Conclusions
After having looked at the Santa Cruz card itself, the drivers behind the card, the audio quality, and the performance of this card, what can we conclude about this sound card? Lets look at the results section by section.
The card itself is fairly standard looking, the only distinguishing features are the 2cm*1.4cm Crystal chip, and the wavetable header on the card. The Versa Jack on the back of the card is the only difference one can see from the back of this card. The major hardware based problem with this board is that you cannot hear the line-in sound while you are in digital mode, which is a major disappointment for me.
The drivers on the other hand are very feature filled without getting that bloated feeling the Creative drivers seems to give. The ability to change the Versa Jack from digital out to analog-in with a click of the mouse is a very handy feature. I didn't touch on the special effects of this card for one reason, I've found I only use them once and then turn the effects off as to me they are nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Driver/application updates are free to download, unlike some other companies.
The sound quality of this card is better than the Audigy (in the opinion of my tester), but was not as good as the Sound Blaster Live 5.1. The major complaint about this card is that it is noticeably 'brighter' sounding than most other cards, which can detract from the experience of the sound.
Performance is very good, equaling or bettering both Creative cards in Jedi Knight, which uses EAX for sound. The card didn't seem to saturate the PCI bus either in the DVD tests or when capturing high-resolution video.
So the question remains, is this card a legitimate competitor to Creative's products? I would say that yes it is a good competitor for the Sound Blaster Live 5.1, but doesn't have as many features to compete with the Audigy, though it seems to have better sound than this new card. The price of this card is also an issue, as a OEM Live 5.1 can be about $32 (US) shipped, while the Santa Cruz costs about double that, which is about the same price as the Audigy. If I were given a choice of the three I'd probably go with a good old Live 5.1 as its inexpensive but still sounds very good when compared to these more expensive cards, and I already have some Firewire ports on my computer.
I would like to thank for providing me with the Santa Cruz, they are one of the few places that actually had the Santa Cruz and would deliver it to Canada. I would also like to thank Peter P. for his help in doing the subjective audio tests.
Good
- Drivers are very streamlined and simple to use
- Ability to have a second line-in
- Digital Out works well
- Good quality of sound
- Doesn't saturate the PCI bus
Bad
- Can't hear line-in in digital mode
- Expensive
- No ground breaking features
Agree? Disagree? Discuss it in our forums
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