Check out Xonar Essence ST/STX (st = pci edition ect. both have same functions and exactly same hardware/quality)

It's a soundcard for audiophile people. I own it and I fucking love it.

can you make out a real difference to more standard soundcards like the xonar dg, or is it just nice for you to own some top end product?

With really good headphones, sure. I had the fatality card by Creative for like 2 months with QPAD 1339 headset, but swapped the card out because Creative had frikkin horrible support when it comes to component drivers which made me insane, I bought the Essence card because of all the great reviews it had by official testing sites and forum audio geeks. Shoved it in the computer case, blazed up some Danny Elfman on my winamp, and got an instant erection.

Disregard Xonar DG which doesn't even mix in hardware, but how is Essence ST(X) better than D2(X)? I know I won't hear the difference between 118 and 124 dB SNR on analog output and that looks like the main (only?) selling point of the ST.

I don't remember correctly what make this card so wonderful for music, but I know one of the reasons are the IC-chips placed on that board. I wish I could point in the right direction to were I found the review about that part, but I can't remember.

It's also possible to swap those IC-chips with other ones pretty easy which many have done for a slightly better sound.

Anyway. If you love music, don't wanna use much money on a sound card and/or don't demand more than 2.0 stereo, I recommend Essence ST.
(there's a 7.1 module to make the card work with surround sound but many say its crap compared to others)

Need decent sound with Dolby, THX and all that cool stuff, then this is not the card for you.

My 2 cents.

http://geizhals.at/eu/?phist=398398
http://skinflint.co.uk/?phist=398398

Women in the business world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWItFu3h46Y&hd=1

Xonar ST is the wmo of soundcards right now. Can't go wrong with it.

if your budget is 150-250$ for 1 speaker than i would probably go with with Heco Metas, if it is for 2 spearkers you wont get anything good out of it. Rather wait little longer and save up some more money.

you seem too critical, for most people these are plenty good:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SS-B3000-Bookshelf...ny+sb+3000

and if I had 150 per speaker, I would rather get these:
http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-HS50M-5-Monitor-...amaha+hs50

using asus xonar dg and logitech thx 2.1 speakers

AV 97 audio with realtek generic driver FTW.

You will have a better sound from a USB DAC/Amp for your headphones compared to a soundcard for that price. You can even find decent DAC and headphones amp rig for $200
Try to look at Schiit products (Modi and Magni) or Fiio.

you cant go wrong with the xonar essence.
its most important feature is that its capable of working high ohm headphones well with its inbuilt headphone amp.

its probably the best stereo sound experience you can have on PC for that money, combined with a quality headphone such as the senheiser hd600 or beyerdynamics dt 880 and preferrably lossless *.flac files on foobar - whcih is better than winamp, easily.

Headphones/speakers matter a lot more than having an amp/dac/etc.etc.

There are practically no benefits if you use a "cheap" headphone anyway. Only the big boys have a significant difference with amplification (etc.) and the very biggest ones require it. With all that said, your choices are those xonar things (aren't remotely compared with other products but it's a start) or spend it all on good headphones then someday get an amp for those that's good enough to drive them (higher than fiio) and the next pair you'll get (since sound is subjective you will get addicted). I'd go for the second option.

Also remember this is like every product there is: there's the cheap ones that are ok (xonar, miata) but they are not comparable with upper stuff, therefore once you have more money you go for better equipment or a better car. Repeat this several times until you die.

I have the behringer uca202, an excellent quality usb dac for a ridicously low price.

review: http://nwavguy.blogspot.se/2011/02/behringer-uca202-review.html


HOWEVER, it has some latency issues in quake that I cant overcome. Its probably just my setup since I haven't found anyone else having problems.

you should look for high efficiency speakers.. something like this should fall nicely in your price chart:

Fostex fe-126En

http://www.ebay.de/itm/2-x-FE-126En-FE126En-F...2a1f0c78a8

and for dac, you dont need to spend break your bank, just keep it low its a low budget system anyways, there are already assembled kits on ebay from chinks and are quite decent better than the commercial soundcards anyway

http://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_nkw=DAC+kit&am...;_from=R40

For the best 3D sound image you should rather try Tube amplification..I ve found this interesting DAC aswell, cheap and even has a tube, but its more cosmetical nothing serious tho.

http://shop.grantfidelity.com/Grant-Fidelity-Tube-DAC-09.html

you /will not/ hear the difference between 118 db sn/r or 124. Verifiably impossible.

http://www.htomega.com/claroplus.html

These guys make highly recommended cards too. You can search Head-fi.org

Rolling op amps is stupid; do not consider this a feature.

I actually have to revert mine back to the stock ones because to install my new ones (by far the best ones at the time) forced me to remove the shield and now my in game chat for cs sounds like dog piss.


Personally I really like the 7.1 emulation and all the features the xonar STX has. I have had it for a few years and run it with a pair of HD 800.

I have used it with a dac many times the price and for gaming, it really is far more convenient to just have a pcie card, which also have positional features the DAC will not.

Unless you have excellent (300 USD +) headphones, or 1000$ + monitors (unless homebrew) and lots of high rez music, get a sound card.

Imho you would do better with investing your money in good speakers/monitors first.

I am using Alesis M1 MK2(320€/pair) and these work very well with my crappy onboard soundcard. Never need to buy a dac/soundcard.

...unless you experience unwanted sound/distortions whatever.

The thing is DAC is too expensive as of now. You can pick Audigy cards on Ebay / local site for 10-30 euros and that price is absolutely worth it.

The Philips HP 1000 are loud enough @ 32 Ohm's, so it is a Multimedia Headphone ...

I use a AKG K 272HD headphone, it's a clear cold and deep sound wich i like
http://geizhals.de/eu/?phist=317830
http://skinflint.co.uk/?phist=317830

i was fascinated about an PCI AMP to connect JBL Control Speakers

http://www.etonix-media.com/pub/scythe/IFA-2011/

http://www.google.com/search?q=Sparkle+Audio+Amplifier

And what about Dolby Heaphones technology is it helpfull in FPS games?

Not in my experience, It just adds a shit ton of reverb to everything and doesn't really help out positionally

anybody tried the Z-series cards yet ?

Scrubs always say things like "omg wtf dat wallbang, turn WH off faggot " when they watch me play, I've been a fan of x-fi cmss3d headphone for many years, wether i used it on a software accelerated sound engine like FMOD or playing a proper openAL title with awesome sound positioning like BF2/BF2142 it never ceased to amaze me, can't imagine gaming without it anymore.

I gave dolby headphone many chances in the past but i always found cmss3d to be more reliable for soundwhoring, especially in openAL/directsound3D games.

Sbx Studio Pro is said to be like x-fi cmss3d, giving you proper 3D/(or 2D in shitty audio engines like source etc ) positioning WITHOUT the terrible audio quality hit cmss introduces, other ppl say that it's worse than DH/CMSS3d and/or it's THX trustudio rebranded for clopyright reasons.

All variations feature a beefy looking headamp, it can't be that bad ....

Is the Positiong in Quake also much better with a creative card?

there is a new Creative SB X-FI Titanium HD SB1270 for sondwhoring, some user wrote about driver issues & getting the PAX-driver

could be an alternative for you, the asus cards are much more expensive.

http://geizhals.at/eu/?o=6
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD, PCIe x1

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/pax-drivers/

for just Stereo i would go with these ...

ESI Prodigy 7.1 HiFi, PCI

ESI Juli@, PCI

both VIA Envy24HT http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/audio/controllers/envy24ht/

Teufel Hifi is a well known brand for EU/Ger ... dont know how to get it, Amazon dosen't has it.

http://www.teufel.de/pc/pc-stereo20.html
http://www.jbl.com/estore/jbl/us/product/prod...%20EXTREME

i've already been through 2 x-fi cards and 1 audigy, i really wanna try the sbx pro studio thingie since 90% of the games i play have a software sound engine.

I have read somewhere that the Z-series cards have no hardware audio acceleration for openAL/directsound3d games, just like the recon ones.

Even if that's true i don't really mind sacrificing proper hardware audio acceleration, all i want is a proper surround effect that will help me locate objects by sound without murdering the overall sound quality at the same time, x-fi cmss3d headphone does a good job at improving sound positioning but it also makes everything sound very muffled, everytime that thing was enabled i had to turn up the volume knob of my headamp a notch to compensate :S

Any relatively modern sound card (including Audigy SE) has DAC that far exceeds precision of any cheap (<1000$) speakers.
For your budget of roughly 300-500$, best possible sound will be if you spend it all on more expensive speakers and don't waste any money on new sound card.

There will be a Gigabyte Z87 MB with AMP-UP Audio on it.
There is a MSI Z87 MPower Max
PC Perspective Podcast 253 - 05/30/13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzkITDLYcO4&hd=1&t=45m15s
Pictures:
http://www.computerbase.de/news/2013-05/bilde...s-von-msi/
http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6882
Z87-GD65
http://game.msi.com/product/motherboard/z87-gaming

It's the G1.Sniper 5 & G1.Sniper M5

http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/sneak-...er5-series
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/5431/gigaby...index.html

http://www.pcper.com/podcast @ 46min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqH7rzAIoog&t=46m

I think, I will go for FPS gaming with Xonar Essence ST with opamps (2xLME49990-OPA2604) or HA INFO DAC D1 USB.
Both has headphone amp.

Now I use Philips HP 1000+audigy se, when I get new sound card I will go for AKG K550 or Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO or DT880.

And temporary stay with my old logitech z-3e speakers.

here ya go opie

best dac i ever heard

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac/dac1-usb

for that price i can trow in some expensive german stuff from Beyerdynamics
http://europe.beyerdynamic.com/shop/hah/headp...-amps.html

dac1 has a built in amp though

i had some headphone amp for cellphones in mind like this one FIIO headphone amp's
www.google.com/search?q=fiio }picture search{
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_lbr_brand...2528832011