|
When I upgraded to a newer machine and try to install it on it, has problem with driver on XP Media Center edition, can not record MIDI from my Yamaha keyboard, and they don't provide support for it any more. Bought it one and half year ago from Circuit city. Used it mainly for general computer work, not gaming. What kind of business is this vendor in. Only one and half year later, they don't provide any technical support for their products.
Puzzled by the negative reviews but then I figured it out. The reason was that the music was lousy and the Creative board muddied the sound so much that it masked the flaws in the music. Great card. So if you have a lousy copy of music or a game with lousy sound, that is what you are going to hear. After a few iterations you have muddy music and the Santa Cruz board will play just what you input into it. Odds are that these people are hearing what actually is on their machines. What sounded OK using my Creative sound board sounded lousy with the Santa Cruz board.
It allows you to have multiple outputs.So the only caveat I have is, if you want to hear superb music from the Santa Cruz board, make sure the music you are trying to play is clean and not the 25th copy of the song. Have used it in 3 machines now and not a single problem with installation or usage. When I reloaded songs directly from clean CD's, the music was great.Also the choice of outputs is a great feature. The Santa Cruz board plays true sound. I have found this with some of my music. Every time you copy music or video on a computer it picks up flaws and drops notes. Garbage In Garbage Out.
If you are replacing an onboard sound card (as opposed to a dedicated sound card), PLEASE note that you will need to turn off the onboard sound card in the computer BIOS (F2 or F11 on startup) - if you don't, you will get NO sound off your new Turtle Beach card. Upon restart, my XP immediately recognized the card (make sure to "Cancel" XP's offer to install the drivers itself - instead, install the drivers from the CD-ROM that comes with the card once the computer booted up).Software installation went without a hitch.
surround, the onboard sound card in my new Dell XPS 400, a.k.a. Dimension 9150, was much too low quality to serve my Altec Lansing GT 5051 5.1.loudspeakers right: The sound was flat, with little or no bass, ambience or sense of depth (Although very happy with my Dells in general, you would think that a dedicated gaming system such as the XPS would have an audio card already in it).
Though being 5.1. I went with the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz as other reviewers had suggested that the setup was pretty straightforward and were complementary about the sound.I can recommend it, too: The card slipped right into one of my empty PCI slots and the color coding of the card outputs matched the inputs of my Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers for quick and easy hookup.
When doing my audio card research to complement my GT5051 speakers, I concluded that it was between a Creative Soundblaster Live. or a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (or similar).
The associated software is excellent, with plenty of adjustments and settings, so you can set it up exactly for your hardware requirements, taste and applications. This is NOT explained in the Quick Guide that comes with the card AT ALL.
Now, the software is unavailable, the user guide is not included, and they offer no support for this product. This product is not what is advertised on the box. Apparently, in the past, this was a retail version product. A phone call to the company left me even more confused when they said the ones being sold now are OEM versions of the card that were packaged in a new retail version box. Don't expect any help in installing the card, using the features, or getting any of the cool software advertised on the box, it's not going to happen.
I proceeded to play one of my favorite cd's: Metallica's S&M (with the San Francisco Symphony). I have been looking into audio cards for a few monthes on Amazon. It was incredible. This board always rated highly and I noticed other boards had problems. Circuit City had it on sale for $39.99 and I told my wife to get it for me for Christmas.I had the card installed in minutes, drivers as well. My wife and I then played the Genesis: The Way We Walk dvd and it sounded excellent. I can't wait to load DOOM3, the real reason I had to upgrade in the first place.I have a 3-pc LABTEC (satellites & sub) and they sound fantastic.As stated: we're off to a good start.
|
