If you're doing DOS gaming or prefer XG wavetable synthesis, no it isn't. If you're running games that support EAX, yes it is.

I am not doing any DOS gaming on these systems and I don't think I have many games that support EAX. I assume then with no DOS and little EAX both of these cards are about equal.

The Audigy can output higher sampling and bit rates, but in reality that makes virtually no difference.
https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Why are you considering replacing the YMF724 cards at all?

derSammler wrote:

Why are you considering replacing the YMF724 cards at all?

I know the YM724 cards are older than Sound Blaster Audigy LS ones so I was wondering if I may get better quality/depth/complexity in the audio with the newer cards. It seems some of the primary features of the Sound Blaster Audigy LS will not be used much for me. I have a pair of great quality speakers for stereo but no speaker setup for a surround sound arrangement. I guess I will install the Audigy LS cards and see if they sound better for standard stereo use. If they don't then back to the YM724 cards I will go. I was just wondering if anyone had any direct experience with both of these cards in a W9x environment to give me a performance comparison between each of them.