Soundstorm is gone forever

[iranu]

I suppose you believe an onboard Radeon 9200 with shared memory is as fast as an AGP one? Right!

I do if it's a rage pro or TNT2!

Yours wasn't the best analogy, was it?

I have used several different soundcards from a number of different manufacturers over the years and can only say that SS performs (to my ears) superbly. Might not be THE ultimate but certainly gives most sound cards a run for their money.

I have a cousin of mine who was trained as a sound engineer whilst doing his first job of digitising sound for old movies so they could be sold on DVD

He thought the reproduction of stereo sound from WMA/WAV/FLAC/APE files using winamp and the digital coax connection was one of the best he had heard for music stored on a PC with (by his standards) bog standard PC bits.

He did then go on to lecture me on the merits of spending another 2.5k on my amp and speaker set up as if 1k wasn't enough

[Agent]

(However - the Dolby license isn't exactly cheap...!)

Nvidia currently have a DD licence though.

I never said SS was bad, just not as good as Audigy for gamers.

SS IS MUCH SLOWER however. Don't take my word for it. Check the FM ORB 3DMark03 sound benches and you'll see what I mean.

Recent drivers have helped it a lot, but i agree, its still slower. But to be honest, the sound to be excellent (i use DD digi out). Ill happily put up with loosing a few cycles to the sound to make it enlighten my ears

SS is good with Surround Sound using the digital output, just as Howard says. It's no good for Analog, and the Surround Sound in games is variable - not in quality but in positioning. It has less of a CPU hit with digital output. I've seen a few tests that show the Audigy has a lower hit though.

If you have a "Meeja" PC then SS is a killer. If you have digital speakers then playing games is OK. If you are on analog, forget it. So it all depends on your setup and what you use your PC for.

Almost disagree with all of that.
The positioning shouldnt be that variable, considering its not calculated by SS in most cases, but by DX. Ive never had a problem with it since i brought my NF7-S, and ive rarely seen positioning issues mentioned on forums.
Analog isnt that bad either. Its not the best, but compared to the usual onboard sound, and it runs circles around it. Then consider how much a simlar card from creative would add on top of it.
The problem with having this convo though is that listening to the sound it creates is subjective.
I may prefer it to sound a different way to somone else, which would lead me to belive its better, and visa-versa for yourself. Speakers, room size / type, and the source of the audio all add to the subjectivness of what we are discussing.
I guess its just a case of, if it sounds good to you, go for it

[Capt Doufos]

As I said before, DD Encoding isn't dead at all. Look out for motherboards that have Dolby Digital Live! It's the same thing. I have one and it is VERY good. Certainly as good quality as the Soundstorm.

[Thorsson]

The positioning shouldnt be that variable, considering its not calculated by SS in most cases, but by DX.

Audigy2 uses EAX 4. SS uses EAX 2 compatibility. I liked my SS, I have no axe to grind - if a PCI-E board had SS on board then I wouldn't have bought the Audigy. But, having gone from one to the other I can tell the difference. I accept that this is a subjective test, however others can hear things that are definitely not there to hear....

I beg to differ. I find the analog quality of SS to be very good. Maybe I forgot to add that in my post above

Well you should have quit while you were ahead. SS in Analog is no better than AC97. That's because its Analog output is AC97.

[Lee H]

could this be the very reason?

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21853

[DavidM]

Which basically means they'd be charging nVidia through the nose...