It might be of interest to know what type of speakers / headphones OP is using with this system. Some of our famed cards are known to have horrendous line noise that can drive a man insane.
I have had the mythical CT1600 in my possession for over 25 years now, while the stereo is nice, I've since pulled it out and placed a Vibra 16 with yamaha OPL in its place due to the line noise from the Pro 2. Granted, I have yet to recap the CT1600 to see if that helps, but honestly it always made that noise, I just didn't care back when it was hooked up to some cheapo creative powered speakers.
After tinkering with tons of cards, I ultimately went with a Vibra 16S (genuine OPL3) + Sound Blaster 32 CT3600 (32MB added) for my 9x rig, and it sounds very, very nice. In close second are a few of the Aztech cards I've collected over the past couple years. I could barely tell the difference between the Pro II and the FM from the sound galaxy (aside from the far superior line noise filtering, the galaxy sounded way better using headphones). I would like to try out an Awe64 (value or gold) eventually but I have to grab the simmconn since I can't leave the "Masterpiece" sound font behind, but I'd like to see how the Awe64 soudns. Right now I'm totally content with what I have though. I do highly suggest a combo of two cards, one of which being PnP for 9x games since Win9x can get a little annoying dealing with non-PnP cards.
Re: Above post, We're in agreement on the configuration of dual cards. I'd just like to add that I think Duke 3D sounds atrocious in it's Awe 32 mode, and highly suggest using GM with a nice soundfont (mmm masterpiece) to really bring that game to life 😎
Sup. I like computers. Are you a computer?