Vist home ultimate + audigy 2 ZS platinum

Question

Hello All ,my audigy keeps disapearing. I start my pc and it is no longer in device manager:System:ABIT AN8 SLI FatalityVista Home Ultimate2 gig? Crucial Ballistix?I am/was running the Audigy as my system sound and the motherboards ?realtek AC 97 for the headset used with comm programmes such as teamSpeak.
I tried to rerun the vista 64 bit drivers dated from apriil 2007 and as it startr to install I am informed that " No compatible device found"?Please helpI thank you .Fritz

Answer 1

it depends on who you ask, but the preferable way for most people is to use a high quality outboard mic preamp and send that into the line in. This is because the mic preamps in most consumer cards are considered cheesy. So boosting the mic up with a preamp gives you the advantage of being able to use the line input with your mic which is generally better quality sound.
As i said tho, it depends on who you ask. I have a shure Beta 57 which is an industry standard for pro sound microphones. Not a $5000 recording mic. But a very good general purpose mic. I go into the audigy 2ZS's mic input. However, to do so you need a impedence transformer (about $20) and you need to wire a stereo mini plug so that it bypasses the power that the jack supplies for PC mics which require it. In any case, i do this because i'm not a subscriber to the "use a preamp into the line in" club. Yes, it will produce better tone, but the question is how much better and how much of that improvment will actually make it to your ear? Personally i have tried both ways and find the difference tobe negligable. I'm sure that could change to some extent with a different card or mic or some other difference. But for me with an audigy 2 and the shure mic with an impedence transformer i get what i feel is very good sound the way i do it. So i really don't care what some may say. (many will insist you're stupid for doing it any other way than a preamp) I've been a musician for over 3 decades now and i know the difference between good and bad sound. And what i get from this setup is very good sound to my ear. Maybe not the best, but it's no slouch !
By the way, the creative box as far as the inputs is just basically an extention of the rear panel to make for the convenience of having your connections up front.