Turtle Beach Santa Cruz on sale at CC

A good deal on a great little budget soundcard: the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz is at Circuit City for 79.99 (list) with a 20.00 rebate. Total price after rebate=59.99. Pretty nice deal for the retail box.

I've been doing a LOT of needle drops with this card since Grant and Steve Graham recommended it to me, and in some cases I've compared the results with earlier needle drops I did with a SoundBlaster Audigy. The TB SC yields much better top end, more solid bass, and a far greater sense of transparency and depth. I've rediscovered some dynamite vinyl as a result. Highly recommended.

 

If only some people would get past the "ya gotta spend some money on a good card", and "anthing cheaper that $150 is not serious" mentality.

 

But you DO "gotta spend some money on a good card". You can hear the difference when you have the better card to compare it to.

I had a SB Audigy, upgraded to the GINA 24 bit and the diff is NIGHT and DAY.

Why spend all the time learning Cool Edit or Pro Tools only to weaken your signal chain with a budeget card? Makes no sense.

 

I also agree that unfortunately an Audigy or Audigy 2 with a $150-200 price tag is not really a high end card. Although I also believe that there some bargains out there, too, if you know what to look for.

 

Mikey, have you had a Santa Cruz?

 

Gentlemen:

Please note that my first thread post calls the Santa Cruz a great little budget card. Tests and user experiences bear this out. I am not claiming the SC will beat a Darla or Gina or whatever. Those cards are significantly more expensive than the SC; I'd expect them to be better. My point here is that the Santa Cruz offers high quality sound for not much money, especially now that it comes with a rebate at CC.

If you haven't heard a Santa Cruz, how can you dismiss it out of hand?

 

Ya gotta forgive my typos! My last post should read: "If only some people would get past the "ya gotta spend some money on a good card", and "anything cheaper than $150 is not serious" mentality.

No, The SC card does not do 24-bit, and it could be just a smidgen quieter, but it is still a very impressive, quiet card, and a very high performer for the price. It rates right below the so-called pro-cards. Some of the specs are on the same level.

Any Creative card, to me, is a joke for recording.

 

If you can't get to CC, on Pricewatch.com, the card is listed as low as $59.99-65.99 not inc.shipping.

 

No guys, Ive never heard the Santa Cruz card. And thats why i NEVER said it was a bad card.

Common sense will tell you that you cant expect to get the same results as a 300$ card with a 59$ card. Nothing earth shaking with that statement.

i just wanted those who havent bought anything to have more info before they spend their hard earned money, especially these days. If I had known, I would have bought the GINA 24 right out of the box. It is SO much better sounding than the 79$ SB Audigy that I had. I consider that 79$ wasted, and hope to spare someone else from wasting their money.

Just trying to be helpful, guys. )

 

Cool. I think everyone who's had an Audigy card and compared it to the Santa Cruz would agree that the Audigy is money thrown away, EXCEPT for the SoundFont MIDI technology, which is genuinely useful. Digital playback is also pretty good for the Audigy. For needle-drops, though, or any other kind of digital recording, the Audigy is substandard.

What's interesting about the Santa Cruz is that you can get a significant amount of the performance of a lower-tier Event card for about 25% of the price. Here are some test results to back up that claim:

http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/index.htm

and here:

http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/santa_cruz/index.htm

The card gives me a good peek at the high end for not many dollars. For now, that's worth having! The 79.00 one spends for the Santa Cruz--or less, with a rebate--is far from wasted IMO. The Audigy is simply a subpar performer, not an indication of the impossibility of getting good sound at that price point.

 

Wow...at least HERE, someone agrees that the Audigy ain't all it's cracked up to be. I bought an Audigy Platinum early last year. The control panel (which mounts in the drive bay) is a great idea, and it does seem to play back very cleanly. However, I fed it a digital input from my DAT deck...I am 90% certain the Audigy has some kind of processing even on digital signals. I was using the DAT as an analog-to-digital converter, and noticed the levels on the computer (using the meters in SoundForge) didn't quite match. Hmmm...interesting. So I cranked the DAT deck's record level knob all the way up. SoundForge still showed the level hovering somewhere below 0dB, when it should have been setting off the "clip" indicators. (Which it does when I use a *real* digital input card.) The Audigy would not bother me one bit IF it would just pass through my digital signal bit-for-bit. If there is a way, I'd certainly like to hear about it. But otherwise, it's useless to me for doing any accurate transfers to the hard drive.

 

No pass through, alas. Everything is resampled at the digital input--at least, this was the case with all the first-generation Audigies, and I'm assuming it's true for the newer ones.

The Santa Cruz also resamples everything, though Arny Kruger's website says it does so more transparently than usual. If I were doing digital dumps from a DAT, though, I'd sure want a straight bit transfer. Since I use my SC for recording from tape and vinyl, it's not so much an issue for me.

 

Somewhere (don't recall where, though), I'd heard that if you used a certain application with the Audigy, you COULD get a straight pass-through. My own senses tell me that I'd probably install the application only to find out it wasn't true...

I would not mind resampling so much as I do any kind of limiting, which is what the Audigy seemed to do. No matter where I varied the level on the DAT deck, I'd hit a point where the level in the computer would NOT change. A darn shame, really. The computing press unfortunately has no clue as to what constitutes an accurate input, and most have raved about the card. I can live with it, but can't say I'd recommend it for anyone wanting accuracy.

 

Yea, the GINa 24 will do a straight pass thru, AND it will connect digitally to an ADAT and let you dump all 8 tracks AT ONCE into Cool Edit or Pro Tools, which I found to be VERy, VERy cool.

 

The Lynx Studio Technology Lynx II Sound Card has some very impressive specifications.

What is the street price for this card?


Mode of Operation
24 bits, 44.1 KHz Analog I/O 24 bits, 96 KHz Analog I/O 24 bits,192 KHz

Analog I/O
Frequency Response Excellent 20-20kHz +0.03, -0.03 dB 20-20kHz +0.01/-0.02 dB 20-20kHz +0.035/- 0.02 dB

1 kHz Total Harmonic Distortion Excellent 0.00015% @ -12 dB 0.00028% @ -12 dB 0.0003% @ -12 dB

20 Hz Total Harmonic Distortion Excellent 0.003% @ -12 dB 0.0015% @ -12 dB 0.0037% @ -12 dB

Signal to Noise Ratio Excellent 115 dB 110 dB 107 dB

19 & 20 kHz Intermodulation Distortion Excellent 0.0001% @ -6 dB 0.0002% @ -6 dB 0.0003% @-6 dB

Dynamic Range Excellent 129 dB 121 dB 118 dB

Jitter Distortion Excellent -133 dB -126 dB -123 dB

Zero Signal Noise Excellent -112 dB -113.5 dB -115 dB

Software Used: Windows XP 5.1. LynxTWO Driver Release:Version 1.3 Build 047 (1/22/02) Analytical software: Spectra Lab 4.32.17. Test done using a Athlon 1700+ CPU in a ECS K7S-5A system board.

You can hear what LynxTWO sounds like by clicking here to link to http://www.pcabx.com/product/lynxtwo/index.htm .

Discussion Of Results
Since the performance of this card meets or equals that of any other card tested or available, all of its functions were tested in loop-back mode, showing the performance of both the input and output portions of the card.

The digital portion of this card is "bit perfect". It is even capable of passing AC-3 and DTS signals without alterations.

The dynamic range characteristics of this card are such that optimum performance is obtained by operating it well below digital full scale. Therefore, tests reported here were made at 12 dB below full scale, which is closer to optimum for nonlinear distortion. Optimum level settings for this card may be thought of as being similar to those used with an analog tape recorder.

 

I just had a thought: what if I get one of these 24/96 sound cards, and save the audio to my hard drive as-is? It would be neat to hear a 24/96 playback of a recording from one of my favorite LPs.

 

Sure, it would be cool, but if you want to burn a CD-R you still have to go back to 16-bit/44.1k. DVD?

 

I could burn a CD-R of the .wav file itself if I wanted to preserve it, but would only be able to play it back on the computer. I haven't checked into DVD very much, but it would be neat to burn my own DVD-A disk from something like that.

 

Gentelman,

Because of this thread I purchased the Santa Curz at CC Saturday. I installed it Sunday night and I must say I'm impressed with this card. I have a three year old HP, and I think the Santa Curz is a better card than what came with the HP. I also think your getting a lot of bang for your buck here.

 

Glad you like the card. You're on your way!