a website forum a guy said the sc_4193.exe XP drivers he got to work under vista. Perhaps try that??

 

[kartman976]

Well I found some decent drivers for Windows 7. They were created by daniel_k . They don't support SPDIF out, but they sound 100X better than the drivers that I had installed.

http://forums.creative.com/creativel...read.id=140948


I'll probably just install linux on this machine and make it a media server. Just need to build a new HTPC first.


-JK