VOGONS

Which is better? CT2960 or CT1790?

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First post, by dracosilv

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Figured this might be a good place to do a bit of sound-boarding-off about sound cards... (pun not intended)

I've got two soundblaster cards, a CT2960 (which last I used this pentium-class machine, was working, I know it was able to actually run the Second Reality demo), and a CT1790 (it used to work, was housed in my dad's old Leading Edge machine, (gotta find the bits of that machine again and ressurect it.. it was QUITE an odd beast processor and whatnot-wise)...

Anywho.. I'm PROBABLY going to go with the CT1790, due to the hardware i'm planning on using in the machine. I've got a Western Digital CAVIAR 1425 Harddrive in there (i like have two or so of that drive and they've NEVER really had ANY sort of issues in the many years of using them) and i'm planning on having an optical drive in there as well as a compact flash card (so i can load in-and-out data to the machine, (for archiving of disks and games and whatnot).

With the compact flash adapter I have, it'd be difficult to have the harddrive, cd-rom AND CF card in there and connected without extra extension cables.

So.. into the mix comes the CT1790, and its still attached SONY CDU33A-01 CD-ROM drive. So now i'd be able to use /A/ CD-ROM without limiting the IDE cable's reach.

However, since I don't know the intricate capabilities or limitations of these hardware bits from a pit in the ground, I'm wondering if i'm proverbially barking up the wrong tree, by using a card that's chronologically 2 years older than the other (the CT1790 is from 1993, the CT2960, from 1995)... And now that I look at the CT2960, I think I realize what machine *IT* came from originally.. and that's my secondhand ACER desktop machine... from way back when, an Acer Aspire 500LB (or similar)

Reply 1 of 5, by Meatball

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This spreadsheet may help, it ranks the cards from best to worst: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1o0_u- … #gid=1663779470.

And there's plenty of other resources listed, just as this discussion: Sound Blaster 16 Bugs and Deficiencies Summary

It'd go with the CT1790 (I own a CT1770 with DSP v4.05; no hanging notes), and I prefer OPL over CQM. I also like no plug and play. If you like the counter to my preferences, then the Vibra may be for you.

Last edited by Meatball on 2022-04-08, 20:37. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 5, by mkarcher

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Obligatory VOGONs thread: Sound Blaster: From best to worst

The CT2960 is a cost-optimized SB16 (marketed as Vibra). These cards come with some challenges (PnP in old systems is an extra hoop to jump through) and cause artifacts in some games ("Vibra hissing/rining", "Vibra clicking"), furthermore you card doesn't use the authentic OPL3 music synthesizer, but a development by Creative Labs (called CQM) which sounds notably different in some cases. If you take the original OPL3 sound as "the way it is meant to sound", CQM obviously sounds "wrong" in those cases.

On the other hand, the early SB16 were quite noisy. The CT1790 exists with older, more noisy and newer, less noisy DAC chips.

Reply 3 of 5, by dracosilv

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mkarcher wrote on 2022-04-08, 20:37:

On the other hand, the early SB16 were quite noisy. The CT1790 exists with older, more noisy and newer, less noisy DAC chips.

Yeah just checked, this one has a CT1701 onboard.

Couple of questions tho.. are these various CT170X chips actually pin compatable? (e.g. could you just swap out a chip if you wanted to for one that was less-noisy? And on that topic.. what exactly ARE these chips ACTUALLY under the hood? (since the labelling is just a sticker on-top.. what's actually the hardware under the hood?)

Reply 4 of 5, by mkarcher

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dracosilv wrote on 2022-04-08, 21:27:

Couple of questions tho.. are these various CT170X chips actually pin compatable? (e.g. could you just swap out a chip if you wanted to for one that was less-noisy? And on that topic.. what exactly ARE these chips ACTUALLY under the hood? (since the labelling is just a sticker on-top.. what's actually the hardware under the hood?)

At least the CT1703 variants are interchangeable. The CT1701 is claimed to be the AK4501 by Asahi Kasei; there actually are sound blasters with DACs with the AK marking. I don't know the details about the differrent CT170x variants and how they map to different grades, revisions or related chips.

Reply 5 of 5, by Gmlb256

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If going with the CT1790 make sure that you disable the amplifier. The noise can be mitigated by configuring the sound card mixer.

There are two major problems with this card though:

  • Single-cycle DMA clicking bug: This can be easily verified with Jill of the Jungle. It may or may not annoy you.
  • MPU-401 hanging notes if the DSP version isn't < 4.11: Happens when the sound card is both used for digitized sounds and MIDI music at the same time. This won't matter if you don't intend to use it at all.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

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