The Wikipedia page for SBs says that the SB16 offers "16-bit CD-quality digital audio sampling"

For FM synthesis, the SB16 should sound exactly the same as a SBPro 2. They both use a single OPL3. They even use the same midi driver in many games (notably the ones using miles sound system drivers). Although it might sound slightly better due to better mixers and what have you.

The SB16 isn't however, fully compatible with SBPro for digital sound. It can't do stereo when using a SBPro driver. So you won't be able to get stereo audio in games that don't support the SB16.

Source: Sound Blaster Series Hardware Programming Guide

Some say the SB16, or earlier models of it, have 12-bit D/A converters only though, and that seems realistic in this environment without excessive supply filtering.

SBpro2 is probably the more worthwhile card in reality.

-SB16 has very low quality analog circuitry that ruins the 16bit 44khz output.
-SBpro2 is supported by far more games and SB16 is not really SBpro compatible.
-SBpro2 is SB backward compatible.
-as said, the Pro2 has OPL3 just like most SB16s.
-few games use 16bit samples anyway.
-SB16 DB header is not adequately Roland compatible.

There are 16bit cards with far superior analog signal quality if you are determined to go for that. Ensoniq for example. It is night and day in my experience, particularly with games that use tracker music and can be configured to mix at 44/48khz. SB16 kinda sucks overall.

Ok thanks all. 😀

So, if I have a dos game that only supports [as distinct menu selections] sb, sbpro and sb16 in terms of both sound and music cards [sound and music card selected separately]...

[a] on the 'sound' side it could be because the game might have both 8-bit and 16-bit samples available and/or because it might have stereo effects that require different coding on sbpro and sb16.

in terms of music, it's all fm synth but sbpro1 has dual opl2's so there could be something in the coding there, but otherwise there's no real reason for being able to distinctly select the different sb families.

I really like the SB Pro 2.0 because to my ears it sounds cleaner than all the SB16 cards I have tried. It also has a genuine OPL3 and doesn't come with a MIDI port, so it's a perfect partner for a Roland MPU401AT.

The other Creative card I recommend is the AWE64 Gold. Especially in combination with a Roland Sound Canvas and newer games. The lack of genuine OPL3 chip is a minor thing as pretty much all the newer games support General MIDI.

ratfink wrote:

sbpro1 has dual opl2's so there could be something in the coding there, but otherwise there's no real reason for being able to distinctly select the different sb families.

I'm unsure of how many or if any games used the dual OPL2 setup in an interesting way. SBpro1 was a short lived product.

swaaye wrote:

ratfink wrote:

sbpro1 has dual opl2's so there could be something in the coding there, but otherwise there's no real reason for being able to distinctly select the different sb families.

I'm unsure of how many or if any games used the dual OPL2 setup in an interesting way. SBpro1 was a short lived product.

Yeah, sbpro1 is irrelevant to me. I recall there were posts about it on queststudios come to think of it, with examples, but they don't matter to me.

hello guyz, is awe32 fully sbpro2 compatible? its audio output quality is slightly better than sb16(although still sux), and it has an additional emu8k midi synth.
well i know awe32 uses creative's own clone of opl3 instead of yamaha's original one, which can make it sound a bit different in fm playback, but i guess that won't be too much trouble.

AWE32, SB32 and AWE64 are basically just SB16 with the EMU synth added on. These are no more SBPro2 compatible than a SB16 card.

Some AWE32 cards do have real Yamaha OPL3. For example (CT1747)

Cards with ESS ES1688, 1868, 1869, etc are quite SBPro2 compatible and are usually pretty clean too. They also tend to have Roland-compatible MPU-401 DB headers. Their ESFM synth is also highly similar to OPL3. You can hear this in the sound card recording thread alongside a SBpro2.

you mean that ct1747 chip is a remarked real opl3? wow.
i remember that 8bit only sbpro gave me a lot of trouble in windows playback... so i would stick to sb16/awe32 anyway.

The CT1747 combines a YMF262 along with the ISA interface.

As for what a SoundBlaster 16 offers over the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0, I'd say this:

1) Higher-quality digital audio(sounds quite downsampled on the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0, but you'll get used to it)
2) OPL3 with less filtering(if raw FM Synthesis is your thing, you'll prefer the SoundBlaster 16's OPL3 to the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0's OPL3 which is quite heavily filtered)
3) MPU-401 compatibility

However, there are quite a few drawbacks to the SoundBlaster 16:

1) The MPU-401 is a mess. If you want to use a SoundBlaster 16 with a MIDI daughterboard or external MIDI box, you'd better use another sound card along with the SoundBlaster 16
2) Some SoundBlaster 16s do not have true OPL3, but instead have CQM, Creative's OPL3 clone/"successor" of sorts, which isn't really faithful to OPL3. It sounds more raw, too(CQM has practically zero filtering)
3) You can never really get a SoundBlaster 16 with fully-working MPU-401, true OPL3 and good sound quality. Those with DSP 4.05 don't have the notorious hanging notes bug but typically have very lousy audio quality(haven't heard this first-hand, though) while those with DSP 4.16 don't have the hanging notes bug either, but ditch OPL3 in favor of the inferior CQM

Just stick to a SoundBlaster Pro 2.0. It's served me better than any SoundBlaster 16 ever has. The only ones I really like are the CT2230 and the rather uncommon CT2840(I don't know if the latter has the hanging notes bug, but the CT2230 is much less prone to it than normal).

Ace, I bought a CT17x0 SB16 for the 4.05 DSP because of how it's so commonly believed to work with DBs. My Roland SCD15 still plays wrong notes and skips notes on it.

Just shows you always learn new things in the retro world 😀

Your best bet is to use two cards. Preferably another one with heaps of jumpers or driver configuration so you avoid conflicts.

swaaye wrote:

Ace, I bought a CT17x0 SB16 for the 4.05 DSP because of how it's so commonly believed to work with DBs. My Roland SCD15 still plays wrong notes and skips notes on it.

Guess I need to bust out all my SoundBlaster 16s, AWE32s and AWE64s and run my Roland CM-300 on all of them. On my SoundBlaster 16 CT2230, the CM-300 just holds one note when playing Doom and causes heavy slowdown as a result and my SoundBlaster 32 PnP CT3600 has missing notes in Duke Nukem 3D and constantly gets stuck notes in X-Wing Collector's CD-ROM edition. I still need to test my CM-300 on the following SoundBlaster 16s:

-SoundBlaster Vibra16 CT2260
-SoundBlaster 16 Value CT2770
-SoundBlaster 16 CT2840
-SoundBlaster 16F CT2940
-SoundBlaster Vibra16C Prelude CT2960
-SoundBlaster 16 WavEffects CT4170

I'm gonna have to find some more AWE32s and a SoundBlaster 16 with DSP version 4.05. My single SoundBlaster 32 PnP CT3600 isn't gonna cut it and neither will the many SoundBlaster 16s I have, which are all DSP version 4.13 except for the SoundBlaster 16 Value CT2770(4.12) and the SoundBlaster 16 WavEffects CT4170(4.16).