Computers & Electronics

Good, cheap 5.1 sound card

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  • Feb 11th, 2011 11:14 pm
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Deal Addict
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Aug 14, 2006
1189 posts
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Good, cheap 5.1 sound card

Hey folks,

I'm looking for a good, cheap 5.1 soundcard that I can pick up somewhere in downtown Toronto.

I've got a great 7.1 card built into my motherboard, and I use that for a set of 5.1 headphones I've got, but I also have 5.1 speakers that I sometimes use. Every time I want to switch I have to get up and go to the back of the computer to fiddle around. It's not terrible, but it does get annoying.

I've got a Creative 5.1 Live! from years ago that I put in, but unfortunately it isn't supported in Win7. I googled the issue and saw others had the same problem - I tried several solutions but none worked. The closest solution was using the great, open-source kX drivers and while they worked when I put it in 5.1 mode the speakers would occasionally emit a crackling, popping sound, which was annoying.

I tried a couple other solutions to the drivers, but nothing worked.

I figure if I can pick up a decent, Win 7 5.1 sound card for $20 that should be good. I checked Canadacomputers.com but their cheapest (decent-looking) card is the Audigy 7.1 at $30.

Any thoughts?

Cheers!
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Deal Fanatic
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Nov 7, 2006
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Toronto
Isn't there enough jacks to reassign for duplicated outputs ?? JAT...
Deal Addict
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Aug 14, 2006
1189 posts
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Hi there,

I'm not sure what you mean by reassigning jacks for duplicate outputs?

My guess would be you're saying you can go into the motherboard settings and change some of the unnecessary 7.1 channels to be alternate 5.1 channels, and just use that? Is that possible?
Member
Jun 3, 2007
358 posts
43 upvotes
Toronto
dementia13 wrote: Hey folks,

I'm looking for a good, cheap 5.1 soundcard that I can pick up somewhere in downtown Toronto.

I've got a great 7.1 card built into my motherboard, and I use that for a set of 5.1 headphones I've got, but I also have 5.1 speakers that I sometimes use. Every time I want to switch I have to get up and go to the back of the computer to fiddle around. It's not terrible, but it does get annoying.

I've got a Creative 5.1 Live! from years ago that I put in, but unfortunately it isn't supported in Win7. I googled the issue and saw others had the same problem - I tried several solutions but none worked. The closest solution was using the great, open-source kX drivers and while they worked when I put it in 5.1 mode the speakers would occasionally emit a crackling, popping sound, which was annoying.

I tried a couple other solutions to the drivers, but nothing worked.

I figure if I can pick up a decent, Win 7 5.1 sound card for $20 that should be good. I checked Canadacomputers.com but their cheapest (decent-looking) card is the Audigy 7.1 at $30.

Any thoughts?

Cheers!
Any cheap soundcard will work since you value cost over audio quality. You'd just have to switch the source from integrated to the sound card whenever you want to switch from headphones to speakers. I'd recommend looking at a USB solution since it is a little easier to plug and unplug a USB device than switching through the OS/BIOS.

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