Which sound card to buy? (good Linux support + sound quality)

[merilius]

My previous sound card SB X-Fi Extreme Music got destroyed lately... I was very happy about sound quality, but not Linux drivers - you need to compile it yourself and it does not work well with recent kernels of F10 and F11 (Creative does not update it since October). So I don't want another one.

What would you recommend instead? I looked at alsa supported hardware list, but it is quite a lot of them, mostly old ones and I have no idea about their sound quality. I will be using good stereo set.

[Demz]

there are Linux drivers for some X-Fi sound cards but i would try an avoid those till there is actually support from Alsa

i would try an maybe get your hands on a Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4 card

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=57&name=Sound-Cards

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=107&name=Sounds-Cards

[merilius]

What about Audigy 2, Audigy 2 ZS and Audigy 2 NX?

[Demz]

sure any of those will be fine if you can get a hold of one of those cards

[ChuckDriver]

What about Audigy 2, Audigy 2 ZS and Audigy 2 NX?

The ZS supports hardware mixing which is a very nice feature.

[PabloTwo]

I use an Audigy2 ZS, which gives me terrific audio. The only negative to the Audigy series of cards (I don't know about the Audigy 4) is that there is no standard analog audio output header that you can directly plug your (desktop) computers front audio cable into.

There is a non-standard analog audio output header though, which if you want to use, you'll have to cobble together your own adapter. Instructions for doing that can be found on the web (http://audigy2zshowto.blogspot.com/).

[merilius]

Thanks Pablo, I am using wireless headset+mic anyway and don't need any front audio panel ;-) Will look for 2 ZS.

[PabloTwo]

As a follow up note: Just read on nvnews forum (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-72369.html) (post by zbiggy): a few of the Audigy series cards don't support hardware mixing (and a few other nice features). The list given was
Sound Blaster Audigy SE
Sound Blaster Audigy2 NX
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook PCMCIA
and other...
So I would avoid any of those models.

[Demz]

i never had a problem with Audigy cards sound was perfect