🚀 go-pugleaf

Derek wrote:
> Thanks Folk but I am in the UK the best price ( from a known very poor 
> service dealer) is nearer $64 I have bought an Audigy off ebay in the 
> meantime for much less so long as I can hear the monsters coming I will be 
> happy. I noted the feedback Creative never seem to have given a crap about 
> customer service I did throw out a couple of older SB cardsbecause I never 
> thought I would need them-wrong!

I stopped liking Creative Labs back in the day where I bought a 
SoundBlaster 128 (as an replacement for a SoundBlaster 16 ASP which cost 
me something like $400!). This was the early Windows days and the 128 
was fine in Windows but the first i tried it in DOS it turned not be a 
real Creatives product but just some OEM thing with their name on it so 
it was only SB compatible with 8bit something!

Since then I have been going out of my way to avoid them so I've had a 
Roland card (The Midi sounds was top notch) and a few others and today I 
use a HDA Xplosion which has some major ups- and one downside.

Upside's:

- Not a Creative card
- Will ENCODE to Dolby DTS and Dolby Digital
- Cheapish
- If you're a HiFi nut you can upgrade the OpAmps (or something)

Downside

- Only EAX 2.0 (which is the only 3D sound in some games)


http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/hda_xplosion/index.shtml


The EAX part is due to Creative not letting anyone else use the newer 
versions which unfortunately means if you want all the 3D game sound you 
need to get a Creative card :-(

If you want a card that can encode sound to anything Dolby then I think 
HDA (or and old NForce chipset motherboard) is the only offer AFAIK but 
then you only get EAX 2.0 :-(

I really do think the world would be a better place without Creative 
Labs and their strong hold on gaming sound.

Kind regards
Bruno