sound card recommendations

[Florin Andrei]

On Sat, 2006-01-07 at 21:30 +0000, Ian Malone wrote:

> Sound quality is more important to me than gaming but I
> suspect, at my (sub 50UKP) end of the market, I don't get
> so much choice.

True, unfortunately. The low-end audiophile quality brand that works
with Linux is M-Audio, but you won't find an M-Audio card under $50, not
first hand anyway.

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=pciinterfaces

But the not-too-old Creative cards are getting good enough even for
audiophile ears. Don't dismiss them easily.

> HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold
> Voyetra Turtle Beach Catalina 7.1
> Terratec Aureon 5.1 Fun 6Ch Sound Card (although 'fun' in
>   the title is a little suspicious)

Not familiar with these.

> Most of the lower priced Creative cards are out of the
> running by needing an add-on for digital IO (which is
> seemingly impossible to get).

By "digital" you mean optical or copper (SPDIF)?

I know that even low-end Creative cards have at least a copper digital
connector on-board, but I'm not sure if they're both input and output
(output for sure, but I don't know about input).

> Any suggestions (or pointers
> to places that have reviews that are more substantial than
> lists of features) appreciated.

Ask on LAU:

http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/subscribelau.php

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/