I have a MSI KT6 Delta motherboard with a Cmedia CMI9739/A audiocard and as far as i know
there are no drivers for ALSA and the ones for OSS are outdated and crap
(C-medias website is like a joke, for example the email adress to the webmaster is root@localhost).
F U C-media, im never going to buy something from that company again!
The default driver that came with FC2 (snd_via82xx) is really bad; sometimes it works sometimes
it doesn't and you can't change the software volume.

So my questions is: what is the best soundcard for Linux? (it should have good drivers but
shouldn't cost to much).

hey, i have a kt6 delta, and i'm very sensitive about it! no i know all the problems with sound and such.

you should go to the Hardware Compatability List here at LQ and look at sounds cards that people have already documented their experiences with: http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php?cat=23

from just looking at the first few manufacturers, it looks like the Aurel Vortex 2 is a good candidate. but serach for yourself. people doument hardware by what distros its worked with for them, so just look out for when someone mentions fedora.

I suggest Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. The 5.1 surround sound works very good and it sounds very clear. You can get Creative Labs Soundblaster LIVE but it sounds horrible. Also Audigy cards sounds worst than the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. You can get the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (OEM) for little over $40 at newegg. There is one thing wrong with CS46xx ALSA drivers is during recording stereo. You will have to use Audacity or any sound editing program to amplify the left channel +6dB. This does not hurt the soundstage but it can introduce a little noise in the left channel. I put a bug report on ALSA's site, so eventually they will fix it

Thx for the soundcard list! Didn't knew there was one .
About Santa Cruz: it seems nice, the only problem is that
i live in sweden and it costs ALOT of money to ship it here.

Not this again.. .


Electro,
The Sound Blaster Audigy sounds great under Linux. . . Much better then any on-board solution and it is fully compatible (everything works, just as it should.) The OEM Audigy is cheap, and dispite what you seem to always boast, works and sounds just as good... if not better then the Santa Cruz. Just because you own one, does not mean it's the best card in the bloody universe. . .

I mean, why in the hell would you 'suggest' a card that has driver issues? +6db on a channel is quite out of the question from an audiophile point of view.

I would point out the Sound Blaster Audigy. . . with Alsa drivers built in with a 2.6 kernel. It works without a hic-up, drivers run smoothly and paired with a good set of speakers it is one of the best sounding consumer cards around.

slackMeUp, you did not read my post correctly. When recording in stereo, it has a problem. It does not have any problem on playback or recording in mono.

The best sound card is the Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1. ALSA drivers for it is a little glitchy.

IMO, Creative Labs makes crappy sound cards. All they want to do is put features, features, and features on it. They do not invest a lot of time on sound quality. I'm not going to buy any Creative Labs anymore.

The ALSA drivers for Audigy can not be use in mplayer because it will hiss a lot if you want 5.1 output. With the Santa Cruz, it does not.

Well that's still a driver issue...

That's your opinion, and I can see it to be true if you are talking about anything Live 5.1 and older... pure crap.

I find that the sound quality out of an audigy is really good... just the depth of playback is far better then any onboard software driven card.

That's a lie.

If it did not work for one person (or a few), that does not mean it does not work for everybody. I've used Mplayer to watch DVDs (but I use Xine now) and with 5.1 decoding it sounds just fine. No 'hissing' sound at all. (and the same goes for two channel sources downmixed to 5.1 channels.)
The card I use is based on the tritech chip... rev2 of the card I think. Maybe the newer Audigy cards have this problem, but this is the First I have heard about it.