Home > Consumer Reviews > Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI Sound Card

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.

I love really good equipment- and this card is the best overall. It has better driver support for more games- a better user interface than creatives cards ( I have a SB live also) and has a smaller CPU usage footprint...and it's cheaper. It's an ABSOLUTE steal- yes It's better that SB live value- LIVE!- and IMHO- better than ALL audigy cards for gaming- it's gives less trouble and runs better on most games. 5.1/6.1 sound- versa jack- sound options out he WAZOO! I built a new rig with MSI 415d motherboard (Nvida chipset) AMD athalon xp2100 OCZ PC 2700, Coolermaster ALUM. case, HCC_001 CM HS, and by my choice (and i had the money to but Audigy) I plugged a new Santa cruise in this baby- ...and...it rocks.

Having heard a SB Audigy Platinum Sound Card in action, I have to tell you that this thing is the real deal for ALOT less. It's got support for EVERY speaker combination you can think of, from 2, to 4, and then the 5.1 6 Speaker setup. I've got the Promedia 5.1 System, and this is the PERFECT card for it. I didn't think I needed to go any further than the Turtle Beach to get top quality sound, and I guessed right. If you buy a Sound Blaster, you'll probably get the same quality, with a few extra features, and a more recognized brand name. However, if your into performance and bang for the buck, rather than brand names, look no further.

The installation was simple, pull out the old card, plug this one in. The diagram on the back of the box is plenty detailed enough to help you find where your speaker plugs go. The installaion disk installed itself in about 1 minute, and I was rolling with REAL 5.1 Surround Sound.

The control panel is great, plenty of detail to adjust the card to perform to your specifications. It's a fancy card for a discounted price, but your not paying for it by getting less quality. This is a GREAT sound card. Dell sells these with the 8200 series line, and they rarely make mistakes.

If you've got a 5.1 System, I ESPECIALLY reccomend this, because you need the 6 speaker support. If your just looking to upgrade, look no further.

Good luck and take care.

Well, I now make a partial living from building high end to Mid end cpmputer gaming systems. On the motherboards that do not have the C-Media 8738 onboard sound, or the N-Force Dolby (c) sound, I always use the Turtle Beach Santa Cruise, never a Soundblaster of any kind. The SB series do work great on Intel chipset motherboards, and they sound nice, but not as nice as this TB Santa Cruise, and the TB card works on so many more game titles and motherboard chipsets -- Via, SIS, ...and gives hardly any problems---if any at all. Mostly I build with Soyo, Biostar, And Epox motherboards for thr AMD XP 1600-2800. On ther Soyo boards, the C-Media is fairly nice, but on Epox and Biostar, they usually have the AC97 onboard sound, which I replace with the Santa Cruise. Fistly, the interface is simple and has many options--but not TOO many, like the SB series---so many that you are overwhelmed, and most of them you will never use, but on the Santa Cruise---you will use most of them, and it's a true digital card, and you can create so many cool sound effects, like using the "sewer pipe" effect while playing Half Life. The SB Audidy cards would be nice if they actually worked on all chipsets, and did not have so much "bloatware" that you will never use. You want clean-clear-crisp--no skipping--no popping, and want it to work on all your game titles? -- and you want it to be perfect for music? Look no further..........

< This is the card to get> :)

Way back in the day, when SB 8-bit was the coolest thing around.. everyone had one, cause thats what was out. Then a few years back there was some good compition in the sound card market. Creative Labs, and Aureal to be specific. I went Aureal (rip)when I built my last system... and it has lasted me for these last few years. I was never a fan of SB or SB Live! price vs performace, or features for that matter. A3D (i think, and most will agree) kicked EAX right in the pants. My last card, Aureals Vortex SQ2500, I absolutly loved. Music, 3d gaming, all rocked. Matched with Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 I have been totally happy until I upgraded my system (2.4 P4) and to Win XP Pro. Since Aureal went belly up, support for XP just isn't there. I lost quad sound, the great Aureal control panel. Time to upgrade, and i figured SB was going to be the only choice. But I searched around, and found the Santa Cruz. Familiar with the Turtle Beach name, and what info I gathered, seemed wise to purchase one. Awesome. Easy to install, new XP drivers right off the webpage. Music sounds even better to me now. I really like the control panel layout, and a real EQ, like my old Aureal card. Effects sound great, and none of that system hogging, useless software that SB crams on your computer. I reccomend this card for anyone, music lover, gamer.. doesn't matter. Solid card, lots of features, can't go wrong. To top it off, cheaper than SB cards. Only gripe: no games bundled :) Haha, but i can't live with that for sure.