Thinking about getting a soundcard
- Thread starter Excalabur50
- Start date
Wraith
Bettyswollocks
I'm with SuB on this, I use a Dac and Senns for both music and gaming and while they are awesome nothing will compare to dedicated sound cards made to bring you true environmental audio, I had the Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold back in 96' which was the last sound card I ever owned and I still to this day remember just how different it was compared to today.
Excalabur50
Well-known member
From what I'm reading here maybe as Thelosouvlakia and Tom said the Creative X7 might really be the way to go it's basically a dac and soundcard rolled into one and is the best of both worlds guess I need to save a bit longer for it though $539 ouch.......
And to everyone who commented my thanks
And to everyone who commented my thanks
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
Don't know what gear you guys are using, but I hear "3d enivormnetal sound" perfectly using a dac/amp. I hear footsteps just as great, and anything else you can think of. I've used the 7.1 crap before on an older PC my family had with a Creative one(don't remember model name but it was a little before the Titanium came out iirc) and all I remember was it sounded bad and now, everything is bliss and sounds natural.
jimma47
New member
I have an X-Fi and I love it - it must be ancient now. I've used it as an audio passthrough from my PS3 to my 5.1 PC speakers via optical and the quality is great. Some issues with W10 when I first upgraded but hey that's to be expected considering how old it is plus it's all sorted now.
Unless you have really high end headphones I doubt you'll have issues driving them so the DAC/Amp combo which I admit look sweet on your desk are probably not actually that much better - especially If you want to use the optical out for existing amp.
Unless you have really high end headphones I doubt you'll have issues driving them so the DAC/Amp combo which I admit look sweet on your desk are probably not actually that much better - especially If you want to use the optical out for existing amp.
SPS
Moderator
Excalabur don't spend over $500, it's overkill.
Just get something that has optical and analogue out that can drive those headphones.
Unless you're using headphones designed for surround sound, I can't see why a soundcard would be different to a regular amp/dac setup. The audio middleware i.e. FMOD/WWise downmixes the 3D audio into stereo so the soundcard would just receive stereo anyway. If you set it to output 5.1/7.1 then it's different but then the soundcard is surely going to try and output across 2/3 channels.
https://www.audiokinetic.com/library/edge/?source=Help&id=speakers_vs_headphones_panning_rules
Just get something that has optical and analogue out that can drive those headphones.
Unless you're using headphones designed for surround sound, I can't see why a soundcard would be different to a regular amp/dac setup. The audio middleware i.e. FMOD/WWise downmixes the 3D audio into stereo so the soundcard would just receive stereo anyway. If you set it to output 5.1/7.1 then it's different but then the soundcard is surely going to try and output across 2/3 channels.
https://www.audiokinetic.com/library/edge/?source=Help&id=speakers_vs_headphones_panning_rules
Excalabur50
Well-known member
Well I can get the limited X7 from creative for 489 the zxr for 279.96 all with free postage otherwise its 366 for the zxr or 550 for the non limited edition x7 from PCCG
Sod it I think I will just get the zxr as it's not much more than the zx at regular prices with postage and maybe cheaper and if I hate it well i'll just sell it on
Sod it I think I will just get the zxr as it's not much more than the zx at regular prices with postage and maybe cheaper and if I hate it well i'll just sell it on
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Unless things have changed, the driver support for the phoebus is non existant and buggy. Are there even drivers for Win10?
I still think my Soundblaster Audigy 2 platinum was the best ive had. zero latency with my guitar when plugged in via line in. It also allowed simultaneous ASIO inputs so I could play at the same time of playing an audio MP3 for example.
I tried doing this with the ASUS STX and regardless of ASIO delay i still have a 60ms delay which is off putting.
AlienALX
Well-known member
The only standalone DAC/AMP I have is an Aune TK1 valve amp. The other two are onboard my sound cards, then fed into amps.
I certainly won't buy another one. Just amps for me now.
Kilbane
Hagrid Look-A-Like
Full driver and software support in Win10, I have been on Windows 10 since the early pre release builds, never had an issue with my Phoebus.
AlienALX
Well-known member
Yup no issues to report with my D2X. I'm not using the aftermarket driver either.
One issue I did have was with X99 and the D2X. Basically when you booted the rig the sound card would click as it has relays on. However, it would not work until you put the rig to sleep, then woke it. You would then hear a double click and it would work.
I put up with doing that every day until recently when I was conned on Ebay. I bought a Xeon that turned out to be a rip off, but during that time I thought "Oh yeah, better update my bios for Broadwell".
I got my money back and the bios update stopped the issue with the D2X. Win ! Every cloud and all that
Dawelio
Active member
Well I am seriously considering an soundcard today, but I am totally out of the game on them. I'm not as familiar with sound cards as I am with mices, headsets, hardware etc.
I just got the new Sennheiser GSP 300 Black/blue version and what soundcard would you guys recommend?.
I'd prefer a soundcard that doesn't look like the D2X, which looks just like an PCB with capasitors on etc. As it won't really go well with my system, not like something that has a shroud like the Essence STX or Phoebus (I think?).
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AlienALX
Well-known member
The first thing to test is whether your sound card (onboard) can play 192khz.
To test it right click the speaker in your task bar. Go to playback devices. Right click on your sound device and go to properties.Click the advanced tab. Set it to 24 bit 192000Hz (Studio quality).
Click test. If it plays sound then you don't really need a sound card, you just want a headphone amp.
Most onboard sound cards these days can do pretty much everything a high end sound card does. However, sound cards do have better amplification circuitry however that's no valid reason to buy one. I would much rather have a good headphone amp driving my headphones than just the sound card alone.
I have tried various headphone amps and ended up settling on two of the best. One for pre amp, one for power amp. I loved the honesty of the Graham Slee Novo Entheos, but I loved the warmth of the Little Dot MKII. However, the LD was not powerful enough to drive my planar magnetic headphones, so I just use it to shape the sound before it goes into the GS.
However, during my time testing I bought a Little Dot MK1, link here -
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Dot...TF8&qid=1480546928&sr=8-2&keywords=little+dot
It's not full valve, so is far more powerful than the MK2. However, the sound is absolutely the best I have heard from an amp costing that much. Sadly mine had a bad solder point in the valve holder so had to go back. I decided to go with the MK2 instead.
SuB
The Webmaster
output from onboard cards is pretty solid these days, I think the main place where they fall down is in the microphone input. As someone that frequently uses Teamspeak, the amount of people with buzzing, badly isolated mic jacks on their onboard soundcards still amazes me.
They put in all this isolation circuitry (which they then fill with LEDs in most cases now, so.. what's the point??) but the Mic's almost always still suffer. Having a nicely shielded sound card can make a big difference. USB headsets / sound can be a bugger for this and sometimes introduce a hum (not always though) but again I still think that's largely due to just having noisey voltage on the USB ports (because who needs it clean for plugging in USB3.0 stuff right?).
They put in all this isolation circuitry (which they then fill with LEDs in most cases now, so.. what's the point??) but the Mic's almost always still suffer. Having a nicely shielded sound card can make a big difference. USB headsets / sound can be a bugger for this and sometimes introduce a hum (not always though) but again I still think that's largely due to just having noisey voltage on the USB ports (because who needs it clean for plugging in USB3.0 stuff right?).
Dawelio
Active member
Thanks for this, I have the ASUS X99 Strix motherboard, but gonna test this out though to see if my motherboard does this to my Sennheiser GSP 300's
Ahh okay, so that is why I hear small buzz sound in the back of my older Logitech G35's in Teamspeak then?... So theoretically, compressed airing the USB port will do the trick?
Excalabur50
Well-known member
Well I bit the bullet and took a chance and I bought the ZXR got it for the same price as a ZX would cost me normally so will let you all know how I get on with it when it arrives they said 9-14-dec
I decided not to go Asus as I had lots of issues with the STX for some reason and didn't want to try them again at this stage unless this one im getting turns out to be a piece of crap but i will keep you all upto date here as things progress
And once again I wish to thank everyone for their input
I decided not to go Asus as I had lots of issues with the STX for some reason and didn't want to try them again at this stage unless this one im getting turns out to be a piece of crap but i will keep you all upto date here as things progress
And once again I wish to thank everyone for their input
SuB
The Webmaster
So theoretically, compressed airing the USB port will do the trick?
No, that won't fix voltage noise
