Are we talking mass-marketed consumer-oriented cards, or professional/mastering audio cards? I have and have used quite a few of the latter and they can be equally impressive and expensive.

On the consumer side, I have heard from anecdotal stories that in the PCI realm the Creative Audigy 2 and later are fairly impressive in quality and low noise. Not sure about ISA cards, other than Creative/Sound Blaster are commonly viewed as very noisy and not great overall quality.

You're never going to find any articles or reviews that will give you an example of the "BEST" card for what you're looking for. Another thing that you're going to have to inform the board about is how you intend to use it. Yes, you said for music listening, which is more critical than anything else.

Since the era you are calling for would usually output over analog, I would simply suggest a pro-audio card, like my M-Audio Delta 410 or any card from the Delta series for that matter. They are usually very inexpensive due to their age, but I can tell you that in my case, I went from an X-Fi Extreme Music to my Delta 410, and there is no comparison as the Delta 410 is far superior for music listening.

Logistics wrote:

I would simply suggest a pro-audio card, like my M-Audio Delta 410 or any card from the Delta series for that matter.

Yeah! This is the exact card I had in my Windows XP box for 5+ years. I thought it was great. I still have it and the breakout box wrapped up on a shelf somewhere.. might have to take it out again one of these days.

Logistics wrote:

You're never going to find any articles or reviews that will give you an example of the "BEST" card for what you're looking for. Another thing that you're going to have to inform the board about is how you intend to use it. Yes, you said for music listening, which is more critical than anything else.

Since the era you are calling for would usually output over analog, I would simply suggest a pro-audio card, like my M-Audio Delta 410 or any card from the Delta series for that matter. They are usually very inexpensive due to their age, but I can tell you that in my case, I went from an X-Fi Extreme Music to my Delta 410, and there is no comparison as the Delta 410 is far superior for music listening.

If I would not know it's that good, looking at the card it would looks like a cheap low end one, incredible! 😁
Actually I've the Xonar D1 (CM8788,Cirrus Logic CS4398 codec) but I was thinking to go to higher end one (not professional/recording, more istening with heaphones).

Check the following link and decide which card you like.

PCAVTech Sound Card Technical Benchmarks Test Ratings Comparison

Honestly I find the first generation Live! has the best mix of features, but that might be because I've never had an A3D card. Would love one.

Pro audio cards are really cool:

my nomination goes to the infamous lynx2, not everyone knows about it though.

gdjacobs wrote:

Pro audio cards are really cool:

They looks great, but are they ok for just listening music with headphones or amplified 2.0 systems? Or they need external processing like those in the first image?

In the second image, that card seems to have a programmable FPGA processor!

386SX wrote:

They looks great, but are they ok for just listening music with headphones or amplified 2.0 systems? Or they need external processing like those in the first image?

You can use digital I/O directly from the back of the card, but analog requires either a module or pigtail externally. There's just not enough room on the bracket for all those channels.

386SX wrote:

In the second image, that card seems to have a programmable FPGA processor!

Part of what makes the RME such a beast.

gdjacobs wrote:

You can use digital I/O directly from the back of the card, but analog requires either a module or pigtail externally. There's j […]
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386SX wrote:

They looks great, but are they ok for just listening music with headphones or amplified 2.0 systems? Or they need external processing like those in the first image?

You can use digital I/O directly from the back of the card, but analog requires either a module or pigtail externally. There's just not enough room on the bracket for all those channels.

386SX wrote:

In the second image, that card seems to have a programmable FPGA processor!

Part of what makes the RME such a beast.

Did you try it? 😀 (man they are expensive! 😁)

386SX wrote:

In the second image, that card seems to have a programmable FPGA processor!

Not a very powerful one though. It has 5000 logic cells and about 64kB RAM, just about enough to implement something equivalent to a Z80. 😀

386SX wrote:

Hi, simple question, for listening music and general usage (not gaming/3d stuff), which was the best PCI sound card ever release […]
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Hi,
simple question, for listening music and general usage (not gaming/3d stuff), which was the best PCI sound card ever released? Both in output quality and/or power?
And before the Live/Audigy was released, there were any even better audio cards before in both pci and isa?
Thank

The Audigy 2 ZS should satisfy all around and they aren't rare. The thing here is each use has its specialized cards. The best cards for music were not usable for gaming at all, and the best gaming cards were barely adequate for critical listening (especially before the Audigy 2). Lynx L22 would be my pick if you're really disregarding gaming support; professional output only, I'd want an external headphone amp at that point. Of course you could just get an external DAC for an Audigy series card to begin with.

Onkyo make high end soundcards using Creative and VIA chipsets.

http://ixbtlabs.com/news.html?03/98/23

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/blogs/rjm/1156 … iew-part-i.html

orcish75 wrote:

Onkyo make high end soundcards using Creative and VIA chipsets.

http://ixbtlabs.com/news.html?03/98/23

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/blogs/rjm/1156 … iew-part-i.html

Those Onkyo cards has some BIG capacitors there... 😁

Reading the reviews...