I want to build a few systems on the enthusiast line, with top of the line equipment in them. I I've been looking around for OEM versions of the X-Fi Elite Pro, but I cannot find any. Am I to assume you can't get the Elite Pro as OEM? If not does anyone know if Creative ever plans to release them as OEM or, will they continue to release the crapper ones as OEM only (hope not)? Thanks.

Im pretty sure LINUX will satisfy your needs,theres many different distro's and all of them supple enough to be tailored to your needs,please write if im wrong!!

Actually, I have the Elite Pro (not OEM), but it's FAR from a "crapper". It has to be about the best sound card I have owned. The only problem that exists for me is that the system hangs a little on shutdown after I have used the "audio creation mode" in combination with Adobe Audition2 (one of the drivers refuses to close properly)

Just my personal rant here but I envy you folks that can hear the difference between the sound cards/ chips. Doctor says hearing range is pretty limited. That is my problem. All the hearing specialists I have ever spoken to say the same thing. Males lose a good portion of thier hearing range fairly early in life. My point being CAN you really tell the difference?

>> Im pretty sure LINUX will satisfy your needs,theres many different distro's and all of them supple enough to be tailored to your needs,please write if im wrong!! << Wrong again! A question is asked about sound cards and you answer with a something to do with software. Thats called a non sequitur. Stuart

Im pretty sure LINUX will satisfy your needs,theres many different distro's and all of them supple enough to be tailored to your needs,please write if im wrong!! Why thank you "Dave The Snakes" for that completely unrelated and totally useless bit of information that I so desperately didn't want to know. I'll remember next time whenever I want information about any kind of audio hardware to ask you so I can get the most satisfying and to-the-point answer about brass door knobs. Actually, I have the Elite Pro (not OEM), but it's FAR from a "crapper". It has to be about the best sound card I have owned. The only problem that exists for me is that the system hangs a little on shutdown after I have used the "audio creation mode" in combination with Adobe Audition2 (one of the drivers refuses to close properly) I never said the Elite Pro was crap, I meant that thus far I've only seen Creative shifting things like the X-Fi Music or Gamer or whatever they're called as OEM, and they are crap in comparison to the Elite Pro, hence "the crapper ones". Just my personal rant here but I envy you folks that can hear the difference between the sound cards/ chips. Doctor says hearing range is pretty limited. That is my problem. All the hearing specialists I have ever spoken to say the same thing. Males lose a good portion of thier hearing range fairly early in life. My point being CAN you really tell the difference? Well, yes I can. I'm 22 and I can tell the difference in sound quality quite radically between a cheap set of speakers and a POS on-board sound card and a set of expensive speakers and a realtively good PCI sound card. Not that I'm saying SoundBlasters are the best of the best, they're not. In fact Creative seem to have slipped a bit in recent years, with so many different poxy X-Fi's being labelled as top of the range when in reality only the Elite Pro has the same quality DACs as the Audigy 4. But yea, I can tell the difference. Just like I can tell the difference between a CD and an MP3, or a 192 kbitps MP3 and a 320 kbps mp3. I am aware that it doesn't really matter if I can tell the difference or not, it'll be my customers that want the benefit. Of course if it means I can get an OEM Elite Pro and slap an extra 300 quid on the price of the just because of it I don't really give a toss if I can hear the difference or not or if my customers can or not. Money money money. Anyway sorry for the, two month late reply, I forgot about this topic. Needless to say I haven't got round to equiping my boxes with EPro's yet because I still can't find any OEM versions.