Grabbed this today, it's a CT2940 Vibra, and I believe it has a real OPL3 as opposed to the CQM chip. It's the first one I've seen on Ebay, and since it just says #2940 rather than CT2940, it's lucky I even stumbled onto it at all. The card in my Pentium machine right now is a CQM version, and I remember reading on here that an OPL3 2940 is one of the best-sounding SB16s, so I jumped on it 😁

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300670337838?ssPageNa … 984.m1497.l2649

Also grabbed a Sound Blaster Live for $10 to put in my 1.1GHz Celeron with a Voodoo 3 2000. Figured it deserves a decent sound card to go with the Voodoo 3.

Yes, that is a nice one. Congrats.

Maybe this doesn't count, but I've gone through a large portion of my old hardware so I can clear some out and make some space.
It's a shame, but you can't play with everything.

List (so far):
Wesper Microsystems Wizard IPI
Grappler
Apple Computer SYP2159B-2 //e 80 Column card
Apple Computer 650-X104 Disk ][ Interface card
California Computer Systems 7710-02 Asynchronous Serial Interface
AMD AM386 DX/DXL-33
AMD AM386 DX-40
Intel i386 DX-20
Schubert Sound Conductor 8bit ISA Sound Card
ISA TTL Video MG-160E Rev 3
ISA MPEG Decoder? Chips: Sigma EM7050, EM7000, EM7010A
ISA TTL Video Chips: UM2301, D41464C-12
ISA 16bit Sound Card AW35/AW37 97915-1.3 Crystal CS4235-KQ
Intel Pentium Processor SY022
Intel Pentium Processor SX963
SDRAM SEC KMM366S403CTL-G0Q
SDRAM Kingston KTC-2428/32-CE
DIMM SEC KMM364C124AJ-7
DIMM SEC KMM364C124AJ-7
DIMM SEC KMM364C124AJ-6
DIMM PNY 0244-8-0139
DIMM L813C16MB
DIMM Unknown Chips: 16x HY511640A
SDRAM Kingston KTC-2428/64-CE
SDRAM Kingston KTC-2428/64-CE
Yamaha YMF-724F-V PCI Sound
PCI USB (Opti 82C861)
PCI Firewire (Lucent FW323-04)
ISA Paradise Basic EGA
ISA Awe32 CT3670 CT1745A-TPB
ISA 3Com Etherlink II
ISA Unknown 4x Flash memory board
ISA Crypto Card PCBA 10413-501 Rev. B
ISA Trident Super VGA-16
ISA ATI TV Tuner 109-28500-00
ISA SCSI Adaptec AHA-1540B/42B
Intel Pentium III SL37D 500/512/100
ISA Promise EIDE Max
ISA Monochrome Graphics Card X, TAL1
ISA SiS Monochrome Graphics Card
ISA Trident TVGA9000C
ISA Oak OTIVGA
ISA Video XTAL1? Chips: SiS 23C01, MB8264A-15
ISA A4Scan PMTAS8P
ISA IDE Multi I/O Card TS5188-DIP v3.1
ISA DTK Clock Plus Card PII-146
ISA PXL-380 Precision Light Pen Board 9069 Rev. B
Intel Pentium III CPU 500/512/100 SL35E
PCI SMC Ethernet Card 143127-411 Rev. 01
PCI Lava Parallel Port Card
SDRAM Kingston KTD-OPGX1N/256
DDR PC2700 MT8VDDT3264AG-335C4
SDRAM Unknown 256MB PC133
2x SDRAM Kingston KTC2428/64-CD
DDR ZK1024M68J 512MB DDR266
3x 30pin SIMM (3x MN414400ASJ-07)
2x 30pin SIMM (3x MN414400ASJ-07)
4x 30pin SIMM (3x MM514400N-07)
4x 30pin SIMM (3x HY514400J-07)
4x 30pin SIMM 4MB (3x MMS51A16400-7)
3x 30pin SIMM (9x HM511000AJP7)
30pin SIMM (9x AAA2800J-07)
2x 72pin SIMM IBM 4MB 11D1320BA-70
72pin SIMM IBM 4MB E945758 70ns
72pin SIMM IBM 4MB 71F7010 70ns
3x 72pin SIMM AST (8x MCM4L4400BN70)
72pin SIMM (8x HM514400AJ7)
SDRAM NEC MC-454AD645F-A10 32MB
SDRAM NEC MC-454AD644F-A67 32MB
SDRAM Compaq 32MB 278031-002
5x SDRAM Kingston KTC-2428/32-CE
SDRAM Unknown 32MB SDC4UV6482D100TSCQ
ISA Serial/Parallel Card (Missing pins 1 and 6 on serial port)
ISA RS232 Startech ST16550CP
ISA Sound Card Crystal CS4235-XQ3
ISA SMC Ethernet Card 60-600619-002 Rev. A
ISA AT I/O Parallel, Serial, Game Card
PCI ATI Mach64
ISA IDE/Floppy Controller
ISA Dual Gameport Card
ISA IDE/Floppy/Serial/Parallel/Game Card
Jaton VL41 VLB Video Card S3 86C805-P
PCI Ensoniq AudioPCI ES1370
2x SDRAM SEC KMM364E213BK-6
SDRAM Unknown HB56A264EJ-7B
DIMM? Unknown (8x HM5118160BJ6)
2x 30pin SIMM (3x 83X3222ESD) IBM 9314 PQ
30pin SIMM (5x 89X8916) IBM 93 14 I38176PE
4x 30pin SIMM (3x 83X4128) IBM 93 14 I51H09PE S
ISA Startech Serial Parallel Enhanced 2S1P
2x ISA Parallel, Game, Serial Card
2x Blank Startech RAMBUS Modules
3DFX Voodoo3 PCI
ISA Logitech Scanman Plus Controller Board
ISA Adaptec AIC-540L ACB-2092
Intel PCI NIC
PCI Compaq Nitro 64v CL-GD5446-HC-A
ISA MT881 RTC/Serial/Parallel/Game/Floppy
SDRAM Kingston KTC-EN133/64
SDRAM Kingston KTC-2428/64-CE
ISA Sound Blaster CT1320C With CMS Chips Installed
[/b]

I found the CT1320C hanging around loose in a box I hadn't looked at in years.
It actually still works, even if a bit noisy.

CapnCrunch53 wrote:

Grabbed this today, it's a CT2940 Vibra, and I believe it has a real OPL3 as opposed to the CQM chip. It's the first one I've seen on Ebay, and since it just says #2940 rather than CT2940, it's lucky I even stumbled onto it at all. The card in my Pentium machine right now is a CQM version, and I remember reading on here that an OPL3 2940 is one of the best-sounding SB16s, so I jumped on it 😁

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300670337838?ssPageNa … 984.m1497.l2649

Also grabbed a Sound Blaster Live for $10 to put in my 1.1GHz Celeron with a Voodoo 3 2000. Figured it deserves a decent sound card to go with the Voodoo 3.

Hi CapnCrunch53, is that anything similar to the ISA CT-2910? I pulled my older Creative card that came with my Dell which is labelled as a "Sound Blaster 16 Pro." Do I have the Vibra model as well? I always thought this was the cheaper card of the series. Mine looks similar to a 2230, except there's no slot for a DSP chip, it's just a blank area on the circuit board. Mine also has the IDE drive interface and jumpers to set the IRQ. Just curious!

I actually got this about two weeks ago but it wasn't until a few days ago I got parts needed to fix the machine. Originally, half the keys didn't work and some keycaps were missing, hinges were loose and screen was bad. After getting another machine similar but with bad motherboard, I was able to replace the screen, hinges and keyboard. After doing that and cleaning the machine up a bit, it looks great and is nice to use. I especially like the keyboard and also, how solid the machine feels; I'm not afraid of dropping the thing. It's somewhat amusing to me that it's smaller, thinner and lighter than most laptops I see in use today.

It's a ThinkPad 600X with a July, 2000 manufacture date. 500mhz Coppermine Pentium III, 448mb PC100 SDRAM, 20gb hard drive, DVD-ROM, 13" 1024x768 LCD, 4mb NeoMagic 256ZX video chip.

jmrydholm wrote:

Hi CapnCrunch53, is that anything similar to the ISA CT-2910? I pulled my older Creative card that came with my Dell which is labelled as a "Sound Blaster 16 Pro." Do I have the Vibra model as well? I always thought this was the cheaper card of the series. Mine looks similar to a 2230, except there's no slot for a DSP chip, it's just a blank area on the circuit board. Mine also has the IDE drive interface and jumpers to set the IRQ. Just curious!

I'm not an expert on these (so somebody please correct me if I'm wrong!), but I think all of the CT29xx cards are in the Vibra series. The Vibras were cost-reduced SB16s that lacked some features like a Waveblaster connector and the ASP socket (according to Wikipedia). Most of the Vibra cards had the Creative CQM chip instead of a real Yamaha OPL3, but some still had an OPL3. From a google search it looks like the CT2910 has a real Yamaha chip (the chip above the chip that's above the word Creative in the picture below; you can barely see OPL on it sideways). I'm not sure if it's like the 2940 where there were versions with both chips though. If yours has an OPL3 it should be a pretty nice card 😀
http://www.yjfy.com/images/oldhard/sound/CT2910.jpg

My 2940s don't have jumpers and are Plug and Play; does that mean that the CT2910 isn't plug and play since it has jumpers? Like I said I'm still trying to learn about this stuff.

CT2910 and CT2950 for example have the classic SB16 layout with several separate chips.
Vibra is about using less Chips (preferably 1) to do the same. And there are several chip variants: CT2501 Vibra16, CT2502 Vibra Pro, CT2504 Vibra16S, Vibra16C, Vibra16XV, maybe more. Most of them have their drawbacks too, as is the case with the whole SB16/AWE line. The CT250x numbers refer to the chips, not to the cards. Vibra chips were used on SB16's and SB32's.
see also Wikipedia

gerwin wrote:

CT2910 and CT2950 for example have the classic SB16 layout with several separate chips.
Vibra is about using less Chips (preferably 1) to do the same. And there are several chip variants: CT2501 Vibra16, CT2502 Vibra Pro, CT2504 Vibra16S, Vibra16C, Vibra16XV, maybe more. Most of them have their drawbacks too, as is the case with the whole SB16/AWE line. The CT250x numbers refer to the chips, not to the cards. Vibra chips were used on SB16's and SB32's.
see also Wikipedia

If it's the case that Vibra is just all the same chips you normally find on a SB16 consolidated into one then why do so many Vibra based cards sound worse? They can't be identical and sound worse at the same time. You have to admit that the two Vibra cards in the video I posted sound horrible compared to the SB 16 that was demoed. That shouldn't happen if they are the same.

Don't know.. creative labs was just messing around. They don't give datasheets for their chips. Also I did not listen to that video.

I compared what seemed to me the last classic style SB16 with OPL3-L (CT2950) with the last Vibra with OPL3(-L) (CT2800 and CT2940):

CT2800: Quite nice, but has faint ringing noises that remain after playing samples.
CT2950: Quite nice.
CT2940: This one sounded the most clear to me. Contains the CT2502 Vibra Pro which is the only creative chip with licenced technology from crystal semiconductor.

I could not motivate myself to gather and compare other SB16's/AWE's.

Then you need to listen. The two Vibra cards are disgusting compared to the SB 16 and AWE 32

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hzxE1_nl0k

Well with that Vibra16S card in the comparison; there is a real Yamaha OPL3 and probably a real Yamaha YAC512 DAC to go with it. So technically these are the one and only ingredients for the genuine FM sound. I don't know what happened with the signal thereafter. The other Vibra card has CQM FM, which I don't care for.

sliderider wrote:

Then you need to listen. The two Vibra cards are disgusting compared to the SB 16 and AWE 32

I agree! I pulled this card for just such a reason and replaced it with an AWE32 (CT-3990.) One of my other family members also had a Vibra-equipped Blaster card way back when. I remember loading up Doom and wondering why the heck it sounded so much worse than back home. I guess the main reason I keep it is for a combination of nostalgia/collector's reason and also to have a "spare" ISA sound card just in case.

Agreed. In the 90's we had two Pionex 486 SX-25s. We added Creative CD-rom and Soundblaster packages on each one from SAMs, but 9 months apart. I thought they both had SB16s in them but one would always sound different and DOOM II was always missing notes in the music. Years later I would learn that the second 486 always had a VIBRA CT2950. DOOM II did not sound the same as that first 486 with the SB16 CT2230. I bought 3 more CT2230s off of Ebay over time because I liked way they sounded with DOOM II's music and DOOM ver. 1.1 with the distortion in the sound effects.

V5 5500 for MAC. Anyone has experience with flashing this baby with a PC BIOS?

schlang wrote:

V5 5500 for MAC. Anyone has experience with flashing this baby with a PC BIOS?

See FAQ here http://welcome.to/3dfxbios
Or Google Flash Voodoo5 5500 MAC to PC

-CT2950 is no vibra card
-Any Soundblaster 16/AWE32 can give hanging notes, even the AWE64 has a poor Midi interface.
-The classic SB-16's and AWE32's are not the exactly clean sounding cards either.
-The only vibra card I find OK is the one with the CT2502 chip.

So the CT2950 is a SB16 that lacks the OPL3? Mine does not have the YMF262 on it anywhere.

Tiremaster400 wrote:

So the CT2950 is a SB16 that lacks the OPL3? Mine does not have the YMF262 on it anywhere.

Does it have a CT1747 on it? Yamaha made a special OPL3 for Creative that was integrated with some other components.

Have to look at when I get home tonight, could have sworn it said VIBRA on the 2950.

No CT1747 on this card. I still use it, I just prefer the other cards when playing DOOM. I guess it's not a VIBRA after all.

[/img]