These first 3-wave files are of me reading from a novel. I recorded dry to a microphone through my mixer.

In these 3 I'm playing clean with my electric guitar into a V-Amp2 in stereo and straight to the soundcards bypassing the mixing desk.

The last 3 are my Yamaha synth in stereo with a split piano/synth keyboard straight to the soundcards bypassing the mixing desk.

Some final comments about SoundBlaster cards:

I think these audio tests show that the SoundBlaster card is actually quite good sounding and very quiet. If you listen again through headphones, you'll also see that it has channel separation that seems just about equal to the MIA card. The differences between the SB Live card and the MIA were extremely insignificant. Many of us who have heard these tests agree that the SB Live recordings seem to have just a tad more high end. I believe this may be attributed to the cords I used. Pro Performer cords were used with the MIA card. Monster cable was used for the SB Live card. I've been saying for several years that Monster cable sounds to me like it boosts the top end a little instead of leaving the signal flat. I dislike them for that, however, a Monster cable was the only cord I could find in a Y-cord configuration with a pair of 1/4" jacks on one end and a stereo 1/8" mini-jack on the other which I needed to use the SB Live card.

For those who think I'm advocating the use of SoundBlaster cards for recording purposes, it may surprise you to know that I am not. At least not in a multitrack DAW (digital audio workstation) environment. There are too many better cards out now with more features for the same price. It also has bad latency specs. If you aren't using midi that won't likely be a problem though, and also there's a hack out there that allows you to use ASIO drivers with the SB Live cards and get extremely low latency. I should warn you though that the hack is illegal even though many people use it. But, if you use the ASIO drivers with the SB Live card, you can indeed make some fine multitrack DAW recordings even using midi with it if you want to.

THE SB LIVE CARDS AND THE FIRST AUDIGY CARD ALL HAVE A DEFAULT RECORDING BITRATE/RESOLUTION OF 16/48. Please keep this in mind when recording. If you try to record at any other bitrate or resolution, your DAW software may seem to be recording the signal fine, but you'll find on playback that the tracks will generally fall out of sync with each other 2 to 3 minutes into a song. This is because the card will still be recording at 16/48 but then tries to convert the incoming signal to whatever your DAW is set to on the fly, and it just can't keep up. Also, recording at anything other than the default of 16/48 tends to make the recordings a little harsh sounding, almost mildly distorted. I think this may be the number one reason that SoundBlaster cards have been so maligned over the last few years. People didn't realize they were recording at the wrong bitrate or resolution. The blame can be placed squarely on Creative for this. They don't tell you anywhere in the manual or help files that you need to record at 16/48. I had to dig very deep into their website to find it out. Also, starting with the first Audigy card, they plastered "24/96" all over the box. People naturally thought that this meant the new Audigy cards would record at 24 bit now and with higher resolutions, but the reality is that 24/96 was in reference to the cards playback abilities--not its recording options. The newer Audigy cards will indeed record 24/96 signals. But not the first one. So Creative has only their selves to blame for the SoundBlaster bashing that's come about. Whether they were being purposely deceptive or simply made some honest mistakes is hard to say.

Now let's look at Behringer mixer pre-amps. I'll test a very inexpensive Behringer 8-channel mixer--the Eurorack MX 802A (list price about $100) against an inexpensive but highly acclaimed ART Tube MP tube pre-amp. I'll use a good quality Marshall 1" condenser microphone for the voice test, along with running my Ibanez 335 style guitar through a VAmp-2 to see how the pre-amps stack up in some simple recordings.

How Did They Stack Up?

As in the Sound Card tests, the differences between these two products were extremely minute, hardly noticeable. The Tube MP, like all tube pre-amps, will give you a very slight increase in both lows and highs. Sometimes that's nice with certain instruments and with certain vocalists. Other times it can rob an instrument of its natural warmth and make it sound artificially made as though it's been EQ'd poorly, and of course it has been EQ'd to some extent because tubes change frequencies depending on the types of tubes used and other circuitry involved. Some exaggerate certain frequencies more than others. Most solid state pre-amps tend to sound flatter. Sometimes that's good and other times you'll be reaching for the EQ. At any rate, the differences in sound between tube pre-amps and those built into even the least expensive mixing boards are extremely small. I've heard $2,000 tube pre-amps that didn't sound any different from this tiny Behringer mixer.

This test doesn't in my mind do anything to knock tube pre-amps; rather, it only goes to show how great recording technology has gotten so that even a $100 mixer can have pre-amps that sound nearly identical to the very expensive analog circuitry available just 10 to 20 years ago. Is it worth it to spend large sums of money on tube pre-amps nowadays? Also, it's become (to my astonishment) commonplace to see folks in home recording using some kind of pre-amp(s) instead of owning a mixing desk. Considering the routing flexibility of a recording desk, along with the cheap prices you pay for them now and their great sound which rival (and in some situations surpass) even the most expensive tube pre-amps, it's hard to recommend outboard pre-amps to anyone these days. Atop of that, the sound between this little Behringer mixer and a tube pre-amp of any kind is so close already that I can adjust the EQ just a tiny bit to duplicate the sound of any pre-amp made with minimal effort either on the mixing desk itself or in my DAW. Another thing to consider with tube pre-amps is that they introduce a small amount of noise into a recording. It's not really enough to worry about, but it's something else to bear in mind.