Sound Card poll - who's got a stand alone soundcard?

[kalniel]

Apparently some stuff about improving signal to noise to ratio(apparently) - not sure if it has any real effect TBH.

Upsampling shouldn't change the amplitude, so wouldn't have any effect on signal (even if you could determine what was signal and what was noise. For eg, Dolby works by throwing away high frequency.)

[peterb]

Upsampling shouldn't change the amplitude, so wouldn't have any effect on signal (even if you could determine what was signal and what was noise. For eg, Dolby works by throwing away high frequency.)

Not really - Dolby B pre-emphasises the high frequencies during recording and de-emphasises the same band during playback. As noise is predominantly a high frequency phenomenon, de-emphasising the HF band reduces hiss and subjectively improves the SNR in those bands.

[kalniel]

Not really - Dolby B pre-emphasises the high frequencies during recording and de-emphasises the same band during playback. As noise is predominantly a high frequency phenomenon, de-emphasising the HF band reduces hiss and subjectively improves the SNR in those bands.

The pre-emphasis (gain) causes HF to clip, so when you attenuate back to normal levels you have effectively thrown away or at least attenuated HF more than other frequencies because you didn't amplify it as much in the first case. It is still just a HF filter though in effect.

[peterb]

The pre-emphasis (gain) causes HF to clip, so when you attenuate back to normal levels you have effectively thrown away or at least attenuated HF more than other frequencies because you didn't amplify it as much in the first case. It is still just a HF filter though in effect.

It doesn't cause it to clip - that would just introduce distortion, but the de-emphasis transfer function matches the pre-emphasis transfer function (its dynamic rather than passive filtering) so the HF bands are the same relative amplitude after processing as they were before, just the hiss is reduced as that is introduced after the pre-processing but before the de-emphasis.

[GoNz0]

My games rig has a Creative ZXR, I got it to power my cans as the Asus board despite it's 600ohm claims had no bass as it couldn't drive them, I have the original Sennheiser PC350's (300ohm)

[Zak33]

My games rig has a Creative ZXR, I got it to power my cans as the Asus board despite it's 600ohm claims had no bass as it couldn't drive them, I have the original Sennheiser PC350's (300ohm)

is it good? the ZXR?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

My games rig has a Creative ZXR, I got it to power my cans as the Asus board despite it's 600ohm claims had no bass as it couldn't drive them, I have the original Sennheiser PC350's (300ohm)

I have the PC350SE which is apparently lower than that,but for a PC based headset the impedence is still high at 150 Ohms.

I have a Myryad Z40 headphone amp and they are much harder to drive than my Grados or other headphones,and by comparison an HD598 is around 50 Ohms.

[GoNz0]

is it good? the ZXR?

Yes a very good card, it just works. It would do some serious hearing damage at full volume, max I go is about 1/3rd of the volume on the headphones.

I have the PC350SE which is apparently lower than that,but for a PC based headset the impedence is still high at 150 Ohms.

I have a Myryad Z40 headphone amp and they are much harder to drive than my Grados or other headphones,and by comparison an HD598 is around 50 Ohms.

I think it may be 150ohms after all not 300

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think it may be 150ohms after all not 300

Its much more difficult to drive than a number of decent headphones which is funny when you consider its a headset made to be plugged into PCs. My Grados only are 32 Ohms in comparison!!

[GoNz0]

Its much more difficult to drive than a number of decent headphones which is funny when you consider its a headset made to be plugged into PCs. My Grados only are 32 Ohms in comparison!!

I don't know what they thought when making these, all the revised models are lower ohms making them suitable for most soundcards. They are very good quality when driven with a card like mine. I modded them with the bass mod and replaced the pu cups for velour and they still pack a punch.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[TooNice]

I haven't used a desktop in over 7 years due not having a permanent base, and I also do not listen to music as much I used to, meaning that it has also been a while since I used some of my more demanding headphones.

But I am a bit doubtful that onboard sound card today can deal with demanding headphones much/any better than years ago, simply because those headphones remains, and will forever remain niche.

For those who want to get the most out of their high end headphones though, it basically mean either getting a prosumer sound card with decent DAC and amp, or get an external DAC / amp combo. The later has greater potential (depending on how much you will spend), and either way it can easily cost in the three digits. Back then, I did opt for the discrete sound card option though, as discrete sound card also offered some gaming features.. and if I was to build a new desktop I would still look into it as an option. TBH, I do not really want to give Creative a penny and if EAX and the likes are a thing of the past, I might be tempted to go for the external DAC option.. but I do also think it is a bit of a shame that there hasn't been anything real exciting in regards to PC audio in so, so long.

[s88urd]

I have a standalone sound card which is a x-fi titanium HD.
Mainly purchased this because I was using my machine for listening to music so was more focused on the stereo output as opposed to additional features.

[Millennium]

Can anyone suggest a good USB 2.0 to SPDIF device that can support 24bit/176khz? My Xonar looks like it would do that fine for my AMD PC (though I haven't been using SPDIF for a while, got too many USB dacs and ferraced cables on the way). Confused.code