nice one! thanks!!!
personally I prefer the SB1.5 playback 😀

Hehe it should be much easier now with the "switches to a new card every 5 seconds"...

I am still undecided.

The AWE64 clearly sounds different (it doesn't have an Yamaha OPL chip but rather a chip from Creative I believe...).

Between the 1.5 and Pro 2.0 it's a tough call. The Pro 2.0 sounds a little cleaner but otherwise not much different to the 1.5

probably the onboard amps/electronics to the audio-out circuit are to blame for the sb1.5/2.0 😜

The 1.5 doesn't have pass filters. So the older Sound Blasters will always sound a little raw.

With Pro and later cards, Creative installed pass filters, changing the characteristic slightly.

I like the awe64.

SB 1.5 sounds the best and AWE64 worst. I've always thought that FM sounds best on cards with real OPL2.
You should find any sound card that uses OPTi931 chip. It has the worst FM sounds I've ever heard so it would have been great for comparisons.

This is an excellent way to compare sound cards. 😎 Great stuff! 😁

retro games 100 wrote:

This is an excellent way to compare sound cards. 😎 Great stuff! 😁

Thanks! I will stick to this method for all my future comparisons...

It's quite bit of work, cutting and pasting it all together. I made a cheat sheet with time codes in open office calc so I don't get confused half way through 😀

aitotat wrote:

You should find any sound card that uses OPTi931 chip. It has the worst FM sounds I've ever heard so it would have been great for comparisons.

I thought about including the ESS AudioDrive, but then I decided to leave it "Creative only" and maybe do another video looking at clones. However apart from the ESS AudioDrive and AWE64 I haven't got any other clone cards..

The ESS chips seem worthwhile to me - there is little as authentic sounding in a world without ISA. Once you go PCI and want FM sound, they are one of the best options. Solo1 would be worth a test.

The ESS I have is still ISA and used the ES1868F chip. It's a good little Sound Blaster Pro Clone...

Even appears to have a wavetable header, but not sure about that as I don't have any wavetable cards.

I like the awe64 but it's probably because I've been used to it. Great videos Mau1wurf1977! Youtube needs more of these!!!!

Nice, but what does this show that isn't expected beforehand?

The AWE64 doesn't have a real OPL chip so naturally it will sound off. And that the SB 1.5 and Pro 2.0 will sound exactly the same besides some colouring caused by the output circuit is no surprise.
This test doesn't help people looking for that cleanest sounding soundcard with an OPL chip or accurate emulation (which is what all the fuss is always about).

You'll need to make a comparison of clones. We could do this together with people making a recording of their Crystal and ESS cards and you splicing it together (very nicely I might add).

I'm willing to do an OPL recording of the Terratec Maestro 16/96, boy is that one awful! Low noise card though.

samudra wrote:

Nice, but what does this show that isn't expected beforehand? […]
Show full quote

Nice, but what does this show that isn't expected beforehand?

The AWE64 doesn't have a real OPL chip so naturally it will sound off. And that the SB 1.5 and Pro 2.0 will sound exactly the same besides some colouring caused by the output circuit is no surprise.
This test doesn't help people looking for that cleanest sounding soundcard with an OPL chip or accurate emulation (which is what all the fuss is always about).

You'll need to make a comparison of clones. We could do this together with people making a recording of their Crystal and ESS cards and you splicing it together (very nicely I might add).

I'm willing to do an OPL recording of the Terratec Maestro 16/96, boy is that one awful! Low noise card though.

The Terratec can't be more awful that SB Live's "FM synth"? 😉
I can provide a recording from the SB Live 😎

I thought about including the ESS but to be honest with Creative Cards selling for a few bucks, I don't see why anyone would actively seek out a clone card instead of a Creative Labs card unless there are very specific needs...

I can see that a clone comparison could be a interesting topic, e.g. what's the worst sounding clone card, maybe that's a project you would like to take on?

I 'm planning on sticking with Roland and Creative Labs cards...

Regarding mixing recordings from different people / systems / recording devices / settings, I don't think it's ideal to be honest. Cards can vary in noise depening on which machine you put it in. So ideally all cards should be recorded in the same machine using the same equipment and settings.

True, but the point is this: There are two kinds of people in the world. The ones that want authenticity, compatibility and peace of mind (to some degree) and that don't care about some noise here and there and pops and clicks. These people use a Creative card when a game only supports Sound Blaster.

Then there are the people that want the most high quality sound to come from their system and therefore rather use a clone board instead of a real Sound Blaster card. These people understand that compatibility will not be 100%, but are willing to make some sacrifices in that department just like the other party is willing to make in the noise department.

Of course both parties don't understand the other party's views so the discussion remains alive. Personally I use a real SB for all games that only support SB, but use a better card if it is supported (GUS, Roland).

I'd like to make my own comparison, but I just don't have enough cards. None of us do, except for a few; but if we as a community pool together I'm pretty sure we have every soundcard ever made.

We can all do our own small recordings and post them here and there, but then after a few years half of those links don't work anymore and they are spread around. But one cool video with a big comparison, that would rule man! And it can stay up there on Youtube for everyone to view.

Noise and frequency response of a card will generally be lost when using recordings from different sources, but that is a given. It will be only about the quality of the FM.

Yup I'm definitely the "peace of mind" / "it just work's" kind of guy 😀

Regarding "best quality". When I did my last video (Digital Speech comparison), I found that even DOSBox has these little "cutoffs" whenever someone stops talking.

The only card from my roundup that got rid of these "cutoffs" was the AWE64 Gold. It was quite a surprise. So yes testing new things can always lead to totally new discoveries...

In a way, yes it would be interesting to test these "supposedly better" cards and see how they compare to Creative...

The next question is, well what cards do you pick? Do you pick cards that are still frequently sold, or do we go for the most exotic cards that are really hard to hunt down?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The 1.5 doesn't have pass filters.

No, the SB1.x and 2.0 cards definitely have fixed output filtering, for the digital audio at least. From what I can tell, any low-pass filtering shouldn't be applicable to the FM output. The same should be true for the SBPro and SB16 variants as well.

Play Doom on E2M2 on an AWE32 or AWE64 card. SPOILER: It's going to suck.

leileilol wrote:

Play Doom on E2M2 on an AWE32 or AWE64 card. SPOILER: It's going to suck.

No need to be so general. The CT2760, CT3900, and CT3980 AWE32 cards all contain an actual Yamaha OPL3 core.