Sound Card

[hank]

I've always used onboard sound with good speakers.

Does a separate soundcard make all that much of a difference?

My new build is based on an asus PQ5 - not sure what onboard sound is like on that.

I've been brought up on hifi separates, so I appreciate good sound. My 2.1 speakers for the pc are very good indeed. Just wondering if there is value in adding a separate soundcard?

Any thoughts?

[Stringent]

You are a fan of hi-fi separates, so you will understand if you have a decent amp and crap speakers, you are not really going to hear much of a difference. Same with a sound card. You need something good to hear it on.

I have always liked a separate sound card, have a Xi-Fi Xtreme Music and the quality is good, plus if you want you can do all the EAX effects. Sometimes with wear onboard cards begin to crackle or feedback (common in laptops). If you have a few quid to spare then get one. Won't do any harm.

[hank]

... I don't know what I've opened here, I don't know what EAX is all about. I'll have to read up.

Most of my soundcard forum searches seem to discuss the X-Fi cards - but there is a large difference in price on those cards?

Any specific specs I should be looking for?

[shaithis]

I found the Asus Xonar to have far superior sound quality to the XFI (I have the XFi Fatal1ty and the Xonar D2X).

This is both via the analogue (Sennheisser PC161 headphones) and the digital out (Pioneer VSX-AX4ASi amp + Mordaunt Short 9 series speakers)

The DolbyLive feature is great (5.1 DD or DTS encoding on-the-fly) as is the Dobly headphone feature.


I believe these features are now included with some Creative cards but even though my XFi is more then capable of utilising the features (as evidenced by modified drivers) creative want me to buy a new soundcard to get them.

For that reason alone I would stay clear of creative, their business practices have been laid bare for all to see recently and many are far from happy with what they are seeing.

[hank]

I see that the Asus Xonar D2X is around £111 - this is in a different ballpark to what I thought I'd need.

At what price point does it makes sense to upgrade to a soundcard?

Are those £30 XFi cards useless?

[shaithis]

In Vista, if you use an amp connected via a digital link (SPDIF/Coax), the creative cards are pretty crap. Even more so if your running Vista x64.

There are cheaper Xonar cards as well though and I am sure their drivers function correctly

http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=804924 (PCI-E)

http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=874546 (PCI)

[DDY]

Are you a gamer at all?

If yes, I suggest you stay away from Asus Xonar cards, for now anyway. They're plagued with driver bugs, the DS3D GX 2.0 which emulates EAX5 has serious compatibility issues with a few recent games. Some problems have been fixed but there are still a fair amount that needs fixing.

From experience with a X-Fi Elite Pro, X-Fi Titanium and Xonar DX on Vista x64, the two X-Fi's have virtually no issues with current games where the Xonar DX has some.

While listening to music through Sennheiser 555 headphones, I don't have a preference between the X-Fi or Xonar, all of them do a great job.

[hank]

I do play games at times. However, I'm stuck in a timewarp and play ut99 only. I'm putting together a PC with the generous spec help from fellow Hexus members that I am grateful for, and now I just musing with the idea if I should need a sound card (the new spec should allow me to try Crysis etc.).

I think perhaps I'll add a soundcard as an added extra later after experience the onboard sound first. Hopefully, the driver issues etc on the Asus may be resolved. I must admit, from what I've read so far, I'm not overly keen on Creative's business practices so would try to avoid if possible.