Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI Sound Card

Great card. Have used it in 3 machines now and not a single problem with installation or usage.Puzzled by the negative reviews but then I figured it out. Odds are that these people are hearing what actually is on their machines. The Santa Cruz board plays true sound. So if you have a lousy copy of music or a game with lousy sound, that is what you are going to hear.I have found this with some of my music. What sounded OK using my Creative sound board sounded lousy with the Santa Cruz board. The reason was that the music was lousy and the Creative board muddied the sound so much that it masked the flaws in the music. When I reloaded songs directly from clean CD's, the music was great.Also the choice of outputs is a great feature. It allows you to have multiple outputs.So the only caveat I have is, if you want to hear superb music from the Santa Cruz board, make sure the music you are trying to play is clean and not the 25th copy of the song. Every time you copy music or video on a computer it picks up flaws and drops notes. After a few iterations you have muddy music and the Santa Cruz board will play just what you input into it. Garbage In Garbage Out.

This product is not what is advertised on the box. Apparently, in the past, this was a retail version product. Now, the software is unavailable, the user guide is not included, and they offer no support for this product. A phone call to the company left me even more confused when they said the ones being sold now are OEM versions of the card that were packaged in a new retail version box. Don't expect any help in installing the card, using the features, or getting any of the cool software advertised on the box, it's not going to happen.

I was misled by the box's labeling which stated that it was dolby digital compatible... It is, if you send the digital signal to an external dolby digital processor. It does not decode dolby digital itself. I recommend going with a Creative Sound Blaster. You get the card that does the dolby digital decoding itself for just a little bit more money.If you don't care about that aspect of signal processing, then it would be a good card for you.

Works with XP and a PCI slot after XP it's not so good. Actually I think its been discontinued.

I recently upgraded from basic speakers to a 5:1 speaker set and discovered a hardware problem with my old sound card, a Creative Labs card that was a standard component with my system. The documentation that came with the card wasn't great, and it took a while to identify the problem, so I was looking outside the Creative family for my next sound card. I'd read several good reviews of the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card, so I figured I'd take a shot on it.That shot definitely paid off. I have nothing but good things to say about my new sound card: installation was easy (I only had to unhook the microphone connector from my old card and snap it onto this one), the drivers installed quickly and easily, and the accompanying software was far superior to the software that I had from Creative. There are a host of sound options available: your standard volume-by-source controls, a graphic equalizer that can be turned on and off with several presets, options for multiple speaker setups with an accompanying image showing where your speakers should be connected (2 speakers, 4 speakers, 5:1, and so on), and additional applications if you want to get more involved.I haven't had a chance to put the card through its paces with a decent game, but the difference in listening to my iTunes files is amazing, and the control I have over the music is great. I'd definitely recommend this card to anyone looking for a reasonably-priced, fairly high-powered sound card, and with Amazon's newly-lowered price, it's an even better deal than when I got it. Buy it and enjoy!

Turtle Beach's Santa Cruz is a welcome alternative to the everpresent Creative line of sound cards.When I first opened the box, I was disappointed. The box is enormous, but there is almost nothing in it. There is a PCI card, a CD in a paper sleeve, a quick start fold-out, and a warranty registration card. I expected at least a dozen-page manual, and its ommission made me cautious.Installation is easy, though it did require at least two reboots to complete. The full product manual is available on the install CD as a PDF.I upgraded to a Santa Cruz from a Creative SB Live! Value. I upgraded for a few specific reasons. My old card had all the features I wanted - it supported quadraphonic sound, had all the inputs and outputs (digital and analog) that I wanted. Technically, though, it was lacking - the Live! line has notorious problems with interrupt sharing, which modern Windows systems use incessantly. Despite driver upgrades, I had popping, stuttering audio.No more with the Santa Cruz. The new soundcard is much more reliable than the old. I did not expect to hear an audible difference in the sound quality, but I did. The Santa Cruz is crisp and clear, with a very low noise floor. The positional audio is also impeccable. A last unexpected benefit is that it runs much, much cooler than my old Live! did. The main chip on my Live! would be noticibly warm to the touch, but the Santa Cruz stays nice and cold. With summer upon us, every bit of cooling in your PC helps.The bundled software is not flashy, but it is definitely adequate. The tools provided are small and unobtrusive. There is one utility that loads into the tray by default, replacing the standard volume control. I haven't tried disabling that yet, but it is hardly noticeable. There is an eq and an effects selector, with the ability to save presets for quick retrieval.Although I have only quad speakers, the Santa Cruz supports everything from headphones (with virtual surround!) to 5.1 format audio. It also supports several environmental effect standards: In addition to the DirectSound3d, it supports EAX 1.0, EAX 2.0, A3D, IA3D, and Sensaura.The bottom line is that this is a great card. Turtle Beach has a good reputation for good sound cards, and I'm glad that I finally made the switch.