Audigy Platinum series gremlin.

[N4TE]

My review of the new Audigy Platinum eX soundcard has been delayed by a problem between the soundcard and the VIA chipset in my computer. They're meant to be utterly brilliant, 2ms latency, 96khz samps, the dogs bollocks of home recording kit for under $600 BUT If you're thinking of buying one of these new soundcards, either the internal or external model, be aware they will not work with VIA chipsets in some PC's and CHECK YOUR COMPUTER for compatibility with Creative SoundBlaster cards before you buy.

Go to Start >Settings >Control Panel >System >Device Manager and select view by connection. You'll see a tree view of your system's hardware. Click the PCI bus on the hardware list and check for anything that has the word VIA in all caps at the start. If you see this, you’ve got a VIA chipset and you won’t be able to install the Audigy Platinum series of soundcard on your computer. There’s talk of possible fixes by reinstalling drivers and flashing the BIOS, but I can’t be bothered, and I needed an upgrade soon anyway.

Turns out this whole non-compatibility issue between sound blaster cards and VIA is well known and has been an issue for some time. Wouldn’t you know it? First I hear of it is in the troubleshooter supplied with the set up software for the card itself. :mad:

shit happens. deal with it monday.

PS we're keeping Ozzie L.A. here, Melbourne. Sorry.

[House of God]

N4TE:

FANTASTIC REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously.

Ive been despperate to buy the audigy (as its like the only super soundcard available in darwin)....

Now i know i cant use it:( BUT i KNOW now which has saved me time, money and heartache.

Best thing is......your simple step process...turns out that i have the word VIA about 200million times tho:(

Ohh well.

Cheers and thanks heaps:)

Kirk.

[phunkdust]

HoG if you want something similar to the Audigy, have a look thru the Terratec range, something like the EWX24 or 6Fire should suit you.

www.terratec.com

[N4TE]

HOG, what review? it's still delayed. glad the pre-emptive strike helped.

[driload]

fuck audigy


for that price you can get a fantastic DELTA44 new or second hand


4 ins and outs, an external breakout box thats sturdy, sheilded cable thats just long enough, and theyve been around for ages....

did i mention 24/96?

also they are by M-Audio (which is essentially Midiman also)


great support, stable, low latency.... pci card. im biased towards what i know works sorry

[pottsie]

hi

someone's got to stick up for the audigy, pending the soon to be arrived review.

I've been using one since the start of the year and have no complaints, although i must say music production is a 2nd priority to post-production on my pc.

best things about it: connectivity: it has two fire wire inputs, which are essential for portable hardisks (especially ones used cross platform), and negate the need for a separate video capture card for post. it also has an optical input, a must for people who do their recordings on portable minidisc recorders. while its sound quality might not be 2496, as long as cds are still 16/44.1 its good enough to be used in a home studio setups. pros will be looking elsewhere anyway. it also makes connecting equipment a breeze for beginners by offering xlr, phono, spdif, and 3.5mm connecting options.

worst things about it: the shitty software it comes with. don't be fooled people, you get nothin. the fruityloops version needs to be upgraded for serious use, and everything else is very "lite" wavelab lite, cubasis etc. you need to get one of the big sequencer or audio editors to get working.

in conclusion: the audigy is good value for money, and is an excellent start to a home studio, although as soon as you get a mixer you'll need to upgrade to a multi-output card. buying second hand soundcards, is as smart as buying second hand mixers, its not worth the grief.

if you're even considering buying an audigy, don't be sidetracked by talk of audio quality, if you needed HD sound, you'd know it.

cheers

pottsie

:D :D ;) ;)

[driload]

cool... firewire

i await the review then

i wont be buying one but i can see the available market to them with those features.

it has phono pre-amp huh?

is it as terrible as one might imagine?

[Sean]

nah it doesnt have a phono pre amp id say he was reffering to 1/4" connections.

[mungo]

Pfft firewire any clever person uses SCSI, especially with the current second hand stuff around at the moment (9.1GB @ 10,000 RPM for $75). Those external firewire boxes for EIDE devices add around 10ms of latency to the drive so all they are good for are backups.

[pottsie]

yeah sorry, got a bit carried away. i did mean 1/4 inch plugs, but wouldn't a phono input be cool!

Pfft firewire any clever person uses SCSI, especially with the current second hand stuff around at the moment (9.1GB @ 10,000 RPM for $75). Those external firewire boxes for EIDE devices add around 10ms of latency to the drive so all they are good for are backups

i work in audio postproduction house where the firewire/ scsi debate is constantly raging. but it seems to me that firewire is the future, and scsi is just getting far too slow for modern computer. you can use your firewire drive for more than backing up, its transfer rate is more than adequate for serious multi-track audio playback. martin walker wrote a great article in soundonsound recently about firewire hard drives, and optimising them for good performance. but yeah, for the initial outlay of cash scsi is probably the way at the mo, especially as they generally plug into the back of your hardware sampler. but if your willing to spend the money for a decent standalone "seagate" firewire drive, it won't be outdated in a few years

cheers

[driload]

i use both

i DONT LIKE scsi just because im sick of it from years and years of samplers and pcs and the drama and cost of getting about 5 samplers and pcs to work with each other

i still use it though in both pcs and i have no choice with my samplers. they are forever SCSI, for better or worse.

i just wish Akai would retrofit all of its samplers with firewire... theyd make a fortune and make my life easier

i dont see scsi being any cheaper then firewire right now because it still costs a lot to get decent reliable cables and disks/drives to gig with them. i (cringe) attempted to make a scsi cable (dont laugh) with predictable results.... corrupt data


im quite optimistic for the future though. i see things like what mLAN tried to do (essentially firewire anyway) as where we should be at

this is from an enigneering poit of view. i have no clue as to the post production worlds and all that. i guess they shuffle more info more critically then we do.... although itd be nice to be able to back up 100 gig worth of data quickly

someone was telling me about the 'next' usb or firewire?

something like 8 gig a second? i might go look that up now. that makes me excited.... throw that with bluetooth type technology....


:-D

[danielmarshall]

i wonder if they'll ever simply just make a SCSI to firewire bridge like they do for network packets in routers. probably a performance thing

[mungo]

Any adaptor from one protocol to another induces poor performance. The firewire hard drives just coming out now are good performers, but don't go near the firewire caddy for IDE drives those stink. But for most of us price is the key and since SCSI has a long history of backwards compatibility I am happy to go for the budget option.