[topFive]

I've received some rather odd looks from people when I ask them this, but perhaps there's something I'm missing.

Are there any consumer-level soundcards for the Macintosh?

What do Mac users do when they want something more than the sound output provided with the built-in outputs? like 6 or 4-point surround sound?

I've had no trouble finding professional level midi and digital audio cards, but that's quite a bit more than I need.

Anybody know of one?

[davidflas]

We Mac users have pretty much had to rely on built in sound for consumer level use, such as for gaming and listening to music. I've heard rumors that Creative Labs is going to bring at least one card to the Mac market soon. Has anyone else heard anything about the time frame?




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"life is pain, Highness, anyone who tells you different is selling something."--The Man in Black from The Princess Bride

Actually this Jan at mwsf the Creative Labs Soundblaster will make its debute.

Protools is abit expensive but also an excellent card. The application if I remeber correctly is free but its kinda useless without the card.

SoundBlaster Live! for Macintosh will be available sometime in either late February, or Early March. The website is:

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/macintosh/

[jeromep]

What is interesting is that Mac onboard sound is actually based on very high quality components, quality that rivals if not beats Creative Labs product. Likewise, there have been few needs or uses for anything beyond 2 channel sound because the Apple spec for programming and software development did not provide for anything beyond 2 channels. Of course all of this was in the past.

When wired up correctly to a Dolby ProLogic amp, and playing a dvd movie through the computer, the sound is 5 channel because that is what ProLogic does, takes a specially encoded 2 channel sound stream and converts it to a real 5 channel surround without requiring 5 channels of sound from the source.

This is of course a bit off the subject, but I don't think that anybody should be complaining about Mac sound. Frankly, I am happy to exchange bells and whistles for guaranteed stability and operation. Something that can't be said for PC sound subsystems.

[Milio]

ProLogic is not true 5 channel sound. As you said, it's 2 channels that get divided up for the separate speakers. This is a far cry in quality from the true digital 5.1 sound created from the SoundBlaster 5.1. With the SoundBlaster card, each speaker gets a discreet channel. There is no bleed-over, the sound separation is perfect. And with digital output from the card to the receiver, there is no loss in quality. Once you've heard Dolby Digital or DTS, ProLogic just can't compare.

Currently, the Mac is simply incapable of reproducing this quality at the consumer level. Even the SoundBlaster for Mac, though it's a 5.1 card, will initially only support 4.1 sound because of limitations of the Mac.

[This message has been edited by Milio (edited 01-28-2001).]