# Which Soundcard is best supported in Linux?

## hachre

I'm currently using the onboard sound of a Nforce 2 mainboard... IM FED UP WITH IT...

I have been waiting for over 1.5 years now to get linux drivers that support SPDIF and NOW we're praised with Kernel 2.6 and NVIDIA will take another 3 years to release ALSA compatible drivers with SPDIF capability...

ARGH!!!

So... My question is simple: To all you sound fans out there... Which Soundcard will be my next?

Things that I want:

- no analog crap

- SPDIF digital out (Fibrewire or Chinch Cable... whatever)

- Realtime Dolby Digital Encoding

- 6 Channel Sound

- being able to play MULTIPLE sound sources at the same time without any sound server crap like arts, esd or whatever...

- being able to record from ONE interface WHILE playing sound from multiple interfaces...

- the most important thing AWESOME Drivers...

Awesome Drivers = Drivers that support all features of the soundcard without ANY problem ... I want Kernel 2.6 ALSA compatible drivers...

Now I can let loose on some of my wishes... The most import of all those features are the following:

- SPDIF digital out

- Good Drivers

Good Drivers = Drivers that aren't crashing after playing 2 hours of music and drivers that are 2.6 Kernel ALSA compatible...

So... Which soundcard is meeting those requirements and which driver is meeting those requirements for Linux?

Is there any one??! ANY?!? I have been searching quite some time now... And I didn't find any card that is capable of these features...

Isn't it kinda... sad?? I'm really depressed about this...  :Sad: 

Pls help me

cu

hachre

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## ZothOmmog

Can't go wrong with the Sound Blaster Live! or Audigy families.

They're very well supported & have a lot of different models to chose from. Something's sure to fit your needs...

www.soundblaster.com

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## Raniz

I don't know about SPDIF... but my Audigy works perfectly fine i Linux (I do believe I've got better sound in Linux than i windows)

I've got 5.1 sound, full control over each speaker (which I don't have in windows) and I can play sound from different sources at the same time.

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## hachre

This sounds great...

Which Audigy do you have Raniz... I see there are 5 Million different versions... 

thanx

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## hachre

Raniz... One more question... How do you controll your every speaker??

Is there a creative control panel for linux or how does it work?!?

Additionally I want to know: do you use ALSA or OSS sounddrivers? Are you using EMU10K1 from the kernel?

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## tomchuk

I'd stay away from anything made by Creative. There are so many vastly superior cards on the market in the same price range. Creative cards not only sound like crap, but they have a history of horribly breaking the PCI spec and the cvs emu10k1 drivers are hardly mature and don't support all the features of all the cards.

The Alsa Soundcard Matrix is a great place to start shopping. Look for a "(4)[Ro]" or "(4)[To]" in the notes column depending if you want S/PDIF out via RCA coax (Ro) or TOSLINK (To) and the 4 stands for hardware mixing - which you definatley want.

In the same price range as the Audigy are the Hoontech Soundtrack Digital XG and the Hercules Game Theater XP. Both do hardware mixing, TOSLINK and coax digital in/out and will sound much better than the Audigy.

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## hachre

Thanx for that Information!

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## MikeP

hm, why are there so many soundcards/drivers without hardware mixing support? id thought about getting a Terratec Aureon Sky 5.1 which has a Via Envy24HT chip, but the alsa drivers dont support hardware mixing  :Sad: 

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## Raniz

 *tomchuk wrote:*   

> I'd stay away from anything made by Creative. There are so many vastly superior cards on the market in the same price range. Creative cards not only sound like crap, but they have a history of horribly breaking the PCI spec and the cvs emu10k1 drivers are hardly mature and don't support all the features of all the cards.
> 
> The Alsa Soundcard Matrix is a great place to start shopping. Look for a "(4)[Ro]" or "(4)[To]" in the notes column depending if you want S/PDIF out via RCA coax (Ro) or TOSLINK (To) and the 4 stands for hardware mixing - which you definatley want.
> 
> In the same price range as the Audigy are the Hoontech Soundtrack Digital XG and the Hercules Game Theater XP. Both do hardware mixing, TOSLINK and coax digital in/out and will sound much better than the Audigy.

 

Sorry for bringing this thread up, but I've always held Creative high... I'll reconsider that now and go for something else the next time I buy a new soundcard  :Smile: 

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## scoon

 *Raniz wrote:*   

>  *tomchuk wrote:*   I'd stay away from anything made by Creative. There are so many vastly superior cards on the market in the same price range. Creative cards not only sound like crap, but they have a history of horribly breaking the PCI spec and the cvs emu10k1 drivers are hardly mature and don't support all the features of all the cards.
> 
> The Alsa Soundcard Matrix is a great place to start shopping. Look for a "(4)[Ro]" or "(4)[To]" in the notes column depending if you want S/PDIF out via RCA coax (Ro) or TOSLINK (To) and the 4 stands for hardware mixing - which you definatley want.
> 
> In the same price range as the Audigy are the Hoontech Soundtrack Digital XG and the Hercules Game Theater XP. Both do hardware mixing, TOSLINK and coax digital in/out and will sound much better than the Audigy. 
> ...

 

Hey there, 

I used to use a Turtle Beach and it did sound good but only with 2.1 speakers.  The reason being that they are are closed source driver.  I would stick with creative becuase they have open source drivers and DO work incredibly well with alsa.  I use the Audigy2 zs and it works excellent.  I listen to xmms while playing ut2004 and can still get gaim noises as well.  This is THE best sounding card I have used yet.  I would certianly get this card again if I needed to do it all over again.  

scoon

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## Raniz

Hmm....  :Smile: 

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## chrisis

I have an audigy and have had nothing but problems with it.  I have tried getting it to work with the emu10k drivers, no go, and eventually decided to buy the OSS drivers.  I have sound, but the mic support is real bad.  I actually have the same problem in Windoze -- great sound but the mic input is horrible (not my mike I have an Altec headset that works like a dream elsewhere).

I am currently looking for a new sound card myself -- what kind of clanner can I be without teamspeak????!

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## chrisis

Is there any sound card company that has actually released their own drivers for their sound cards?

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