Best "low end" sound card?

Skip anything SoundBlaster related...

Get an Audiophile 192, or a Mia MIDI.
Well under $200, rock-solid drivers, good sound, low round-trip latency

What technical reasons are there against SB cards? The specs on the 192 seem extremely similar to the Titanium.

 
Where to start???  
You can search these and many other audio forums and get 1001 posts that'll tell the story.
The SB is much better suited to gaming than for audio recording.
The drivers are crap, locked at 48k, can't record at 24Bits, high round-trip latency, etc.
 
SoundBlaster is to audio recording... what Radio-Shack is to professional audio.  
There are simply much better options...

The folks in this forum use Sonar for recording, and you're not going to find recommendations for Soundblasters around here. But it sounds like you've made up your mind anyway. 

I've been a long time SoundBlaster/Sonar user and have very recently upgraded to a Cakewalk UA-1G USB audio interface (which I am happy with - cheap and good quality). I had a SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum Ex 2, a few years ago it was top of the range. It was a PCI card with an external firewire audio interface box. It supposedly had support for 24/96, ASIO etc. For a while it worked well.
Then they brought a new model out. After that they hardly ever updated the drivers of my model. Windows Vista and 7 came out, and the only drivers they released for it were basic 'just get it working' updates. Even then, they didn't come out for well over a year and a half after the new Windows releases.
As it stands, my ex top of the range SoundBlaster is just about  capable of making basic sounds in Windows and games. For Sonar it is next to useless. The ASIO support was lost somewhere along the line so I was stuck in WDM mode.
I had to give up in the end, and now I'm very happy with my Cakewalk UA-1G.

Thanks. There were a couple of good replies there. One about cracks and pops, and another about driver updates. This is enough for me. I'll probably get the Mia MIDI. It looked a bit better than the Audiophile 192. One more question though if you don't mind.

The Mia MIDI can live side-by-side with my current card (so I don't have to give up the kids games)?

Gotcha. Thanks everybody.

I too have a Sound Blaster Audigy II PCI card.  It lives on in my family desk top. It was one of the better "on Board " cards at the time back in 2000. I used it without issues with Wave Lab. It came with Cubase LE ? I then bought Cakewalk Guitar Studio in 2004. I had no problems editing MIDI and using the Sound Fonts that it used.  But I never managed to get it to do audio without dropouts and crackles. Mind you we are talking a Celeron 990Mhz with 500MB of ram.
I have a Yamaha O1V digital mixer and had no problems using the S/ PDIF in and out.
I cannot use this same set up with my M Audio Fast TRack Pro. talk about bad drivers that were never updated. Don't buy one of those.
Bottom line If all you are doing is MIDI a SB might not cause you problems. But forget Audio as you cannot use the ASIO mode. It is a lie on there behalf. I always had to use MME.

Serenarules


I am looking to replace the pos built-in thing my pc has now. I don't need pro grade audio recording, as I won't be doing any. I just need to hear soft synth output.
 
Having used Creative cards in the past, I was considering the following:
Note: I am a mere home-bound hobbyist.

Everybody here has said don't use SB cards.... and I'll echo that as well.   I am a long time user here, and most of the problems we address from people just starting out has to do with the sound card. Some have even gone and bought SB cards since "the guy at the pc store" told them it was an upgrade.

OK so you don't want to record audio with it.... no problem...then you go on to say that you plan to use it for listening to SOFT SYNTH OUTPUT.

OK .... THAT is why you need a decent sound card. Very closely related to newbie questions about sound cards is "why is my synths delayed?" ...referring to latency.

To process most synths in real time (while recording OR playing back) the sound card has an enormous amount of data to process in a very short time. Trying to process that synth in real time, as well as the other FX and synths in the project AND get it to the speakers in sync with the audio and or other synths..... well, lets just say, the Sound Blasters fall very short of doing this well. Miserable Failure is probably a better term.

So follow the advice here... unless you are gaming or listening to MP3's, stay away from the SB cards for serious audio, and visit your local Pro Music Center. Have a talk with the folks in the recording dept and tell them what you plan to do and that you are on a tight budget. They will hook you up with an interface that will do the job you are asking it to do.

Just my 2 cents....

Jim Roseberry


Skip anything SoundBlaster related...

Get an Audiophile 192, or a Mia MIDI.
Well under $200, rock-solid drivers, good sound, low round-trip latency

While I'm reluctant to contradict anything Dr. Roseberry says ... well I'm going to.  I'd recommend you take a look at the even lower-end (read less expensive) M-Audio 2496.  My limited needs for a sound card match yours and I couldn't be happier with the 2496 (street price ~ $100, the last time I looked).

Jim Roseberry


Skip anything SoundBlaster related...

Get an Audiophile 192, or a Mia MIDI.
Well under $200, rock-solid drivers, good sound, low round-trip latency

exactly my suggestions-

These days there is a plethora of budget priced(i.e.- under $200) sound cards that it's a no-brainer not to use one. The Echo line has a virtual mixer software with eight virtual outs(or four stereo pairs). I have this one($187). I assign the first pair to Windows, the second to Sonar, the third to Wavelab, the fourth to Live, etc. And yes, I've disabled the onboard "card" just to free up resources.

Ya sorry Brundlefly: I too had to totaly remove my SB card to make my system work along with my USB interface. And I tried everything to make it work believe me. At the time, like the OP, I could not see why it should not work, It say's ASIO 24 bit on the splash screen! But in the end removing the SB Audigy card and all traces of it solved all my problems.
I think that in the case of MOBO sound cards you can leave them active without grief, but the same is not necessarily true for PCI cards.

Every DAW I've had from the earliest one running Cakewalk Pro 8 with a D-Man PCI card to my Dell 1720 with the Saffire firewire have run TWO audio cards at the same time without any problems.

All I did was set up the new card to default to the ASIO drivers and everything lived in harmony.

I have heard the horror stories but that has not been my experience.

My new build is different. It plays all the sounds through the Saffire and there is no "windows" audio card selected. I think it has built in audio on the MB but I have no need or desire to use it, and the computer recognizes the Saffire as the main audio card to use for everything. I went into the windows audio control panel and turned the "computer sounds" way down in level. Life is good.

planetearth

I went into the windows audio control panel and turned the "computer sounds" way down in level. Life is good.

If you're really not hearing the computer sounds anyway, why not set the sound scheme to "no sounds"? That way, Windows won't even load them into valuable RAM when the computer starts.

I haven't loaded the Windows sounds since maybe Windows 98. They were "cute" for a while, but eventually, I had a pretty good idea of when I screwed something up, and I didn't need Windows' "Ha-ha!" to remind me.

+1
 
my opinion on leaving a soundblaster for media and using the recording soundcard for recording and mixing:  no, I wouldn't.  I'd remove the SB card and every remnant of its drivers.  put it in your daughters' or sons' or wife's PC (unless they want to record, too!).
 
for the onboard soundcard.  yeah, I don't really see a problem leaving it on if you want.  but why?  the recording soundcards D/A converters SOUND so much better!  why not listen to your mp3s (that's another rant for another thread) and wave files on your computer with the best soundcard converters you have?  I use my MOTU and my Delta 44 before that as the ONLY soundcard, disabling the onboard card (and I had to remove an SB card from a previous DAW) and I use it exclusively for all sound.  I see no need to use both.  but...to each his own!

SO Guitar hacker when you say you have 2 "cards" do you mean 2 PCI cards or a PCI and an onboard card?
Like I said I think you need not worry about on board cards so much as a PCI card in combo with a real USB or Firewire interface. And maybe 2 PCI cards can also co exist, can't see any point in that unless they offered more ins and outs.
I do not even install the audio drivers for my MOBO anymore.