external soundcard

[pearlrik]

Dear Overlock3d forum members,

i have a question:

the sound of my headphones is really low and i need a external soundcard to boost up the sound.

I want to use it for gaming and watching movies i also want to connect 2 big speakers to the soundcard.

so what i need:

-external soundcard

-connection for 2 speakers and a headphone (pc).

-some way to give the 2 speakers power.

-connection to my pc (DOH!)

*and as bonus i would like it to come with a remote.

about the 2 speakers i have they come with 2 wires a red one and a black one...but i gues i can put a little audio jack on them. (the speakers are ment for a stereo)

I just looked up what kind of speakers they are: philips speakers 4 ohm 60 watt

I have no understanding about audio and soundcard so i hope someone can help me on this forum.

thanks in advance

 

[Diablo]

The speakers won't work without an amplifier. You will need to buy a stereo amp (which will need to be reasonably powerful to drive 60W speakers), soldering a jack on will only ruin your speakers. Try richer sounds for the amp. As for a soundcard, are you sure you can't use an internal card as they tend to be much better, the external sound cards are almost always USB powered and so are quite lossy.

In terms of getting sound to the speakers, you will need a 3.5mm jack to phono lead (which are about £1.50 maybe), which will feed sound to the amp. The sound card alone will not be able to power speakers passively. Also the amp will have to drive 4ohm speakers which will require a slightly more specialised amp. Afraid the speakers plan will cost a fair bit.

 

[pearlrik]

Thanks you for your reply.

I have 2x ati 5770 in my antec 1200 so there is no more room for a sound card so it has to be external.

Maby i can get an amplifier from ebay or somthing.

And maby it was a bad idea, but ill keep searching for a solution

thanks

 

[Diablo]

What motherboard have you got in there? That case is massive, and 5770s are only dual slot. I run two 5970s, a sound card and a network card, and still have an expansion slot spare.

 

[pearlrik]

asrock x58 extreme3

i have 1 slot left but i think its to close to the videocard

 

[AMDFTW]

you got some pics mate

 

[Diablo]

As far as I can tell, you have a 16x then a 1x, then a PCI, then a 16x, PCI, 16x. Assuming you have filled the first and second 16 slots, there is still the PCI and a x16 at the end. Either of these will easily fit a short sound card. I'm reasonably happy with my Creative X-Fi (even if a new digital cable to the IO drive is £20) and that is a x1, thus will fit. You could also have a look at some Auzentech PCI cards, there are a lot of great cards out there that will not intefere with the graphics.

What sort of 5770 is it? Does it have the fan on the end of the card or in the middle? Either way a short X-Fi card will see you happily.

 

[pearlrik]

i got a picture with it ..i hope i did upload it the right way http://img217.imageshack.us/i/img0496cd.jpg/

 

[Diablo]

Two spaces for one, in between the GPUs, in the PCI slot or in the 16x at the bottom. A short soundcard will be fine in there. It will also provide up to 7.1 sound and much better signals to optical recievers and to ordinary headphones etc. than an external solution.

 

[pearlrik]

Two spaces for one, in between the GPUs, in the PCI slot or in the 16x at the bottom. A short soundcard will be fine in there. It will also provide up to 7.1 sound and much better signals to optical recievers and to ordinary headphones etc. than an external solution.

THanks for the help

do u have anny sugetions about a good thin sounds card (5.1 , 7.1)

 

[Diablo]

Depends what you do with your sound and if you game. If you game, an x-fi may well be the way to go, as the sound is pretty decent plus there is the full EAX surround support. Look at the Asus series, but avoid the D2X, sound is lovely, but it has all sorts of issues with games like Fallout 3 and the 3D surround sound in games is very unstable.

I'm not too well up on other soundcards, there are some real crackers out there but it depends if you need decent recording etc.

 

[AMDFTW]

yea most people look at XFI hear is the 2 i was looking at

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Creative-Sound-Blaster-Audigy-SE-71-OEM-PCI-Sound-card

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus...d-192k-24bit-true-PC-Hi-Fi-audio-presentation

not sure on your bydget,i just wanted something for my first leap into sound cards

 

[Diablo]

Yeah the X-Fi tend to be a bit on the pricey side, but then again, an external option probably isn't the cheapest either. I would also look for PCIex1 cards, as they tend to be shorter, and will fit in the bottom slot, next to the cooler card (as the top one tends to do most work hence get hotter).