They're not that rare ... it's the retro-gaming thing that is driving the people crazy ...

The best place to buy retro hardware is on forums (obviously not on Vogons, since you're not allowed to do that sort of thing here). Eventually you'll get a reputation within that particular online community as a collector of retro hardware and people will just start giving you or selling you stuff for next to nothing. At least, that's what I've learned. Also, don't be too shy to browse your local classifieds and charity shops.

I guess I'm glad I picked mine up before the prices spiked. Who knows when or if they will go back down.

Evert wrote:

The best place to buy retro hardware is on forums (obviously not on Vogons, since you're not allowed to do that sort of thing here). Eventually you'll get a reputation within that particular online community as a collector of retro hardware and people will just start giving you or selling you stuff for next to nothing. At least, that's what I've learned. Also, don't be too shy to browse your local classifieds and charity shops.

Is that sort of thing more appropriate for the Vintage Computer Forum?

AWE32 is priced at insane prices. Seriously, they're pricing them like Roland hardware. I bought four AWE32's on ebay last year for $60 shipped, with memory on them.

The fact that the AWE32 has a broken poorly made OPL3 clone, low quality capacitors, unrealistic sheet specs and a throng of other undesirable characteristics make it interesting that people are willing to pay that much for it.

In fact I got my AWE32 for free... and I still don't want it. Yuck.

raymangold wrote:

The fact that the AWE32 has a broken poorly made OPL3 clone...

Probably need to be more model-specific with that statement. The CT2760, CT3900, and CT3980 have the Yamaha-produced CT1747 bus-interface chip, with integrated YMF262.

Yeah.... They are roughly the same price as or just a bit more expensive than GUS.
I am really glad that I got a hold on my CT3900 at a seriously redicilous low price of 15 US Dollars including shipping.

The "true value". Hmmmm... Just don't know about that. For a starter, the AWE32 is extremely versatile.
On the other hand, the 64 is better when looking at sound quality in terms of noise and such.
Yeah... I pretty much don't understand why the spike in prices in 32's.
It should really be the 64 and especially the Gold that shoud rise in price.

On the retro gamer thing. Yeah... I think the reason is partly because of the rise in console prices.
Dreamcasts, NES, SNESS, N64 and all those machines are pretty much too expensive now a days.
Amiga's and C64's are expensive too. A-1200 are going for 220 to 300 dollars where Voodoo2's can be found
online, for all in between 8 and 30 US Dollars here in Denmark.

So it might be a new wave of retro gamers spiring up all ower these day's, as prices are going up.
Those retro gamers that are too young to have enough money for consoles.
Or it might just be a new breed of retro gamers. Those who prefer computers over consoles.

Some of the AWE32's combine a good OPL implementation with decent sound quality, easily expandable memory and daughter board support (a little buggy at worst).

raymangold wrote:

In fact I got my AWE32 for free... and I still don't want it. Yuck.

If you dont want it ... i would glady help you with the disposal 😁

Looks like it might be time to sell my CT3670

I will keep mine. It's part of the collection, sitting in the box'o hardware for use in a distant future.
Don't want to sell mine. The CT3900 is a really impressive looking piece of hardware.
If I can get a hold on a GUS MAX, then it will be used for a nice 80486dx2 MS-Dos-6.22 machine.

As an alternative, you could always look at the Sound Blaster 32 (the one with the Vibra 16 chipset).
There are still plenty of them available.
The CT3930, for example, also comes with a pair of 30-pin SIMM sockets, uses the same EMU8000 chip than what you have on the AWE32 plus, it has the Yamaha OPL3 chip on board (not the Creative CQM synthesis).
Once you plug some memory onto the card, then you have the same functionality of the AWE32 in terms of loading larger soundfonts.

Downside is that it doesn't have a Wave Blaster connector, also suffers from the MIDI hanging note bug and there is no treble or bass support in the software mixer (the latter a "limitation" of the Vibra 16 chipset).
The CT3930 is non Plug 'n Play but, there were some SB32 models that were Plug 'n Play (I think that some of these did not have a Yamaha OPL3 chip).

firage wrote:

Some of the AWE32's combine a good OPL implementation with decent sound quality, easily expandable memory and daughter board support (a little buggy at worst).

Actually, one variant of the AWE32 with OPL3 and the philips amp has one of the *worst* OPL3 implementations known to man kind. Very muffled and zero bass output. It's not the philips' fault, Creative didn't create the output properly and didn't use proper components. A guy by the name of "OPL3music" has recordings of this atrocious card on youtube. He doesn't use it anymore because of that.

So yeah... *VERY* few AWE32s have both the 'good' output coupled with a real OPL3 chip. And even then, all you get is a crappy ROMpler with it (and we start the whole cycle of 'what's the point' of it when other cards do what it does better: now it's even more useless of a card with terrible prices).

🙁 does this mean no?

Use the digital output for OPL3 and you won't have to worry about the amps, crappy or otherwise.

Great Hierophant wrote:

Use the digital output for OPL3 and you won't have to worry about the amps, crappy or otherwise.

Regrettably, this is a concept that has yet to gain any sort of widespread adoption, despite being one of the better reasons to own one of the OPL-based AWE32 cards.

A SB16 with emu8000 synth and ram... I would rather have a normal SB16 with a db50xg , or even better, a SB16 with some cheap GM module.

I got my CT2760 for $20 shipped on eBay.. I guess it was over 15 years ago now. Hard to believe it's been that long.
I should have bought 20 of them. They were common as dirt back then. I'm really nervous about this thing spontaneously dying, and then I'll probably never be willing to pay what it costs to replace.