naitman Posted December 11, 2002 Share Posted December 11, 2002 I just purchased Pro Media 4.1, nice set. Now how do I FULLY take advantage of what 4.1 can do for movies and gaming? I want to experience all that Dolby and THX can offer. Though I don't have my laptop yet, I will be purchasing a Toshiba 5200 series. I also listen to quite a lot of music too. any advise? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chan Posted December 11, 2002 Share Posted December 11, 2002 Hmmm.. If I were you, I would consider Creative's Extigy. http://www.soundblaster.com/products/extigy/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccsakura Posted December 11, 2002 Share Posted December 11, 2002 There are several choices and you may not need to choose Creative only(well they thought they are the only sellers and increase the price that reaching heaven without reasons ) You can take a look at Maya 5.1/7.1 USB( http://www.audiotrak.net/eng/index.html), another 2 come from Maudio. I can't find the site of that company but you can search for M-audio for that page. You'd get it unless you got enough money . Or just stick with Creative. For personal ideas I'd recommend Maya 5.1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naitman Posted December 12, 2002 Author Share Posted December 12, 2002 Hey ccsakura thanx for the reccomendation, I looked at the Maya 5.1 and the Soncia from M-Audio. Comparing the 2 products http://www.m-audio.com/products/consumer/sonica_page1.php and http://www.audiotrak.net/eng/maya51u.html which do you reccomend and why? The sonica looks very appealing and would you say it rivals or even tops the extigy? naitman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccsakura Posted December 12, 2002 Share Posted December 12, 2002 I guess you are going to use your laptop as the movie theater with the 4.1 speakers (Well I'm using desktop but EIZO L365 lcd and look like a laptop environment for me and the same speakers set). Since the dvds are going to 24bit/96khz instead of 16bit/48khz. Both of them are supporting DTS/AC3 out for optical so don't worry about changing to 5.1 SPDIF in speakers. But I found there's some minor things that you should be aware of, Maya5.1USB supports Win ME, 98SE, 2k and XP. But the Sonica supports 2k and XP only. If you are using ME/98SE then you should be aware but 2k and XP are fine . There was no review on those external sound cards but both companies' products have very good comment on their sound cards. M-audio usually sells audio prodcuts for higher priced market($300-$800). So I'd assume Sonica will be more expensive than Maya 5.1USB($99), for external 5.1 sound cards Maya5.1 USB really make the price to a low one with price/performance ratio. It's hard to choose between them but if you need one hurry, get Maya 5.1USB. Since Sonica is not yet released . If you are going to get one for using longer period of time or better chance for expanding sound system, wait for Sonica. Well consider about the price too, real and ideal are 2 different things Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kandan Posted December 13, 2002 Share Posted December 13, 2002 Hello , Sonica only has a digital output. I don't think you can connect the 4.1's to them. Maya 5.1 looks ok. But there doesn't seem too many reviews about it. I have a compaq presario laptop which I connect to my PM 4.1's with Sound Blaster Extigy. I must say I am very pleased with the Extigy. Well, as long as you keep it connected before you boot, there is absolutely no problem. Sometimes it doesn't work when you connect it when the laptop is on. But it has happened very infrequently, and I resolve it by turning the Extigy on and off untill the comp recognizes it And ya, sometimes the remote controller doesn't work. Again I play around and it starts working again. The cool thing about the exteral sound card is you can connect your MP3 player or cassette player or DVD player or TV or VCR or any damned thing to it, and get excellent quality sound. It almost like a stand alone reciever. Extigy also has some CMSS technology wich converts stereo input (say from ur mp3 player) to a pseudo 5.1 output. So u can get surround sound from almost anything. I have been using extigy for a month now, and I am very happy. There are lots of reviews abt it. (lots of negetive reviews too) It definitely is not the best product (you can get external sound cards used by recording artists if u can dish out in excess of $600) but it is darned good enough for me. Again you may have to chek out Maya to see if it is better than EXtigy. I bought my extigy for ~ $78 ($128- $50 rebate) I think the rebate period is over, but you may just get lucky over the holiday sales. By the way along with my 4.1's I use the woofer and left channel of an old 2.1 as a center channel. So I actually have a cool 5.1 system Extigy is very cool for music (it has the EAX positioning technology which is real useful for games, and can be used to simulate theater or cocert settings for music / DVD too). Extigy with klipsch 4.1 really rocks (really really rocks) with DVD movies. I'd give it 2 thumbs up. good luck in your shopping Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j486dx Posted December 13, 2002 Share Posted December 13, 2002 Buy the extigy! it is the only one that will give you the best sound! like they say you get waht you pay for! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccsakura Posted December 13, 2002 Share Posted December 13, 2002 Well just choose sth that you like, you can't really get some advice without Exitgy here I guess . Btw for sound cards this forum will bring you a lot of surprise. http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccsakura Posted December 13, 2002 Share Posted December 13, 2002 Well I just foudn that the sonica sells $69.95 as the retail price Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted December 13, 2002 Share Posted December 13, 2002 ---------------- On 12/13/2002 12:29:31 PM j486dx wrote: Buy the extigy! it is the only one that will give you the best sound! like they say you get waht you pay for! ---------------- Not true, not true, not true. if you are a gamer, the extigy is not a gaming card the extigy is not going to give the best sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmi Posted December 14, 2002 Share Posted December 14, 2002 ---------------- On 12/13/2002 10:10:12 PM justin_tx_16 wrote: ---------------- On 12/13/2002 12:29:31 PM j486dx wrote: Buy the extigy! it is the only one that will give you the best sound! like they say you get waht you pay for! ---------------- Not true, not true, not true. if you are a gamer, the extigy is not a gaming card the extigy is not going to give the best sound. ---------------- He's right, extigy is not a gaming card, most reviews noted a serious FPS hit when gaming...though I think this has a lot to do with the bandwidth of USB being a lot slower then that of PCI...so you may get the same hits with any usb based cards, though that may not be the case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccsakura Posted December 14, 2002 Share Posted December 14, 2002 the experiences that SB gave me is they drain a lot performance out of your computer. I had K6-2-400 with SB live, but the desktop performances are similar to the computer that's 333mhz that comes out from brand name(I assembled mine one by self). For the notebook computers, they aren't good for being drained by anything anymore(they are slow enough already . Maybe they didn't try what's good then they'd thought it's great because just doing the comparison with the old sound cards? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kandan Posted December 14, 2002 Share Posted December 14, 2002 It is very true that the sound with a USB sound card is not going to be as good as with a PCI card. Even if u have a fast proessor and lots of RAM for games, the performance is hit by the limited bandwidth of the USB 1.1 interface. Even the up market USB sound cards for music composition/recording suffer from the same problem. Excemplary gaming experience is going to be a little hard with an external sound card, but it is not so huge that u'd notice it, unless u are a hardcore gamer. Its definitely a plus to have higher processor speed while gaming with extigy, cus it draws a lot of CPU time too. Bottom line is, if you have a laptop, you cannot expect the same performance for stuff designed for monster desktops. Extigy is the closest you can get to desktop sound, and it really is damn close. By the way there are a few PCMCIA based sound cards too. (it fits in to the PC card slots found in almost all laptops) I believe they offer higher band width than USB, but I am not sure. Flip side is thay are very expensive. I believe Extigy is the way to go as far as laptop sound is concered. For the moment anyway. The newer models of notebooks (and desktops) come with USB 2.0 ports. USB 2 has around 480 MBps data transfer speed which is around 40 tmes the bandwidth of USB 1.1 With the bandwidth constraint gone, you could expect better and faster external sound cards soon. But if you dont have USB 2 ports, Extigy is the best there is for under $150 I have no idea about Maya 5.1 (naively i'd rate extigy over maya, cus extigy's een around longer, and it has some really cool features like EAX wich is very nice for listening classical music and watching DVD's if not for games, for which it is primarily provided), but I would'nt go for sonica. Sonica has ONLY digital output. U CANNOT connect klipsch 4.1 to it. U can use sonica if you have a surround sound reciever which has a digital in capability, like klipsch's Digital Dream. Sonica is a USB product you can use to hook ur laptop to a regular home theater RECIEVER, not to analog speakers like the PM 4.1's. By the way, I don't understand why there is no Firewire sound card so far. Firewire is much faster than USB. My laptop is more than a year old and it already has a firewire port. It seems very strange ppl aren't concentrating on getting out a firewire based external sound card. Peace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naitman Posted December 18, 2002 Author Share Posted December 18, 2002 Thanx all for the advice, guess I'll get an extigy, but I am looking forward till when M-audio releases their "theater" soundcard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rol1 Posted December 19, 2002 Share Posted December 19, 2002 1394 sound; Swissonic, Yamaha's mLAN, and Creamware. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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