[paranoia] Sound card???

[Monty]

Catching up on unanswered list mail today....

> Can anyoune recommend me a sound card to use under Linux?
> 
> A friend of mine has got a "Creative Labs 128 PCI ????" and it sounds
> quite good as long as he's running WinXX. But with Linux the sound
> quality is much less. 

That's the kind of statement that can mean anything.  A bit like calling up a
car mechanic and saying "my car isn't working right.  How much will it cost to
fix it?"

The Creative Labs cards, despite being marketed to the gills, actually tend to
be very good.  In my 'normal' machines, I personally still seek out and use
the original SB16s as they actually payed a little more attention to sheilding
and fidelity than features... 

If you want a gaming card, I still love the GUS MAX.  Well supported in OSS and
ALSA, and cheap these days if you can find them (just recently bought out a
small cache from a surplus store for $3 each.  Sorry, sold 'em all off
already).

Can you tell that I like crufty hardware? :-)

> I therefore assume that there are differences between sound cards if
> you want to use them with Linux. Or is this a matter of the driver?

The driver will only tend to influence which features work.  Generally, sound 
cards tend to be fairly fully supported.

As for the fidelity of sound cards, they vary *widely*.  Look for magazine 
reviews that actually compare S/N, full spectrum frequency response graphs, 
etc.  That will show you the real differences.

Monty

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