Customer Reviews

Razer Barracuda AC-1 Gaming Sound Card

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this sound card with the Razer gaming headphones. When everything is working the sound is phenomenal. Unfortunately, I am mostly stuck with only the center channel working when I use the headphones, and when I use speakers I often have random channels cutting in and out for no reason.

This really could be a killer sound card, but Razer needs to work out the bugs first.

I own a Razer mouse, keyboard, headphones, a mouse pad and finally this audio card. I guess I just love the underdog, or maybe it is their cool product names. But unlike the headphones this card is not top notch. The card itself is fine and the potential for awesome 7.1 sound is there, but the software and drivers have given me nothing but grief. It won't save personal settings as it should, individual speakers settings can mysteriously lock on full high, even when the volume is turned down. The list goes on and on.

Of course I have called and e-mailed Razer and spoke to most of their tech' staff, and I have done the various driver/hardware un-re-installs. But still this card won't function properly in any of my computers. Bad unit? No, I rma'd it and the new unit is the same, a simple case of bad software.

So frankly, this particular Razer product just doesn't cut it. I guess it is back to Creative audio for me.

It is a shame really, because for gaming, the headphones are perhaps the best 7.1 surround sound 'phones that have ever graced my head. I just wish Razer would get of it's lazy butt and update the driver to solve some of these problems. It takes more than pretty lights and a cool logo to keep customers like me loyal. We want good products, reasonable service and killer performance. So if I were you, I would head to Creative, 'cause in this case the "big dawgs" win.

This is a great audio card that will work with any speaker system and head set using the adapter, which is supplied. When used with the Razer headset, it provides complete surround sound when gaming or listening to music. The card has optical out, which many people will not be able to use. I have a high end Logitech digital speaker system and therefore am able to use this feature. The control panel for the card, which is loaded into your PC via a CD, is easy to use and it does work well with the headset and speaker system. I highly recommend this card, especially for those who are considering purchasing the Razer headset. A great gaming experience!

Today i swapped out my Creative X-Fi Fatality for the AC-1. I have no regrets...and in fact, im amazed. The AC-1 simply STOMPS the Fatality in every way, and its got a lighted logo on it. The card is just sexy- and it has ENDED Creative's dynasty in the audio card world. GO RAZER

I've had a nightmare with soundcard purchases the last year. My setup is slightly unconventional but nothing so esoteric that it should be completely unsupported (ahem, why doesn't creative have digital SPDIF on their cards without using an ugly front case header?) I use spdif out to a digital receiver and a pair of axiom speakers. Before purchasing this card I used a VIA envy 24 soundcard, which was great for movies, ok for music(I never got ASIO to work with it nor kernal streaming and had to resample from foobar, couldn't bypass the windows mixer) and it was just completely awful for gaming. Up until now it was incredibly difficult to find a sound card which gave you the audiophile essentials and also had game support. With the Barracuda I don't have to mess around with kernal streaming, don't have to hack the soundcard bios or fool around with different drivers to try and get simple functions that should have been their all along. Everything is already taken care of in a seamless way and whatever even better is that my games don't crackle or have sounds drop out as with my old cards. I've used onboard to an x-fi to the envy 24 (once I began using a digital receiver) and finally the Razer Barracuda. I was never happy with any of these cards. Some would do some functions perfectly but totally lacked in other areas. The Barracuda combines the most important aspects to have great sound quality and has added functions that I wished I could have had just a year ago. DTS sounds just incredible if you have the equipment for it.

After a buggy Razer Diamondback mouse and 2 pairs of broken Razer surround headphones, I should have known better than to buy this garbage. If Razer put half as much money into QA as they do into marketing, they might last more than just another couple of years.

Razer let me down with this soundcard. When it works its decent. When it doesnt, which is alot more often its just a headache.

As I mentioned in the title, the product appeared to be very well constructed, but the drivers were the issue for me. They caused too many problems for me, so I ultimately transitioned to a USB driven headset instead of using this card.

I bought this product 3 years ago if i remember right,and got rid of it a year later. The product has very bad razer support. Razer doesnt even update the drivers for it any more.

I had to use drivers from another company changing the device ID around. I repeating emailing razer about new drivers, even telling them i was gonna sell the card if they didnt update the drivers. They told me they was, then they never did 5 months later.

Also the drivers is buggy, you go to make changes and save it. when you reboot the changes isnt saved and you have to re do them again.

Then the razer DSP is just a renamed option thats on other cards based on the chipset.

You better off with a better card, like a Xonar,Forte etc. then trying to use this pos product with bad driver support.

I recently purchased this card, along with the HP-1 headphones, to replace my Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro. I've been impressed overall with the sound quality they produce, though there are a few caveats to keep in mind when considering it.

First, it does not now, nor will it ever support Creative's EAX-HD. It supports EAX 2.0, but support for EAX-HD requires hardware that is simply not present in this, or any other non-Creative sound card.

Second, the configuration menu, while nice looking, is rather un-intuitive. The documentation is sparse, and I've still not identified what all the controls do.

I've used it with both my HP-1 headphones through both the HD-DAI connector and using the supplied adapters, and I've connected my surround sound system using the optical S-PDIF output. I did experience some issues switching back and forth between the HD-DAI and S-PDIF out, in that I have to change 3 or 4 settings in the configuration panel to get the correct sound each time.

Finally, a feature of the software Razer dubs 'Razer ESP'. This is essentially a directsound hack - it alters the rate at which volume is reduced over distance, making far-away sounds easier to hear. This could conceivably provide an advantage, though a learning curve is involved. Personally, I keep this featured disabled, as all it does is make me think the origin of a sound is closer than it really is.

All in all, my recommendation with regard to this product is this: if you're going to spring for the HP-1 headphones to accompany it, this card is a great buy. Setup couldn't be easier, and you'll be enjoying 5.1 surround in no time. However, if you're just looking for a good card to use with a pair of stereo headphones, I'd go with one of the slightly cheaper Creative X-FI cards to get EAX-HD support.