Define "audiophile grade".

What exact specs are you looking for?

Indeed.

Audiophile is really quite meaningless when the source material is typically 8bit and 22kHz or less.

Regardless, the Yamaha YMF744 series cards are solid performers in Windows 98 and DOS, with excellent support for adlib and Sound Blaster (Pro) software, in stereo. Also supports 48kHz in Windows, and some cards have SPDIF in and out.

No crummy hissy buzzy sound blaster or vortex junk. Something along the lines of a Audiotrak Prodigy HD2 but with dos app support.
I cant stand how cards like the live, vortex and audigy sound.

What about the Audigy II Platinum EX?
It does have TI/BurrBrown DACs in the external box.

https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/creativ … tinum-ex,1.html

cyclone3d wrote:

What about the Audigy II Platinum EX?
It does have TI/BurrBrown DACs in the external box.

https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/creativ … tinum-ex,1.html

No, its not really that good. Its useable at best. Rather muddy and flat sounding like the rest of the audigys.
At lest its not hissy/buzzy and noisy like most other sound blasters.

Lots of these old cards have digital coaxial output. Seems like something that could interest you.

Turtle Beach?

Parts man wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

What about the Audigy II Platinum EX?
It does have TI/BurrBrown DACs in the external box.

https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/creativ … tinum-ex,1.html

No, its not really that good. Its useable at best. Rather muddy and flat sounding like the rest of the audigys.
At lest its not hissy/buzzy and noisy like most other sound blasters.

Just use digital output to whatever equipment you like.

If you're using such high end equipment and have such a discerning ear that one of the most expensive consumer grade soundcards from the early 2000s is barely usable, I doubt you're going to find anything with DOS game support that has more accurate output. Fancy DACs and high quality components weren't even a bullet point on consumer sound cards' feature lists back in the 90s because the differences would have been inaudible when playing back low quality samples and MIDI music.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

Parts man wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

What about the Audigy II Platinum EX?
It does have TI/BurrBrown DACs in the external box.

https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/creativ … tinum-ex,1.html

No, its not really that good. Its useable at best. Rather muddy and flat sounding like the rest of the audigys.
At lest its not hissy/buzzy and noisy like most other sound blasters.

Just use digital output to whatever equipment you like.

If you're using such high end equipment and have such a discerning ear that one of the most expensive consumer grade soundcards from the early 2000s is barely usable, I doubt you're going to find anything with DOS game support that has more accurate output. Fancy DACs and high quality components weren't even a bullet point on consumer sound cards' feature lists back in the 90s because the differences would have been inaudible when playing back low quality samples and MIDI music.

Probably he'd be better off with a fairly high-end General MIDI module for the MIDI...

Creative Audigy, Aureal Vortex 2, Yamaha YMF754 - all of them resample the audio to 48kHz and do that quite roughly. 48kHz is not optimal for DOS games with 22kHz and early win9x games with mixed 22/44 kHz sample rates.
Digital output could be problematic too, because it's also usually limited to 48kHz or higher.

Solution: find true 44kHz PCI audio card. I think some early 00s Terratec cards like Aureon 5.1 still retained both DOS and 44kHz support (at least digital).

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Creative Audigy, Aureal Vortex 2, Yamaha YMF754 - all of them resample the audio to 48kHz and do that quite roughly. 48kHz is not optimal for DOS games with 22kHz and early win9x games with mixed 22/44 kHz sample rates.
Digital output could be problematic too, because it's also usually limited to 48kHz or higher.

Solution: find true 44kHz PCI audio card. I think some early 00s Terratec cards like Aureon 5.1 still retained both DOS and 44kHz support (at least digital).

The problem is that he wants a DOS-game compatible sound card that has little to no noise on the outputs. Consumer cards just aren't good enough for that. Prosumer or professional grade sound cards will do it, but lack DOS support (or at least support in games).

Unless he goes with DOSBox on a modern PC with a high-end modern sound card...

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Creative Audigy, Aureal Vortex 2, Yamaha YMF754 - all of them resample the audio to 48kHz and do that quite roughly. 48kHz is not optimal for DOS games with 22kHz and early win9x games with mixed 22/44 kHz sample rates.
Digital output could be problematic too, because it's also usually limited to 48kHz or higher.

Solution: find true 44kHz PCI audio card. I think some early 00s Terratec cards like Aureon 5.1 still retained both DOS and 44kHz support (at least digital).

I see. It's good to have an explanation of what the problem actually is.

Here's a dumb question... would VDMsound help at all? I remember using that for a while back when I still played DOS games on my main PC. If you already have or you can find a soundcard that has the quality you're looking for, maybe VDMsound can make it compatible with games that run in a DOS box.

Use a Sound Blaster AWE32's digital output since it is at 44.1 khz. Try to get one with a genuine Yamaha or Creative OPL3, not the CQM variants.

EDIT: oops forgot AWE32/SB32 are ISA 🤣.