Strongly Recommend.
Written: Sep 22 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great Sound. Very Flexible, Digital Output - for Dolby Digital 5.1
Cons: None - Really... I wish I had something to say.
The Bottom Line: Its more than worth double the cost of the SB 16 PCI crap.
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| broy's Full Review: Turtle Beach Systems Santa Cruz PCI Sound Card for... |
I wanted a soundcard that had quality sound - especially since I use my computer as an all-in-one component of the entertainment system - for recording/playing back music and playing back DVD and DiVx movies thru the TV/Stereo.
My earlier soundcard was a soundblaster 16 PCI. Boy did this card not work for me - it was a piece of nonsense. The frequency and noise levels were audibly bad..how bad I only understood after I tried the Santa Cruz sound card. The creative card also had very coarse settings on the recording level controls - making the possibility of setting accurate record levels - impossible.
So I decided - need a better sound card. There was Soundblaster- but my experience with their low end card and tech support was pretty bad. Their Tech support too had no clue what they were talking about. Therefore I decided to at least try out the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. And now I am hooked.
I first uninstalled all the soundblaster PCI drivers and physically removed them using the safe mode of win98 (1st edition). Then I surfed over to the Turtle Beach web site for any driver updates (their weren't any since 2001). So I put the card in, and followed instructions in the manual exactly to install this card. Apparently, you have to hit Cancel when windows wants to install this card and instead use the setup program on the CD-ROM.
Card was installed w/o a hitch. Tried some of the fancier options (like 3D sound using headphones) and it actually works. The software supplied works for me - wish the wave recording software was more sophisticated
I am pleased with its sound, the various output flexibilities - there is a jack for instance that can serve as line in/line out/digital out and so on (depending how its configured using the control panel). In the control panel too, one can set up presets to control the many options in one go. Very convenient. It can process multiple sound streams - so I could have winamp and netmeeting going at the same time. It seems that the card and process multiple sound streams at the same time.
Can Run multiple speakers/amplifiers - and it is possible to control them all from the computer.
Electronically, the soundcard seems pretty complex - with about 13 IC's and a whole lot of electronics on board (Compare that to the 2 -3 chips on the Soundblaster).
All in all - a very satisfied user.
I just wish I had bypassed that Blasted SoundBlaster earlier. I strongly recommend the card but suggest you follow the installation instructions closely. I don't know what happens if you don't follow their install instructions.
I haven't used the Turtle Beach tech support (didn't need to) - so cannot comment on that aspect.
Computer Configuration - Overclocked Celeron 466 (clocked at 583 - and smooth as teflon) - with a Soyo ZB+ motherboard, 256MB of RAM, Radeon VE graphics and now - Turtle Beach Sound.. Runs Win98 1st edn (configured to load almost nothing useless through startup). Sound card does not hang with the higher bus speed - so that was also important to me.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 59
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Epinions.com ID:
broy
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Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
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