Sound Card Buyer’s Guide

Let’s go back to the year 1991. No one knew what a 3D accelerator was and a CDR (CD Recorder) cost more than $3,000. Instead, us young-ins spent our meager allowance money on cheesy games with 16-colors and a most irritating concept called copy protection (to presumably thwart software pirates).
We also had the joy of hearing our games through horrid PC speakers with roughly eight notes of sound quality. So we listened to Vanilla Ice on our Walkman’s while playing our games. Then, a friend of mine told me about something new…something magnificent…something called a sound card. This wonderful piece of hardware’s sole purpose was to produce clean, high-quality music that made the game-playing experience much more rewarding. My first ever-sound card was the original Creative Labs’ Sound Blaster. There were few companies selling computer speakers back then, so my dad and I hooked that bad boy up to a separate amplifier and bookshelf speakers. The difference it made in my game-play was beyond belief!

This card became the standard that all future sound cards were developed on. Once CD-ROM drives became prevalent, Creative Labs released a 16-bit version of their Sound Blaster card (the original was only 8-bit). This one had the ability to play CD-quality music and is the most basic card included with any computer on today’s market. In other words, at a fundamental level, all of today’s sound cards emulate a 16-bit Sound Blaster, or Sound Blaster 16.

Before choosing a sound card you must first decide what your needs are: Do you want to play games? Do you want to watch DVD movies? Do you want to record? Do you want to playback music?

To help you navigate the sound card jungle, I’ve assembled my picks and pans from sound card land.


Sound Blaster Live Platinum ($150)/Live MP3+ ($70)/Live X-Gamer ($70)/Live Value ($50)/PCI 512 ($50) (Creative Labs) – The differences between this bunch lie in a number of factors: the card itself, the type of outputs/inputs it has, and the software bundle. The “Live” description of the cards means that they contain an API (Advanced Programming Interface; a surround sound process), called Environmental Audio, or EAX. This works similarly to Dolby Digital and Dolby Pro-Logic sound systems and provides the user with high-quality surround sound, provided the user has a four-speaker setup. EAX can be used with two speakers and does a half-decent job of simulating surround sound but not nearly to the degree of having four speakers. Headphones can also be used, which have a much better surround sound effect than two speakers do. EAX is utilized solely for games and if used with a four-speaker setup, it sounds truly amazing! Unfortunately, EAX does not provide a great deal of benefit for movies, although a four-speaker setup is much better than of two. EAX also provides playback and recording of music using a huge number of presets that can make Barry White sound like a chipmunk or help the Backstreet Boys sound like the Go-Go’s.

The Platinum Live card has a separately installed “Live Drive” which is installed right above or below your CD-ROM drive in the front of your computer. It provides the user with a number of fancy inputs and outputs that can be used for recording (MIDI In and Out) or hooking it up to a Dolby Digital processor (SP/DIF Out) and watching a DVD with a Dolby Digital soundtrack. Unless you require any of these, I would stick with one of the lower models. The X-Gamer, MP3+, and Value are all the same sound card as the Platinum, only they are sans the “Live Drive”. The Value is the least expensive of the three. The X-Gamer contains additional games, which make the product a great deal if you do not already have the games. The MP3+ contains utilities that are used to create, edit, and playback MP3 music files, but products similar to these can be downloaded off the Web for free. The PCI 512 also has EAX support but cannot be updated by newer EAX drivers, which contains updated and improved features. Therefore, I would stick with a Sound Blaster Live Value if you desire a bare bones card, since they can be had for virtually the same price as the PCI 512.


Aureal Vortex SQ1500 ($40)/SQ2500 ($60) (Aureal) – These guys also have surround sound capabilities but, use a competing (and older) API called Aureal 3D, or A3D. Differences between this and EAX are hard to distinguish and are mostly just that different games support one or the other, or both. If you like fancy features such as the “Live Drive”, you can forget about it with these cards. However, their price tags are much closer to that of the SB Live Value. They both offer four-speaker support and only differ in the version of A3D that they support. The SQ1500 only supports version 1.0 which supplies the user with surround effects but does not have support for version 2.0 of A3D, which the SQ2500 does. Version 2.0 contains higher quality surround effects such as the ability to play sound effects that simulate objects reflecting off of a wall. The SQ2500 also includes support for EAX 1.0, which is the basic support that Creative Labs supplies with their drivers, before any upgrading is done. This is one difference between EAX and A3D; newer versions of EAX can be installed be a simple software download but A3D requires the user to purchase an entirely new card. Finally, the SQ2500 includes a few more game titles than the SQ1500. On a side note, Aureal has recently filed for bankruptcy and no one has picked up their product lines yet.


Diamond MX300 ($30)/MX400 ($60) (S3/Diamond) – The MX300 was one of the first cards to support A3D 2.0 and also contains support for four-speakers, which makes it a great bargain. The newer MX400 utilizes Sensaura, a newcomer on the API front. This guy supports A3D 1.0, EAX 1.0 and 2.0 as well as any title supporting Sensaura. It also contains a digital output for connecting it to a digital receiver or processor. Its final difference is that it includes some utilities and programs, which the MX300 does not.


Guillemot ISIS ($240)/Fortissmo ($40) (Guillemot) – These cards are very different from each other and appeal towards two different markets, which is evident by just looking at their prices. The ISIS is geared solely towards home recording, as it comes with a separate rack of inputs and outputs for attaching additional professional audio gear. It also contains A3D 1.0 support, so it can be used for some gaming. The Fortissmo is a budget gaming card, which has the identical hardware to the Diamond MX400, and is $20 cheaper! The only difference is that the MX400 contains some extra utilities, but if all you care about is the card, then the Guillemot is for you.

Specific Recommendations

Gaming – The Fortissmo has support for different surround sound processes and is very inexpensive. If the user desires full-fledged support from a specific API, then they should choose either the SB Live Value (for EAX) or the Diamond MX300 (A3D). The Fortissmo only has basic support for the two big guns but also has Sensaura support, which has yet to be implemented in quite as many software titles as EAX and A3D. Movies – The priority here is to make sure the card has four-speaker support. Also, if you have a digital output on the card, you can connect it to a digital receiver, or a product similar to the Cambridge Soundworks’ Desktop Theater system (5.1 Dolby Digital built for the computer!). One caveat is that the actual software on your PC used to run your DVD’s must support Dolby Digital. The Diamond MX400 supplies one that can do this, so this would be the optimal product to purchase.

Home Recording – The Guillemot ISIS definitely takes the cake here but it is expensive. The cheaper Sound Blaster Live Platinum also has some home recording inputs and outputs but not to the level of the ISIS. The latter also contains numerous recording utilities, of which the Platinum does not have quite as many and they are not as robust.

Music Listening – Quality-wise they are all virtually the same and depend much more on the quality of the speakers used. The presets on a card that has EAX support can have some pretty cool results, however.