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A couple of months after upgrading my main computer I thought I’d add a sound card. None of the cards I already owned were suitable as they were all PCI whereas I needed a PCI-E version.
On browsing I realised there wasn’t much choice nowadays it was basically Asus or Creative. As I hadn’t used a Creative card for some time I thought I’d try one just for a change. I settled on a mid-range OEM version, a Soundblaster Z which currently costs £50 at OCUK.
Installed it with Win 10 and it was an improvement on the onboard sound, sounded very good to my ears. I use the digital out from the soundcard to a DAC which feeds a MiTube Fatman Valve amplifier and pair of Ariston media loudspeakers.
Life went on for a couple of months and I started getting a yearning to Dual boot with Linux on my new machine. As I’d received a free Kingston 240Gb SSD hard disk with my new video card I had a spare Crucial 250Gb SSD HDD so I thought that would do for Linux Mint, latest version is V18 and I went for Cinnamon 64 Bit.
I fitted a caddy to my computer which can swap 3.5” HDD’s in and out so I had Windows 10 on the Kingston SSD and Mint 18 on the Crucial SSD. To accommodate the SSD’s so they’d fit my new caddy I had to buy a couple of 2.5” to 3.5” HDD converters (see pics).
I installed Linux 18 which was stress free and went perfectly well except for one thing – I had no sound. Linux was recognising the Soundblaster Z but whatever setting I put the soundcard on it would not work. Checking Creative’s website I noticed no Linux drivers were available.
A Google revealed there were a lot off cheesed off Linux/Creative users on this planet as it seemed Creative don’t provide any support for Linux whatsoever. So I rattled off a none too complimentary email to Creative urging them to sort out some Linux drivers and they promised a reply ‘within 48 hours’.
96 hours later Creative sent me a return email stating they don’t support Linux operating systems. Ya don’t say. Crappy useless bunch of idiots (I’m restraining myself here).
So I removed the Creative soundcard, bought a cheap Asus Xonar DGX PCI-E soundcard (£24) and this Asus card works perfectly with both Windows 10 and Linux 18. So that’s it for me, for the rest of my life a complete veto of Creative products.
I am fair-minded enough, however, to admit the Soundblaster Z had the edge on the Asus Xonar DGX, as reflected by the price, probably, but I am being a bit nit-picky.
I’m considering the more expensive Asus card (£125) which is meant to be ‘audiophile’ quality and also has a co-ax digital output which is rare, most cards usually have optical output. This is a desirable feature.
One would think with the gain in popularity of Linux over the past decade Creative might have made a little effort to expand their customer base but no, still living in the dark ages.
The caddy mounted in my computer case:
A converter case:
On browsing I realised there wasn’t much choice nowadays it was basically Asus or Creative. As I hadn’t used a Creative card for some time I thought I’d try one just for a change. I settled on a mid-range OEM version, a Soundblaster Z which currently costs £50 at OCUK.
Installed it with Win 10 and it was an improvement on the onboard sound, sounded very good to my ears. I use the digital out from the soundcard to a DAC which feeds a MiTube Fatman Valve amplifier and pair of Ariston media loudspeakers.
Life went on for a couple of months and I started getting a yearning to Dual boot with Linux on my new machine. As I’d received a free Kingston 240Gb SSD hard disk with my new video card I had a spare Crucial 250Gb SSD HDD so I thought that would do for Linux Mint, latest version is V18 and I went for Cinnamon 64 Bit.
I fitted a caddy to my computer which can swap 3.5” HDD’s in and out so I had Windows 10 on the Kingston SSD and Mint 18 on the Crucial SSD. To accommodate the SSD’s so they’d fit my new caddy I had to buy a couple of 2.5” to 3.5” HDD converters (see pics).
I installed Linux 18 which was stress free and went perfectly well except for one thing – I had no sound. Linux was recognising the Soundblaster Z but whatever setting I put the soundcard on it would not work. Checking Creative’s website I noticed no Linux drivers were available.
A Google revealed there were a lot off cheesed off Linux/Creative users on this planet as it seemed Creative don’t provide any support for Linux whatsoever. So I rattled off a none too complimentary email to Creative urging them to sort out some Linux drivers and they promised a reply ‘within 48 hours’.
96 hours later Creative sent me a return email stating they don’t support Linux operating systems. Ya don’t say. Crappy useless bunch of idiots (I’m restraining myself here).
So I removed the Creative soundcard, bought a cheap Asus Xonar DGX PCI-E soundcard (£24) and this Asus card works perfectly with both Windows 10 and Linux 18. So that’s it for me, for the rest of my life a complete veto of Creative products.
I am fair-minded enough, however, to admit the Soundblaster Z had the edge on the Asus Xonar DGX, as reflected by the price, probably, but I am being a bit nit-picky.
I’m considering the more expensive Asus card (£125) which is meant to be ‘audiophile’ quality and also has a co-ax digital output which is rare, most cards usually have optical output. This is a desirable feature.
One would think with the gain in popularity of Linux over the past decade Creative might have made a little effort to expand their customer base but no, still living in the dark ages.
The caddy mounted in my computer case:
A converter case:
