i have a reletively new dell pc with integrated sound, i am planning on upgrading to maybe an audigy 2 or an audiophile sound card. Unfortunately there is no space on the front of my pc to put anything else other than my two disk drives. Does the audigy 2 or audiophile require a slot at the front?
If it does, what do you guys think of the creative mp3+ usb soundcard?

Hey there wilco and welcome to the forum.

First question from me : What type , how many and what kind of speakerset are you planning to use on your soundcard ?

preferably a 5.1 set up, but i am also gonna buy some decent headphones aswell.

the "standard" version of the Audigy doesnt need a free 5 1/4 bay at the front, only the Platium series use a break out box that you install in an 5 1/4 bay.

did you looked at other soundcards as creative?

personally im in the anything but creative camp.
reasons:

1. drivers are far from stable
2. still bugs in drivers
3. lots of software installed that you propably never use
4. creative software takes over your system, you see creative everywhere
5. MP3/DVD/Music sound quality is very poor compared to other soundcards
6. creative says a lot but does nothing
7. creative cards resamples EVERY soundstream
8. creative cards are absolutely HELL in SMP systems
9. typical installation will cost you 600Mb HD space
10. there is much better to get for less money

ok, thanks for the advice, which soundcards do you suggest i look into?

I notice little to none of the problems mentioned above actually, both with the Audigy 1 Platinum and the Audigy 2 ZS :s

The Creative setup lets you decide which plugins/tools you want to install (advanced installation), so it's up to you how much space it takes and how many useless apps are installed.

The only Creative thing I notice, is the Splash screen when windows starts and the shortcut in the taskbar, which is just convenient.

I've been using Creative for audio-recordings for quite some time now. Recently I also started using Creative for capturing the audio when recording video with the Matrox RTX100.
I choose Creative because cards like the Matrox RTX100 are very picky with soundchips and drivers.
So I guess I would have atleast noticed any driver-conflict or bug.

Appearantly it all depends on personal experiences and specific setups, since Maelstrom clearly states he has had problems with Creative in the past (hence his advice not to go for Creative).

But I guess, as long as you don't plan to do some professional audio-editing/enhancing things, it doesn't really matter that much.
For the average mp3-playback, analog - digital recording and multispeaker setup, you can't go wrong I think. Any common brand will do; Hercules, Creative, Audiophile,..

im not the only one that had problems with creative cards.
check some audio forums, many threads with many problems.
on the winamp forums for example there is even a part on the forum that is dedicated to creative soundcard related problems, this must say atleast something about creative and theire software/compatibility issues

i would recommend TerraTec DMX if you're in recording.
or the Aureon series when you listen to MP3's and play games.
the M-Audio is also a very good card and beats the living daylight out of the Audigy 2 ZS on multiple points.

I would suggest the Turtle Beach SC so that you can easily switch between headphones and speakers without needing the expense of the Live Drive from Creative.

I'm with you on this Wannez, I have been doing alot of restoration/recording through a Audigy 1 and have excellent results and no driver problems that I hear others speaking of. I do not install any of the software other than drivers and mixer, I think all playback softwares can give you problems if you have too many different ones installed. Power DVD and minimal ATI installation is all I use.

Here comes the best soundcard of all the mentioned here



Terratec PHASE 26 USB

Although I have not had any problems with my Audigy,when I upgrade the Teratec EWS88D is the way I will go. I especially like the fact that it has DVD sound capabilities and more so it has its own phono preamp circuit. hmmmmm..... Maybe i'll run down to "Grandmas music" and see if they have one I can look at !