Answer to question which nobody asked on sound cards

[OwlHoot]

Most of us, including me, typically ask a question here and wait for replies. So I thought it would make a nice change to answer a question before anyone had (recently) asked it.

So anyway, having asked myself what would be a good sound card to buy for my PC, I did a quick search and came up with an excellent post here :

If you are using Vista or 7, EAX is no longer supported. OpenAL is the standard you should be looking for. Plus, most of the new games no longer go with EAX either. The difference between different cards in OpenAL is that some cards do the processing in software, using CPU cycles, and others (X-Fi) do the processing inside the hardware DSP, freeing some CPU. With the current CPU power, the difference is not very big. At best, we're talking about 5% more performance from hardware accelerated OpenAL.

If you want headphones, I would advise against 7.1 headphones. Get good stereo ones. You can game on them no problem and you can listen to music at very high quality. You don't need to spend a fortune on headphones, a good start would be Sennheiser HD-485.

I have 2 sound cards: Auzentech X-Fi Hometheater HD and Asus Xonar Essence ST.

When I game, I game either on the 5.1 HT system and output from the Auzentech X-Fi, or through the Essence ST through headphones. I can game on my headphones no problem and I know wether the sound is coming from the front or the back. Once you have a good sound card, soundstage reproduction is no longer a problem.

I would stay away as much as possible from Creative sound cards. If you want the X-Fi sound chip, get an Auzentech implementation. They build the cards around the same chipset as Creative ones but with better opamps, better PCB's and upgraded, audio grade condensers.

If 7.1 analog is your priority, I would go with one of these:

* Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 - PCI card, based on the Creative X-Fi DSP chip, but better op-amps than creative sound cards, this sounds good, very well regarded.

* Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1 - again, X-Fi DSP chip, this time PCI-e card. This one also has an integrated headphone amplification circuit.

* Asus Xonar D2 / D2X - D2 is PCI, D2X is PCI-e - these sound very good. They have very good op-amps, sound quality is above Auzentech cards. They don't have hardware accelerated OpenAL though.

The following 2 cards are stereo cards. They are very good with headphones, 2 speakers analog systems. If you want 7.1 from them, you need a digital connection to your speakers. That requires a digital friendly receiver that can accept Dolby Digital Live. The only speaker system that I know it can handle digital out of the box is the Logitech Z-5500.

* Asus Xonar Essence STX - PCI-e sound card, very good stereo sound, audio grade capacitors all around, swapable op-amps, very good headphone amplification; you will have no problem driving whatever headphones you want with this one. Software OpenAL.

* Asus Xonar Essence ST - PCI card, same as the STX, but with better clocking circuit. This one can also be upgraded to offer 7.1 analog connections, by purchasing an add-on DAC card.

There are more cards that are suited to your needs, these are just a few. Again, forget about 7.1 headphones, those are toys. Get a big man's tool, get good stereo headphones and don't look back. The sound quality alone will blow you away, you will find yourself listening to all your music collection just to hear what you were missing... Gaming will also be very good. Most sound cards support some form or another of simulating a 3D environment over headphones. X-Fi chips use CMSS 3D Headphone, all Asus cards I mentioned use Dolby Headphone.

I must say it was quite a revelation to me that Creative X-Fi chips are used in other and better sound cards than Creative's themselves!

[AtW]

If it ain't SoundBlaster from Creative, then it ain't worth buying...

[OwlHoot]

If it ain't SoundBlaster from Creative, then it ain't worth buying...

Absolute hogwash.

The ASUS Xonar Essence ST knocks SoundBlasters into a cocked hat.

and they plan to release a 7.1 expansion board (or maybe they already have - that review is dated 2009-03).

I'm ordering one tomorrow.

From the review:

One thing that has opened up with Microsoft’s latest OS, Vista, is the sound card market. Vista ended the direct hardware access era, effectively destroying Creative’s performance lead. Users of XP still have some advantage, but as soon as XP is dead, we’ll have a level playing field and renewed competition in the market. That’s the theory anyway, and it does seem to be starting right about now ...

[OwlHoot]

I'm now going to lie down in a darkened room until the urge to buy those damn headphones goes away.

To resist the urge it may help you to know that the ASUS Xonar Essence ST has a a built-in headphone amplifier, which presumably makes redundant that box that appears with the Koss ESP950 headphones on the Amazon page.

edit: Crikey - according to the spec, the ST has a picosecond timer. I wouldn't order too many, or you'll have a crowd of bulky guys in dark glasses on your doorstep asking if you're trying to build detonators for a nuclear bomb.

[AtW]

Absolute hogwash.

Historically SoundBlaster was the one to have - onboard sound is total tulip and other boards were never compatible enough. After many years of Windows things may have changed, but so did price of SoundBlasters - I picked up one for £29 brand new super sound, much better than my home's £150 old sound blaster live. So why compromise going non authentic SoundBlaster brands? Maybe for music making others can be better, but for general use get genuine products.

[OwlHoot]

Historically SoundBlaster was the one to have - onboard sound is total tulip and other boards were never compatible enough. After many years of Windows things may have changed, but so did price of SoundBlasters - I picked up one for £29 brand new super sound, much better than my home's £150 old sound blaster live. So why compromise going non authentic SoundBlaster brands? Maybe for music making others can be better, but for general use get genuine products.

Yes, I gather the ASUS is optimized for music. But I don't recall any reviewers saying it's not up to par for games (and the very fact that most make no distinction probably means it's fine for both).

Also, I've heard that the ASUS H6 7.1 daughter card (when released, which it apparently hasn't been even now !) that goes with the Essence ST will support 7.1 surround sound and comprehensively thrash the top of the range SoundBlaster X-Fi even in the games arena.