good cheep sound card

[Stevo]

Hey

I need to get a new cheep sound card. Is there any benifet in getting a pci over a isa?
are there any real differences in cheep sound cards these days? What would you recommend?
I have been thinking about a pci with a yamaha chipset only cost about $25US

[MaxVal]

You are best off with a Sound Blaster card. Somtimes compatible cards are not.
Soun Blaster 16's are good cards for "normal" use. You might even find an Awe64 value card for about $30.00!
I generaly prefer ISA cards, especialy for older computers. They are usualy more easily set up, at least thats my experience!
Max

[LED]

You can still get one Ensoniq card now made by CLabs. I've found them for under $20...One sweet PCI soundcard

[Susan]

I know of a couple of people that have the Yamaha's and eventually they seem to fizzle out. The volume get's lower and lower over time.

[Stevo]

Hey thanks for the replies

I dont know the actuall US cost, Im from NZ and the cost of the yamaha is $49, thats pretty cheep, the only thing cheeper is all the "no name" isa 16 bit sound cards, and this thing is suposed to have 32 bit 3d sound - whats that?
The Ensoniq cards go for abot $80 so from this I hope that you can see the scale. Also the ensoniq card does not have a good write up in the user reviews section. another card about the same value is a Diamond Sonic Impact, PCI S90. any good? is it realy worth spending a few extra $$ getting these cards over a cheep isa?

Maxval - why do you think that I would be better off with a Creative SB?

I have not got an old computer (for now anyway), I play a few games but mostly want it just for windows and for Audio programs and playing music etc.

I have heard that the pci sound cards are not good for dos games, is this true, how come?

I mainly want to buy a pci devices because I can see isa getting phased out buy the time i go for my next upgrade. Is this realy worth worring about, and is there any real performance benifets of a pci card?

[nk4]

I am not sure, but I think the reason dos games have problems with pci soundcards is that most dos games were written to only look for an ISA soundcard, but that can be countered with.
I think in particular its the soundblaster live that caused the most problems. I friend of mine got it and cannot get sound in dos no matter what. They are supposed to provide emulation for the ISA sb16 but its probably not 100%. if you really need dos games you better stay away from it.
I have heard that ensoniq PCI soundcards have no problems with dos compatibility.

[toms111]

I just installed a Yamaha 192xg. Very Cheap. Works great. One problem I had was that it required 2 irq's. One for card and one for use as "legacy device". I think this means that it tricks the system into thinking it is an ISA card for older apps. I got it to work ok by disabling com port in bios which I don't need anyway.

[LJE2]

I've got to agree with everyone else that is recommending cards based on the Ensoniq 1371 chipset, doesn't matter if it's Ensoniq or Creative, (I think there are others out there using this same chipset). I've been using these cards for over a year now when I build a computer for someone, and I had one in my own computer for over a year (it replaced a Creative AWE 32), I went with the Aureal Vortex 2 to get 3D sound and 4 speaker output, this card sells in the US for around $20, even though its a PCI card it works fine in DOS even without connection to the SB Link, has great S/N ratio and is generally a good card for the money, better than most costing twice as much IMO

[This message has been edited by LJE2 (edited 06-12-99).]

[socalgal]

Hi Stevo ~

I just bought last week an ISA Creative Labs Sound Blaster Awe 64, for $32. CL is a brand you can trust and is compatible with just about anything.

[CMonster]

I have to recommend the Creative Ensoniq Audio PCI (es1371)- it is cheap and has good quality sound. I have not heard of any DOS compatibility problems with this PCI card. best of all the PCI bus can share IRQs which will free up an IRQ if you are running out later down the road. Also the es1371 works well in Linux and BeOS if you have any plans to try an alternative OS in the future.

[Zonker]

I just installed a $16 (shipped) soundcard in my son's computer. It works fine, but has no 3d effects. It's manufactured by Jaton and has a Trident Chip for sound processing. The drivers support ALL operating systems

OnSale's product page
www.onsale.com/category/inv/00034253/01503697.htm (http://www.onsale.com/category/inv/00034253/01503697.htm)

Jaton's product page
http://www.jaton.com/web/marketin/sonic.htm

[This message has been edited by Zonker (edited 06-13-99).]