gerwin wrote:

TheMobRules wrote:

Even a "noisy" card like the CT1740 with amplifier disabled is night and day when compared to its 8 bit predecessors, so I just end up using SB16 most of the time despite my good memories of the Sound Blaster Pro.

Like James-F already wrote some time ago, and in my own experience, it is the OPL3 channel that raises the noise floor of the SB Pro. Lower the FM slider and the noise floor disappears. Not much of a solution I know. But interesting to note that the digital sample part of the SB Pro is actually reasonably clean.

Do you mean this video demonstration?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdcVedXM88s

There is no FM slider afaik, it should be called MIDI and means FM synthesis + Wavetable header.

I was talking about the Sound Blaster Pro, obviously. The video is about some type of SB16. For the SB Pro I use an unofficial mixer tool, but that should not make a difference.

I've got a couple of Vibra16's that I've had for yeeeeeears. I don't really recall ever hearing any sort of distortion out of them ever unless I was using the on-board amp to drive passive speakers. Outside of that they've been great.

James-F documented the distortions for CT2504 based cards in this thread:
Sound Blaster 16 Bugs and Deficiencies Summary

I had the same experience but with the CT2940 which is based on the CT2502 Vibra chipset.

Its not that the Vibra cards are unuseable...with most games the problems shouldn't even be noticeable. With other games you can work around the problem by lowering in game audio volume. But for me personally, a systematically clipping prone sound card is a no-go.

Do analog or digital limiting if you have to but no clipping ever, please!

I pulled my cards out to take a look at them. They're based on the VibraXV (CT2511-SBT). The model number (CT4170) has them pegged as a SB16 WavEffects cards. So that's probably the difference: completely different Vibra chip and completely different boards that don't have the same issues. Maybe Creative got those issues sorted by the time the CT2511 was released.

I have two CT4170 cards as well.. same model but different PCBs, likely different revisions, but I've also had no issues wrt clipping with them. They are CQM, so that's a downside if you consider it that, but otherwise they were pretty much faultless.

I actually just noticed earlier today that both of my cards are ever so slightly different. Two different green's on the PCB (one darker than the other, the lighter of the two is also more metallic in it's color) and two different amplifier chips on the board. The dark green card has a Phillips TDA1517P amplifier chip on it and the lighter green one has a TI TPA1517NE on it. Both are 6Wx2 amps, but the TI is a 20 pin package while the Phillips is 18 pin. The CT2511's also have different numbers under the model number though I don't think it really means anything; probably just a serial number (AA9AJ9748 bright green/AA9AI9810 dark green)

As you can see from my other thread:

Sound Blaster: From best to worst

I actually have no information if the CT4170 (CT2511) has a clipping problem or not. Maybe it's fixed with the CT2511 as you suggest. Specific testing would be needed.