soundcard and speaker combo

[Flibb]

Just been reading the what soundcard thread, which has got me thinking.

Currently have an audigy 2 that's being problematic in win7 64, for some reason I keep getting recording problems, I also get choppy sound in game (HL2 mods mainly). My use is basically fps games (mainly headphones) and music (headphone or speakers). The Asus cards seem interesting with a well featured control panel, any idea how good dolby headphone is?

I also need to change my speakers, currently have altec lansing 2.1 setup, but need to lose the subwoofer due to a printer now living where the sub was. So can anybody recommend a pair of speakers with reasonable bass? Had wondered about these for £50ish
http://www.testfreaks.co.uk/pc-speak...es-xps-2-0-60/

I currently use steel series headphones for gaming, and sen HD570s for music. Budget for speakers and soundcard is under £100 for the lot.

Cheers

[Uriel]

Dolby Headphone can be great, but it uses a generic Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) so is reliant on you having a good match to get the best effect. It can be superb for one person and do little for the next.

For me, it's the best headphone surround virtualisation I've tried. Much more convincing than CMSS-3D Headphone on X-Fi. When using it I've reached to turn my 5.1 speakers off and found that they already were.

It's quite dependent on headphone synergy though. On some headphones it can sound very artificial, particularly ones designed to sound more speaker like anyway.

You mention audio choppiness in HL2 though. HL2 uses a software based audio engine so you might find that the problem isn't your soundcard at all. What's the rest of your PC spec?

[Flibb]

The choppy sound thing is also evident when using audacity to record sound, other people that have the same problem seem to be using audacity and win7 64bit with 4gb plus of RAM. System specs are the same as listed in Flibbs system to the left.