sound card question

winston · Post by **winston** » 9 Oct 2001 4:45 pm

What sound card would you consider "best" for 100.00 or less? My system is a pentium III,800hz processor, windows ME, 512mb ram. I use sound forge for editing and recording. My sound card is an elcheapo. I will be using an outside cassette player, reel to reel machine and a dat machine so I can edit and restore old live tapes I have made through the years. As usual I know you guys will point me in the right direction. thanks Winston

Graham · Post by **Graham** » 9 Oct 2001 6:24 pm

Winston:
Don't know the price of it in the States, but IMHO, you can't beat the Soundblaster Live Platinum with the Live drive bay. The Live drive unit fits in one of the 51/4 slots in the front of your computer and has the hookups for external sources in it, with regular 1/4" jacks. Plug your reel to reel, dat etc. right into it. No more messing around at the back of the computer.
Your steel will even plug into it at the front.
I believe the new model even has infra red remote.

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Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 9 Oct 2001 7:54 pm

Soundblaster live!Platinum is about 150$. The scoop on the net is it's the best available next to the big ticket items.

I have soundblaster live! Value, but my next upgrade will be to Platinum. If nothing else to get the quarter inch inputs at the front of my computer. The pain of trying to use those 1/8 inputs at the back of the computer is no longer bearable.

Go to www.arstechnica.com for a review of the Platinum card. When you get there, click on product reviews at the upper left corner and then click on sound at the lower right side.

I think the extra 50$ is more than worth the price, especially in light of what you plan to use it for.

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ken Lang on 09 October 2001 at 09:07 PM.]</p></FONT>

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 10 Oct 2001 2:40 am

The front panel I/O is a nice option, but for many, including myself, there is no available 5 1/4" front panel slot for the I/O unit. I have a SB Live MP3+ 5.1 and it has the capability of adding the front panel I/O unit on as an option. I'm not using the card right now as it causes my HP burner to hang up - one day I'll have to reinstall it and see if I can resolve whatever conflict there is as it has some options I'd like to have.

There are some other audio card vendors that have standalone external I/O units. I don't remember the names (C.R.S.) but both are made by European vendors. I remember seeing one in Best Buy about 6 months ago and another was reviewed on ZD net a couple of months ago. Shows how much I pay attention to names.

Bill Terry · Post by **Bill Terry** » 10 Oct 2001 7:32 am

I've thought about building an 'extender' to get the jacks around to the front, maybe a sheilded metal box with jacks attached to a multipair 'snake' to plug in the back.

Anybody ever tried this? I assume sombody probably sells one, it seems like a good idea as long as you could keep the cable from picking up CRT noise.

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winston · Post by **winston** » 10 Oct 2001 2:20 pm

I think the SoundBlaster Live! Platinum card is the way to go. Ken, do you know where I can buy one for 150.00? The ones I am seeing advertised are from 180 on up. One site had it for 360.00. Big difference. thanks again to everyone.

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 10 Oct 2001 8:58 pm

Well, shut my mouth and color me pea green. The Creative labs site that lists Platinum for 149.99 says it is no longer available.

It's at least a two year old product and they have moved on to a new unit called soundblaster audigy. Of course it's more than $150.

The usual sites I buy from, like buy.com and sweetwater.com no longer list the product either.

I guess it's sol for now. Sorry. Ken

Dave Boothroyd · Post by **Dave Boothroyd** » 10 Oct 2001 11:55 pm

If you have a standard soundcard, there is no problem bringing the jacks round the front- you may as well convert them to 1/4" at the same time by mounting a little box on the side of the monitor with 1/4" sockets on the box and leads running round the box to the 1/8" plugs that go into your card.
Chances are that your line input is stereo and the mic one is mono- so make sure you get them the right way round, and you may as well bring the speaker socket on there too.
However, you can do even better if you use one of the tiny mixers to do the job. I use a Notepad, and find that the pre amps in the mixer allow me to record at a decent signal level, as well as providing phantom power for a capacitor mic.

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Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 11 Oct 2001 3:22 am

This might be a good time to buy a SB Live board. If there's any stock left in stores they are probably discounting them to clear them out since there is a new model.

winston · Post by **winston** » 11 Oct 2001 10:08 am

Jack, you are right. I found them for 89.00. One place has the soundblaster live platinum with a remote control for 119. Why the remote?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 11 Oct 2001 11:38 am

Winston, the "remote" is the "remote panel" we have been talking about that mounts in a 5 1/4" slot (same size as a CD burner or CD Rom) on the PC's front panel. It brings all the I/O jacks to the front of the PC.

winston · Post by **winston** » 11 Oct 2001 11:41 am

Jack
This one shows an actual remote control. Check it out. http://www.shentech.com/creatsounbla3.html

Graham · Post by **Graham** » 11 Oct 2001 1:19 pm

winston:
You may never use the remote, but for that price for a platinum, you surely can't go wrong!!

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Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 11 Oct 2001 2:17 pm

Yeah, I forgot about the remote control. I think it's used to turn the volume up/down, etc.

winston · Post by **winston** » 11 Oct 2001 2:58 pm

Here are a couple of more versions of the same card. http://www.shentech.com/creatsounbla1.html
http://www.shentech.com/creatsounbla.html
Can I assume these are the same sound card with more extras. If so then the 79.00 is probably what I want. thanks again to everyone.

Tommy Mc · Post by **Tommy Mc** » 12 Oct 2001 6:53 pm

In reply to Bill Terry, I have built a Line-in box and find it very useful. You can see it here: http://www.angelfire.com/vt2/tommymc3/line-in.html

Graham · Post by **Graham** » 12 Oct 2001 8:07 pm

winston:
The $79.00 card is the Platinum 5.0. Spend the extra $10.00 and get the 5.1 instead. They made some improvements in it over the 5.0 card.

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Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 17 Oct 2001 3:53 am

Well, I reinstalled my SB Live MP3+ 5.1 and since I upgraded my CD Burner (got rid of the HP burner) I no longer have the SB Live/CD Burner conflict that would cause the burns to hang up and produce "coasters".

So far the SB Live is working well and I'm now able to hear audio cd's from both the CDRom and the Burner drives as the SB Live has capabilities of two audio inputs from CD units - one of the reasons I bought the card to start with.

I don't really hear any difference in the MIDI synthesizer between the Live and the AWE64 MIDI with Band in a Box.