When Apple introduced the latest incarnation of its iMac G5 product line, the reactions were almost exclusively those of praise. They had managed to make the iMac G5 even thinner, while at the same time upgrading its specifications. Apple also introduced Front Row, a remote control, and a built-in iSight camera. MacSupport was so kind as to provide OSNews with this new iMac G5; here are our findings.
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Member since:2005-07-12
Quote: An Audigy 2 is a horribly crappy sound card. At least the Mac's onboard sound doesn't mutilate the audio stream even when using the digital out!
Don't know what Audigy 2 board you've been using... but I suspect it wasn't a Audigy 2... Sounds like you either had the speakers configured incorrectly, or screwed up and turned on EAX for normal playback.
Either that or you were using the CRAP linux drivers (which means the problem does not lie with the card) or had one of the {censored} VIA chipset mainboards with the southbridge incompatability (which probably means a sub 1.5ghz Athlon). Given the hardware is on par with the EMU APS, there's no reason to complain about the audio quality of the audigy 2... Meanwhile I listen to the audio out on a Mac I damn near cringe at the high frequency distortion, hiss and 'boomy' bass (boomy is a insult in audiophile circles)
Originally I thought much of it was just the software, since iTunes playback quality sucks donkey balls... which is why I use XMMS on my iBook, but after testing out both a G4 iMac and a mainstream G5 my finger is pointing squarely at the integrated audio which seems to be on par with the Realtek AC97 (hell, it probably IS a Realtek or similar) which is not exactly the most impressive piece of audio hardware. Sterile, flat, distorted with poor frequency response.
Edited 2006-01-10 12:45
Member since:
2005-07-06
An Audigy 2 is a horribly crappy sound card. At least the Mac's onboard sound doesn't mutilate the audio stream even when using the digital out!