SoundBlaster Extigy or Audigy 2 NX?

As you said the Audigy 2NX is newer, so it should be better, although the drivers may not be very mature yet.  I have the Soundblaster MP3+ on my Inspiron 4000, which is the cheaper 2 channel usb soundcard, but it is definetly a big improvement, and the digital in/out is very useful.

two other options could be:

http://www.xitel.com/product_hfl.htm (Xitel HiFI-Link, USB adapter)

http://www.echoindigo.com/ (Echo Indigo, PCMCIA sound card)

has anyone tried either of these?  i'm getting tired of the hissing/noise in my inspiron 600m and am finally considering an add-on solution.

Here: Check this out-

It compares the Audigy NX, the Extigy, and the MP3+...

and from it, i'm getting the Audigy NX!  It has a TON of more features than the exitgy.

Message Edited by cyee124 on 12-05-2003 12:09 AM

I actually got the Audigy 2 NX for my inspiron 5150.  it works great.  no complaints.  easy to install, and everything.  make sure to get good speakers.  And if you didn't know it already, it also supports 7.1 sound (however, I don't really think it is much superior to 5.1)

And it should actually be cheaper than the Extigy.

i have done a lot of research in this area.

both the extigy and audigy resample to 48khz... which means if you are listening to a cd the signal is sent through a alogrithm to convert the cds 44.1khz to 48khz. Unfortunately most sound cards these days do this. Which is fine for video games and so on...but the majority of audio is still in cd's 44.1khz...mp3s etc... I would bet on this being a problem with just about everything though.

Anyways...I personally would go for the audigy 2...why you ask? because it decodes compressed audio on board. Which means that it eats up less CPU time. Also the USB 2.0 means that higher bit rate formats can be used since USB1.0 is limited to 12megs per sec.

anyways before buying look it up on this site.

http://www.tomshardware.com

they do great reviews.

I have an inspiron 8200 and the usb audigy 2nx, it sounds great in between the horrible stuttering / chopping sounds im getting.  I've been trying to fix the problem but no real luck so far.  I've updated to the A11 bios and upgrade the driver/firmware for the card.  I've heard a might have to disable the onboard sound card first to get this stutering to stop?  It isn't constant just about 70% of the time.  How would i go about disabling the onboard card in the bios? can anyone provide some step by step instructions?

Thanks

I also have the Audigy and it's great in Battlefield 1942 . Have not used line-in yet but no reason to assume it's not good. Had a problem getting latest driver update (Dec 03) to install. In the end went to safe mode and installed them and that was fine. All runs very well. The external power supply is very small and uses a very common plug so if you want to take it places then you can easily make up a 2nd very short mains cable to save space. It smells funny for first couple of days use and is then fine - it gets warm and something noxious obviously evaporates away.

I tried the MP3+ figuring it would be better than Sigmatel, cheap and require no power. Unfortunately, as documented elsewhere, the 8500 USB port cannot power it properly so it is no good as an 'on the road' solution as it needs a powered hub! It went back to the store.

Hint: I usually do not carry the Audigy anywhere so I have removed the two SB progs from the start-up menu and popped them in as desktop shortcuts. Now whenever I want to use the Audigy, I start the progs and then the Audigy. You do not have to this but as the Audigy volume applet replaces the Windows one, you can find yourself delving into the Audio Properties to move a wave slider if your Audigy is not connected.

Good bit of kit. I also use Zalman 5.1 headphones for gaming. Not quite as good as a thumping 5.1 speaker setup as "rear" sounds do not always sound quite enough behind you. However if you do not have room for lots of speakers, worry about waking up the kids or want to take 5.1 on the road with you (all 3 for me!) then I can recommend them as well.