If you are planning to use a Live!, Audigy or Audigy 2 (Audigy 2 ZS and above don't need the setting marked in yellow) these settings will give you the highest quality. The cards prior to the Audigy 2 ZS used an AC'97 (similar to worse quality than realtek integrated AC'97 audio) codec on the front outputs but not on the rear. So a trick to get better quality was to map the front audio to the rear outputs. Luckily MorphOS supports doing this. Setting the frequency to 48000 Hz is required (or does the MorphOS driver somehow bypass the DSP?) to avoid distortion from the card attempting to resample all audio to 48000 Hz. The distortion can be as severe as clicks, pops, or even stuttering.

soundblastersettings.jpg

So, after setting the card up like in the picture repeat them for Unit0 as well. Then just plug your speakers into the rear audio output (black on Live! cards).

Even after these settings the quality of the integrated audio (especially with later powermac g4s) is probably about the same as the Soundblaster Live!. If you are having trouble with the integrated audio, have grounded speakers (thats a whole other issue with the g4s), or want multichannel audio then the Live! is a clear winner.

With the Audigy and above the cards start to pull away from the built in audio of the G4s. Given how subjective perceived audio quality is the best choice is ultimately whatever sounds best to your ears.

[ Edited by baisaz on 2010/10/29 16:20 ]