Okay, so all this best/worst aside. Which one looks the coolest? I’m talking multiple drive plugs maybe a cool pcb color big neat lookin chips, and of course simm slots!

Bonus question which one is the longest?

Probably CT2760

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-31, 12:12:

Okay, so all this best/worst aside. Which one looks the coolest? I’m talking multiple drive plugs maybe a cool pcb color big neat lookin chips, and of course simm slots!

Bonus question which one is the longest?

Coolest looking is the original Sound Blaster 1.0/1.5 aka "Killer Card" CT1320 with its neatly arranged IC's and general layout:
http://www.amoretro.de/2012/02/creative-sound … -cms-chips.html

Original Sound Blaster Pro CT1330A with its dual Yamaha OPL2 is also a sight to behold:
http://www.amoretro.de/2015/05/creative-sound … amaha-opl2.html

The largest cards are the AWE32 models and the coolest of them is the CT2760 because its the first one and it has that cool writing on top "Sound Blaster AWE32" in the original CL font:
http://www.amoretro.de/2011/06/creative-sound … e32-ct2760.html

Recent pickup, Just wanted to drop this here since i haven't really seen much information about it.

CT1730/40 with DSP v4.04, low serial.
- Blue (Pass) sticker
- Factory rework above the ISA slot
- Capacitor arrangement left of the CT1701 is different
- Less components under the wavetable header (right side)

(The socket for the dsp is a mod which wasn't on the original card, its so i can swap in different ones as my ct3900 has a socket aswell)

Nice card S95Sedan! I have the same card! (Printed on bottom right: Revision 03, Week 37 Year 1992). It also features the V4.04 DSP.
Thanks for sharing, always nice to see what people out there actually use in their systems.

Nice.
Must be one of the first versions the publicly released i assume? Since i haven't seen any rev1/2 cards out there in the time i been looking for one.

Its not my main card though, i mostly use a CT3900 with a DB50XG.

S95Sedan wrote on 2022-01-31, 19:30:

Its not my main card though, i mostly use a CT3900 with a DB50XG.

That looks like a very nice card. I have a 3990, which seems like a cost reduced version of your 3900. E.g. my 3990 doesn't have the 1748.

Interesting, so even on that series they omitted the CT1748 in some cases.
Still a nice card, though i find the CQM a little harsh sounding.

There even is a thread here about CT3990 differences! Nice find!
Awe32 Difference between CT3990 versions

I socketed my DSP as well, but was never able to locate any spare chips

Hey Burrito78,
just wanted to hint you at the results I've got from experimenting with swapping DAC chips on my CT1730/40 (it has the 1730 on the sticker on the back side).
You can see my thread here:
Hardware upgrades for CT1740
From what I've found there, I wouldn't state that the noise of the CT17XX comes from the DAC alone. Changing the DAC reduces the noise a little bit, but from my experience, the operational amplifiers (and perhaps the missing connections on one of them) is the main source of the noise.
In fact I was surprised how clean my CT1730 sounded out of the box and how little the difference was between the untouched, 30 year old card and my modded version with new caps, new OPs, new CT1703-A and fixed connection bug. Perhaps it's much more dependent on the batch than the DAC/Model.
If you want to check this yourself, I can send you recordings from each mod step, so the difference can be heard.

I managed to find two more CT2940 cards and one CT3600. They all have the CT2502 "Vibra Pro" chip and I wanted to test if any of them have the clipping bug since my previous CT2940 did not have that bug.

I'm a bit disappointed because none of them has the Vibra clipping bug. I should be happy about it but I was hoping to find something. I did some recordings and I even included recording of CT3930 as a reference. It does have the clipping bug and it is very obvious. Notice that one of cards has CT2502 that is made in Korea while all the others are made in Malta.

Edit: I forgot to mention that all cards were initialized with Unisound using master volume 85, voice volume 85 and FM volume 80.

Physikant wrote on 2022-02-17, 08:17:

Hey Burrito78, just wanted to hint you at the results I've got from experimenting with swapping DAC chips on my CT1730/40 (it h […]
Show full quote

Hey Burrito78,
just wanted to hint you at the results I've got from experimenting with swapping DAC chips on my CT1730/40 (it has the 1730 on the sticker on the back side).
You can see my thread here:
Hardware upgrades for CT1740
From what I've found there, I wouldn't state that the noise of the CT17XX comes from the DAC alone. Changing the DAC reduces the noise a little bit, but from my experience, the operational amplifiers (and perhaps the missing connections on one of them) is the main source of the noise.
In fact I was surprised how clean my CT1730 sounded out of the box and how little the difference was between the untouched, 30 year old card and my modded version with new caps, new OPs, new CT1703-A and fixed connection bug. Perhaps it's much more dependent on the batch than the DAC/Model.
If you want to check this yourself, I can send you recordings from each mod step, so the difference can be heard.

I completely agree. I have many SB16 / SB16 Value cards, and I can definitely say that the DAC alone is not the main cause for the card being noisy.
For example, I have a SB16 CT2770 with the CT1703-T DAC, which, by all accounts, should be noisy... but it's not. In fact, it sounds extremely good, with very low noise, deep bass, crystal clear sound (basically identical to my other cards like the CT2230/CT2290 which have the CT1703-TBS/CT1703-A DACs).

aitotat wrote on 2022-03-23, 16:43:

I managed to find two more CT2940 cards and one CT3600. They all have the CT2502 "Vibra Pro" chip and I wanted to test if any of them have the clipping bug since my previous CT2940 did not have that bug.

I'm a bit disappointed because none of them has the Vibra clipping bug. I should be happy about it but I was hoping to find something. I did some recordings and I even included recording of CT3930 as a reference. It does have the clipping bug and it is very obvious. Notice that one of cards has CT2502 that is made in Korea while all the others are made in Malta.

Edit: I forgot to mention that all cards were initialized with Unisound using master volume 85, voice volume 85 and FM volume 80.

Hi!

Very interesting. I was under the impression that all cards using the CT2502 were affected by this problem. Maybe it got fixed in a later revision of the chip. It would be best if some more data could be collected from other vogons members with cards that use the CT2502. Maybe open a new thread to discuss this if you are interested. When these findings are reproduced by multiple people and a consensus is reached about the origin of the differences i will update the list of course.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Physikant wrote on 2022-02-17, 08:17:

Hey Burrito78, just wanted to hint you at the results I've got from experimenting with swapping DAC chips on my CT1730/40 (it h […]
Show full quote

Hey Burrito78,
just wanted to hint you at the results I've got from experimenting with swapping DAC chips on my CT1730/40 (it has the 1730 on the sticker on the back side).
You can see my thread here:
Hardware upgrades for CT1740
From what I've found there, I wouldn't state that the noise of the CT17XX comes from the DAC alone. Changing the DAC reduces the noise a little bit, but from my experience, the operational amplifiers (and perhaps the missing connections on one of them) is the main source of the noise.
In fact I was surprised how clean my CT1730 sounded out of the box and how little the difference was between the untouched, 30 year old card and my modded version with new caps, new OPs, new CT1703-A and fixed connection bug. Perhaps it's much more dependent on the batch than the DAC/Model.
If you want to check this yourself, I can send you recordings from each mod step, so the difference can be heard.

bloodem wrote on 2022-03-23, 16:59:

I completely agree. I have many SB16 / SB16 Value cards, and I can definitely say that the DAC alone is not the main cause for the card being noisy.
For example, I have a SB16 CT2770 with the CT1703-T DAC, which, by all accounts, should be noisy... but it's not. In fact, it sounds extremely good, with very low noise, deep bass, crystal clear sound (basically identical to my other cards like the CT2230/CT2290 which have the CT1703-TBS/CT1703-A DACs).

Thanks guys for the feedback and sorry for the late reply.

The topic of Self Noise and how it is portrayed in the chart has come up before and discussion about it continues. I will post the link with my previous answer here:
Re: Sound Blaster: From best to worst

We need a new thread with a lot of measurements to gather a new general idea how and where noise originates on these cards. Maybe someone is planning to do this in the future but it's not me.

Currently the "Self noise" column means "at it is currently believed and written on Vogons".
You could also see it as "Newer DAC -> newer card -> more noise fixes -> less noise".
This is all a very broad generalisation of the situation of course.

Best regards,
Burrito78

@Burrito78 just wanted to point out a small error in the spreadsheet: the SB32 CT3930 is listed as a PnP card, but it definitely isn't. Every single setting needs to be configured via jumpers, so this fact in addition to featuring a genuine OPL3 makes it quite peculiar when compared to the other SB32 models.

TheMobRules wrote on 2022-04-21, 17:50:

@Burrito78 just wanted to point out a small error in the spreadsheet: the SB32 CT3930 is listed as a PnP card, but it definitely isn't. Every single setting needs to be configured via jumpers, so this fact in addition to featuring a genuine OPL3 makes it quite peculiar when compared to the other SB32 models.

Yes, good find! I corrected the error and postet an update to the list including some changes regarding how self noise is represented and explained.

2022-04-22: List updated to v11, corrected error on CT3939 (not a PnP card, thanks TheMobRules!), changed wording, typos and color codes regarding the self noise of the cards.

Best regards,
Burrito78

I just checked my CT2970 and the chip is CT2502 (looked at ebay and all the CT2970 cards have this chip).

On the list you have the CT2970 as CT2505, it should be CT2502.

I kept forgetting about the DSP version, (CT1741), why did creative keeping revising the versions even they were working well then introduced hanging note and other bugs later on?

Cheers,

Riikcakirds wrote on 2022-05-28, 14:22:

On the list you have the CT2970 as CT2505, it should be CT2502.

You are absolutely right, this is a typo. Will fix it in the next update. Thanks for reporting!