Well I've been speculating for a while now, whether or not to buy a sound card. I've heard people say that the onboard sound card is nothing compared to a dedicated sound card, and I'm starting to hear the lack of detail and "flatness" when using my onboard sound card. I've been looking at the Auzentech Prelude and Forte, and I'm leaning towards the Forte because of its headphone amp, but supposedly the Prelude uses higher quality OPAMPs, other than the front DACs. But, considering that I'm looking more for music quality than I am for gaming support (like EAX), which card should I go with? Would an Asus or Omega card be better for sound quality? Although I have a pair of KEF 104aB's and a good set of Yamaha pre/power amps, I'm mainly looking to see what is better for the Sony MDR-7506 headphones. Oh, and hopefully the price isn't over $200.Thanks.
Have you got a spare PCIe slot? If you do, go ahead and have a look at the Forte. Otherwise the Prelude is your needs.
Yeah, I have an extra PCIe and PCI slot, so compatibility won't be much of a problem. Â I was also thinking the Forte would be a better choice, although, is the Forte a good card for music? Are other cards, such as the Prelude or Xonar Essence STX/ST noticeably better than the Forte when listening to music?
Oh, the Xonar Essence STX is the bomb in anything, I really liked that sound card. And the price wasn't my wallet monster either, but unfortunately the stock succeded in draining to death- o wait, it's back!!! :D I'd recommend you check that out, the experts also recommends it too.
Hmm, I can't find the Essence STX in stock anywhere in Canada. I can find the ST, which is supposedly better, at a local store. The problem is that the ST is PCI, which isn't a problem now, but I'm wondering how long it will take for PCI to be removed from motherboards all together. I would probably buy the ST, but I don't want to find out that it's useless after a few years.
Can you find some at the USA Newegg?
Well, I went with the Asus Xonar Essence ST (a PCI version of the STX). And, after about an hour of listening and comparing, my Xonar Essence ST makes my Realtek onboard sound card, sound like a Xonar Essence ST. I'm finding it very hard to hear a difference between the two cards, I've been using my MDR-7506s only. I've tried listening to FLACs on Foobar, but whenever I go back and forth between the two audio solutions, they sound the same. It seems that whichever advantage the Essence ST has is a placebo. I've installed the latest drivers for both cards, I've turned up the headphone amp to high gain and I'm not running the sound through another receiver/amp. Is there anything I'm missing/overlooking?
Edit: I tested both cards with RMAA. I tried 16-bit/44khz and 24-bit/192khz. The onboard card and the Essence ST got near identical results in every category. I'm guessing that this can't be right, and that something is bottlenecking the Essence ST.
thats fucked up. The xonar should be raping any onboard soundcard in sound quality. What headphones/speakers do you have, and what are your other specs?
thats fucked up. The xonar should be raping any onboard soundcard in sound quality. What headphones/speakers do you have, and what are your other specs?
PC Specs:
CPU - Q6600 @ stock
GPU - 8800GT
Mobo - 680i LT
RAM - 2GB 800mhz
As for my sound set-up, I have a pair of Sony MDR-7506s which is what I'm using to compare the the two sound cards. My speaker setup is a Yamaha Natural Sound C-6 (pre amp), Yamaha Natural Sound M-4 (power amp), and a pair of Kef 104aB speakers. I also enabled ASIO with the Xonar in Foobar, but the difference is only slightly noticeable.
..... wow I'm really not sure why you're having issues, im sorry i cant be of more assistance but im still using integrated... maybe realtek just kicks ass haha
..... wow I'm really not sure why you're having issues, im sorry i cant be of more assistance but im still using integrated... maybe realtek just kicks ass haha
Because I'm too lazy and very concentrative on getting my new build up and running, why don't you check the reviews just in case?
The reviews were what made me buy the Xonar Essence ST in the first place. There aren't many reviews up for the Xonar Essence ST yet, but all of the reviews for the Xonar Essence STX say that the sound quality is much better than most, if not all consumer sound cards when playing music. I haven't read anything about there being issues regarding the sound quality of the Xonar Essence STX/ST either.
strange, try uninstalling the realtek codecs and drivers and just using the xonar... if that doesnt work maybe you should return it
Apparently there are 2 things why I can't notice a big difference:
My onboard sound card, the ALC885, is pretty good. Realtek says it has a 106dB SNR.
My MDR7506s aren't the best, or most neutral headphones. This is probably why I can barely hear any difference between the two sound cards when testing.
I can hear a difference when using my speakers, although its not as large as I'd want it to be, which is most likely due to how good the onboard sound card is. I really expected more from my MDR7506s though. I thought they would be good enough to tell between these two audio solutions, but I guess not.
So can you find some good headsets to buy then?
Ehh, I'd rather not, since the Essence ST set me back a lot and my MDR-7506s are good for now. I think I've only had them for 2 years, so I'd rather wear these out and wait until I'll need new headphones. They're still an awesome pair of cans, and I see Logan thinks so too. Other than that, thanks for your help, it's appreciated.
Ok, np 