An excellent value for the money!
Written: Dec 06 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to install, extremely reliable.
Cons: Doesn't have all the new features of some current sound cards.
The Bottom Line: This card and the Hercules Game Theatre XP are the best on the market today, in my opinion. The sound quality is great and there are no compatibility issues.
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| jsc1973's Full Review: Voyetra Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card |
When I say it doesn't have all the features of some sound cards, that shouldn't be taken as a slam on the Santa Cruz, which is a great product. It doesn't have the on-board FireWire ports like the SB Audigy or the front control panel of the Herc Game Theatre XP and others, but it's also cheaper. It also give sound quality as good as or better than those cards.
I'll start by saying my PC lives by its sound cards. I wouldn't put anything in my PC that I didn't have 100 percent faith in. I reviewed Turtle Beach's Montego II Quadzilla several months ago. The Santa Cruz is a worthy successor to that excellent product, although it uses totally different chips.
The SC runs off the Cirrus Logic CS4630 chipset, the same one that powers the Game Theatre XP. This supports both the EAX and Aureal A3D 3-D sound specifications, which means hardcore gamers are all covered. I'm an MP3 enthusiast myself, and it does that even better than the Montego did. Plus it's better on MIDIs than the Aureal chipset-based Quadzilla, which really had trouble with that.
CPU usage is low, and it plays nice with all the hardware configurations I've tried it on. Reports I've read on this card seem to indicate it works with any type of computer without problems. Turtle Beach's support and drivers are excellent, as always, and this card is no exception. Some other major soundcard manufacturers should take lessons from these guys.
I've used it with Windows 98 and 2000, and it's certified XP-ready if you want to use the latest M$ operating system. It runs as well under 2000 as 98, so no worries about poor performance under the NT kernel.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 79
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Epinions.com ID:
jsc1973
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Member: John
Location: Raleigh NC
Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 6 members
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