AWE 32 improvements

Leonard Weldon < <
There are now a number of high end sound cards in existance or shortly to
be delivered, and they all seem quite impressive in terms of their pricing
and specs.

I have an associate who has been getting excellent results from a new
Turtle Beach card. I have EMailed him to get the name of the model he is
using.

As many know, I have been using a Sound Blaster 64/Gold and external DAC
for a variety of measurement and listening purposes.

Based on an analysis of performance, it appears to me that the SB16 and 32
are quite close technically, and the SB64 is a significant enhancement,
with or without an external DAC.

Creative Labs has announced an AC-3 card that is part of a DVD kit. The kit
lists for under $500, without speakers. It is composed of an AC-3 adaptor
for sound, a MPEG-2 decoder for video and a DVD-ROM drive plus software.
Last time I looked at promised delivery the dates were in early mid-March.

LOTT <WK@E-Mail.Com
Folks have been saying that the AWE64 is technically the same as the AWE32
series, but it just 'taint so.

Its the SB16 and SB32 that are mostly the same - they even use the same
drivers in a lot of cases.

You might want to look at the AWE64 or the AWE64 gold. I believe these
problems are solved.

Ref: Soundblaster audio...

I ran into this problem back years ago and the eventual
answer was to buy a Turtle Beach card! The audio is
closer to what an audiophile could accept. Within the
"midi" groups, the Turtle Beach card is tops in regards
to outstanding audio!

Look at the Tropez series or the 2000 series if you don't
need all of the neat record features for midi applications.
The 2000 series is basically an outstanding card with
no frills..just decent sound! I bought it
The Turtle Beach "Pinnacle" is considered one of the
best availablebut expensive, and has all the bells and
whistles for midi work. .

Leonard




:I have a Sound Blaster AWE-32 soundcard on my computer, and I just
:hate the SQ of it. I tried to record the first 20-seconds or so from the
:finale of Shostakovich 5 to play when I turn on my system, and even at
:44.1Hz, 16-bit, it just didn't sound like Sir Solti and the Vienna Phil.
:(The CD player I used was the OEM Dell 12X CD-ROM, and I played it
:through an old Kenwood receiver and KEF Q-15 loudspeakers.)
: Does anyone know any mods to improve the SQ of these cards?
: -Jbh

Jay B. Haider < <
The first question is, of course, what procedure did you use to make this
recording.

The best way, if you can get it to work, is to "rip" the digital track off
the disc using purely digital technology, which bypasses the A/D on the
sound card. I've got this working and it opens a lot of interesting doors,
but not everybody can assemble the resources to do it.

The second issue is, of course the quality of the DAC's in the AWE-32. I
have not seen what I consider to be authoritative information on this.
Creative's Web site
(#) has a lot
of prose, not much that would speak to audio technologists in a language
they are accustomed to.

Despite what's been said on this newsgroup otherwise about the SB32 and
SB64 having the same DAC's, the current PC magazine suggests that the basic
SB64 is about 10 dB better in some areas. Of course, if you have a SB64
Gold, you can hook up any DP/DIF DAC, and have whatever audio quality you
desire within the limits of current CD technology.