Help find a Sound Card

Iehtn-gentoo · n00b Joined: 09 Nov 2004 Posts: 6

Hello all,

I am trying too find a decent sound card for my Linux box. I don't need anything real fancy, I will mostly just play music and maybe the occasional game. Basically, I just want a good high quality sound.

I have been trying to research some cards but I am just confused. I have been confusing myself and find that the information out there is also confusing. I think part of my problem is that I have been told to buy a Creative Labs card. It seem Creative is not big on always using the same chips on their product lines so support in Linux is questionable sometimes.

I guess that I just need some suggestions on what card to get. I have been looking at the Audigy 2 ZS. I am not sure if that's fits under the ZS platinum drivers listed on ALAS's site or under the Audigy 2 ZS Value card. Creative says there is an Audigy 2 Value with no ZS. But the ALSA site does not seem to match up. I think I am looking for a card that uses the EMU10K1 chip set, no? What card should I get? I am looking at spending 60-70, I think.

Sorry for the rambling but it's driving me crazy.

Thanks,
Iehtn

tuxmin · l33t Joined: 24 Apr 2004 Posts: 838 Location: Heidelberg

I recently bought an Audigy2 Value (no ZS). The card works great, but it took me some time to figure out how:
I have hardware mixer support and all 6 channels. However, the digital IO is rather strange and I couldn't get it working properly. I get only 2 channels or nothing but white noise, so eventually I decided to go with the analog outputs.
Another oddity is that you have to use the "line" channel for the microphone ;P and the recording section is only accessible via amixer (I tried kmix, gamix, gnome-alsamixer -- all fail).
Well, sounds rather disencouring, doesn't it? But I can assure you, if you can live without digital IO the card is well worth it's money, overall support is good and the sound is great with my Logitech Z-680.

All this with kernel 2.6.14-gentoo-r2.

Hth, Alex!!!
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Iehtn-gentoo · n00b Joined: 09 Nov 2004 Posts: 6

So, what driver did you use with that particular card?

tuxmin · l33t Joined: 24 Apr 2004 Posts: 838 Location: Heidelberg

It's supported by snd_emu10k1. Another thing -- this card has a hardware syntheziser. You can load an 8MB MIDI sample set into RAM (who cares about 8MB ;P) end enjoy rather good sounding MIDI files.

Alex!!!
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