I've just added CT2600 to my collection of ISA soundcards and I'd like to know what do you think about this particular model. Are there any bugs or problems I should be aware of?
I've immediately put the card to good use and tried it with my 486DX/66 build, so far so good, no "thinking noise", clean output, I'm rather happy with it 😀
It should be like any other Sound Blaster Pro 2 (no bugs in particular). The only notable difference is the Mitsumi CD-ROM interface and controller chip (which means that the PCB is also longer).
Some people say that this is actually 'the best' SB Pro 2 and that it has the cleanest sound (being one of the later models).
I don't have this one, I only have the CT1600, so take what I just said with a grain of salt. 😀
Anyway, regardless of all that, it's a SB Pro 2, so it's one of the most compatible cards you can get for a 386 / 486 machine.
On the other hand, it's not so useful for later machines from the Pentium MMX / Pentium 2 era, since the SB Pro 2 is actually more speed sensitive than something like an ESS ES1688 or ES1868 (unless you slow down the CPU, something that you can easily do with a Pentium MMX, not so easily with a Pentium 2).
1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k
sledge wrote on 2022-07-30, 09:18:I've just added CT2600 to my collection of ISA soundcards and I'd like to know what do you think about this particular model. Are there any bugs or problems I should be aware of?
All Soundblaster Pro cards have sub-par stereo channel separation on digital audio. That's caused by the design, which uses just a single DAC, and an analog sample&hold circuit to pick the "left" samples to the "left" channel and the "right" samples to the "right" channel. This is comparable to 3D glasses that pick left images to the left eye and right images to the right eye. 3D glasses also suffer from ghosting issues just like the soundblaster pro.
On the other hand, typically stereo channel separation isn't that important. If you listen using speakers, the channels get mixed in the air of your room anyway. If you listen using headphones and have channels fully panned to the left or right, it often sounds unnatural and discomforting, so the unintentional stereo mixing might actually make the sound "better". So don't worry about that quirk in practice. It's only relevant if you play unrelated signal (like 2-channel TV audio with english sound on the "left" channel and french sound on the "right" channel) and then pick one of the channels at the card's output. So just don't do that. The SB Pro isn't made for it.
