How to get good audio, does a soundcard matter?

[kalniel]

I've yet to hear an external DAC do gaming positional audio yet.

Positional audio for headphones? It's rubbish, even with the best sound card

[bluepumpkin]

Thank you all for your advise and I will let you know what i go with.
The finance isn't really an issue (within reason £100's OK but not thousands). I will borrow my friends Shure DJ headphones to see the difference. I think i will go for using an external DAC (it means if i move to an ultrabook from desktop i can still use it) using the SPDIF. Thank you for the comments, its great to get a good mix of opinions without ulterior motives (like shops or some review sites).

[rs4847]

Positional audio for headphones? It's rubbish, even with the best sound card

Depends on your hearing and the games audio engine, works quite well here enhanced by the X-Fi enough to make me dizzy if I close my eyes.

[kalniel]

Depends on your hearing and the games audio engine, works quite well here enhanced by the X-Fi enough to make me dizzy if I close my eyes.

OK I'll rephrase - I can't live with the distortion that's induced to the sounds, at least by the Dolby and CMSS methods I've tried.

[exarchi]

Got an old x-fi card myself, been using it for years and never fails to perform.

[rs4847]

OK I'll rephrase - I can't live with the distortion that's induced to the sounds, at least by the Dolby and CMSS methods I've tried.

As you are no doubt aware any audio interpretation is purely subjective.

I don't notice any distortion with either CMSS3D or DH and have been trying out THX TruStudio Pro but have yet to find a balance with it. Of course none of these positional technologies are any match to A3D or even EAX thanks to crappy console ports.