TofuAce

Have you tried testing with the side panels off your case? Might just be warm idle temps always for that case. It can sound like a clicking noise, or a rattling noise. If you have ever heard an old computer make noise like their old hard drives, it is somewhat similar. When air is moving through hoses it can be a sloshing or slurping noise. Edit: Found some vids of a few noises. It can vary in sound and loudness, so it won't always be exactly like these.

Phanteks Enthoo Pro hasn't been mentioned. You can get it without a case window and even save some money too.

I have a 4790k and the Nepton 240m. The stock Nepton 120mm fans are very quiet and have really high static pressure. It's not like other stock AIO fans. These are special. The industrial fans from Noctua are loud btw. (Edit: I'm assuming you are getting the Nepton for its quiet performance) When I had my radiator set up in Push/Pull in my Phanteks Enthoo Luxe, it only dropped Max temps under load by 1-2C. Not worth it. Many other sources, including Linus has seen this on AIO units too. Tried it with 120mm Push/Pull, and 120mm Push/140mm Pull just for fun. Same outcome. The Nepton 240m comes with all the mounting hardware you will need, including push/pull.

How about a PWM Fan hub? My case came with one. It is from Phanteks. It has 6 fan connectors, and can support up to 11 fans with splitters.

I have the CM Nepton 240m and a Phanteks Enthoo Luxe (differences between Pro and Luxe not worth mentioning here). I really enjoy this setup. I wanted a quiet AIO cooler and didn't want to replace the stock fans either. That is why I chose the 240m. Also the Phanteks included case fans are excellent too. So yeah, quiet pump, quiet nepton 140mm fans, quiet phanteks case fans. Plenty of room in the case and very nice air flow.

The Cryorig H7 hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet. I'd choose that over the 212 evo. Plenty of options out there that outperform the 212 evo with less noise for the same price range or near. That being said, the 212 evo isn't a bad choice, it's an old standby... just the market has moved forward a bit since the last revision. http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/cooling/heatsinks/42980-cryorig-h7-universal-cpu-cooler-review

Mine always hang around 68C under extended hours of 100% load. Idles at 29C. I have a 4790k and the nepton 240m in a phanteks enthoo luxe. This is with all my fans never rising above 50-55% in silent mode off chassis_1 4pin to the included phanteks fan hub (It can only read the RPM of one connected fan, which in my case is the front intake. Don't know the RPM the CM Fans are at). Only my pump is not hooked up to the fan hub, so it is on my CPU_1 pwm on the asrock z97 extreme 4 board. I have it overclocked on all cores up to 4.5ghz, with adaptive voltage of 1.208v when at 100% load.. Ambient temp is usually 26-27c, as I live in a dry desert environment. Oh and I'm using Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste. My real world use cases include Handbreak, and Premiere Pro CC. I only use synthetic tests for overclock/volt stability testing, and I uses them sparingly. Tips: - Make sure your Pump is running around 2600 rpm. That should be full speed with +/-15rpm variance. - Plug your pump into a header that will for sure run at 100%, or full power. The best shot at this is usually CPU_1. Or hook it up with an adapter feeding off your power supply like a molex to 3/4pin adapter, etc. That can fix a fault of the motherboard not supplying enough power. Some boards PWM's are not equal to the CPU_1 and they will supply less than 12v. - Connect your fans to another area, to see if CPU_1 is stronger in full 12v being applied to the pump. For example, my motherboard's UEFI combines the CPU_1 and CPU_opt pwm control together and wouldn't work for my pump and fans unless I run everything always at full speed. My Pump is on CPU_1, and all my actual fans are combined together on a PWM hub, getting signal from chassis_1. - Make sure whatever you are using to control your 3 pin or 4 Pin connectors, is set to full power for the pump. - Test with all fans running at 100%. Tweaking with fan speed under load for noise levels can come much later down the line after you know everything is working properly. - Listen for any air bubbles in the system. Check for Leaks, Kinks/Blockages, etc. Is your pump making a lot of noise? Mean there is air trapped in there. You have to tilt the block (unmounted) or computer case (mounted) in various directions to let the air escape. You can swivel the houses connected to the block so air can travel upwards and out. Make sure air can travel up your hoses too, and not get stuck in some odd bend or the like. - Try out new fans for your chassis mounting positions. Your CM Nepton fans are perfect for the radiator so don't worry about them (Tried Push/Pull and only dropped temps by 1-2C, not worth it). Your case has restricted air flow, so perhaps change out the intake fans for something else. Edits: Included info about my UEFI pwm controls, bold tips, spelling.

Even though I agree, I didn't want to list something similar since the OP keeps talking about onboard sound cards only and I'm tired of onboard sound card arguments! :lol:

I understand perfectly. You want a list of each price range with the top product in that range. In audio, it isn't that easy. Audio isn't that black and white. Perhaps with speakers, and headphones... yes we can do that. Again, read the Audio Forum FAQ. It will give you the context you are missing. When it comes to this industry, it is not as honest as what we are usually use to when it comes to GPU's. You don't have people reviewing a ATI 5770 as if they like it more than a ATI 7850. Or a 5770 that is rebranded and made to look sleek and sexy then sold at the price point of an AMD r9.

The audio industry isn't nearly as honest in marketing and pricing segments for performance compared with the GPU industry.You will see components with similar implementation from a cheap product with heavy marketing being sold at hundreds of dollars. If you don't like either of those answers, then I don't know what else to tell you. I don't see how you can ask others to treat you kindly, then later on make that sort of reply when people are simply trying to help. TL:DR Read the Audio Forum FAQ. Link in my signature. Also it is at the top of the forum as a sticky.

Shure has the lower end PG48 which looks similar visually to the SM58. A lot of the vocal microphones will require you to get an XLR to USB adapter. (EDIT: i've never used an adapter, i've only used external solutions with XLR inputs.) I would save up money and get something else.

Anywhere from $25USD to hundreds of dollars. Some are marketed to home pc enthusiasts and gamers, others for audio production in a professional setting. For home, you will usually come across the ones in the 25-200 dollar range these days I'd say. I haven't payed attention to the pro end of the spectrum in nearly a decade so I have no idea about them anymore. I'd figure it's mostly all external these days and has been that way for awhile now. Home recording/production has really dropped down in price and you can get some really cool external DAC's for a very good price. Haven't checked recently, but i'd say 70-200 dollars will do much more than most people would really need in a home setting.

I find it funny how we had this discussion over you not owning headphones jokingly last month and now people are actually saying the same thing. Reality is stranger than fiction. :rolleyes: Er... I mean... we all know @EmoRarity only owns sausages instead of headphones. Any photo's he possesses are just masterfully done photoshops. Edit: Oh, and Audio Technica is one of my favorite headphone companies and I own a pair of M50's. They are not worth the current asking price. Their rise in popularity has unfortunately priced them out of being competitive in the $150ish price range. 4-5 years ago I was trying to decide between AD700's and M50's. That part doesn't matter, what does is that at that time, m50's were in the $80-90 USD dollar price range. They are certainly not worth nearly twice their asking price that they are being listed as now. Influences like certain youtubers, headphone forums, and the recent rise of Beats inflated the price of the m50's. Btw, I'm currently listening to m50's right now. I listen to them on nearly a daily basis. They sound great for up to the $100ish dollar price point. But they should not be in the $150 dollar price point.

I've read a lot of people say burning in is a must for the AKG k240, but I never noticed anything different compared to my recollection of them brand new. Back in my auto technician/car club days, I installed tons of car stereos for others and I didn't hear any difference either with speakers. I don't know either way. I don't feel like burn-in is simply impossible though. Just saying I've never consciously experienced it or noticed.

I noticed you were using gaming headsets before. Are you gaming on your laptop? Or did you use the gaming headsets because you needed a microphone to skype/record audio? If its not just purely for gaming, what sort of music are you listening to? A headphone I'd suggest for gaming might not please someone when it comes to certain genres of music. Although personally I can listen to anything with anything and still enjoy it. I mean, i lived through the 1980's gosh darnit! :lol: I'm going to assume you want something geared to gaming and you need a microphone. Audio Technica AD500x and either a Blue Snowflake or Blue Snowball iCE. Which would be slightly over budget. Substitute a Zalman ZM-Mic 1 to fit into the $120USD. No need for a microphone? Sennheiser HD558 or Audio Technica AD700x As for straight up music listening, other peoples suggests would be far better than my own. The highest quality headphones I use for pure music are the Audio Technica m50, and they are not a good value for their performance anymore for a few years now. EDIT: Besides, I also use various types of IEM instead of headphones for music. Since I listen to music when I'm away, and podcasts/youtube/audio books at home.

Yeah you can use the methods described previously. All I'm saying is to remember the test setup is flawed and to not take it too seriously. Oh and understand how and why it is flawed. A lot of experiences and preferences in everyday walking life are outside a proper testing environment and proper laboratory conditions. As people all we can strive for is to do the best we can with what is available to us. (This is more on a general topic not just audio expectations.)

Yeah, we just have to try out best and keep in mind at all times that our perception is flawed. That being said, I hope it doesn't deter you from still trying to discern differences and strive to pay closer attention to your current and future audio gear (also listening).

"The human ear can consciously discriminate amplitude differences of about 1dB, and experiments show subconscious awareness of amplitude differences under .2dB. Humans almost universally consider louder audio to sound better, and .2dB is enough to establish this preference. Any comparison that fails to carefully amplitude-match the choices will see the louder choice preferred, even if the amplitude difference is too small to consciously notice. Stereo salesmen have known this trick for a long time. The professional testing standard is to match sources to within .1dB or better. This often requires use of an oscilloscope or signal analyzer. Guessing by turning the knobs until two sources sound about the same is not good enough." - https://www.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_lt You're not going to get that part of testing solved... so just remember to take whatever your own results are with a heavy pinch of salt. Confirmation bias is going to be a big enemy, If you are the listener in your test, then this is simply a casual comparison. If you are controlling the test on an unsuspecting listener, who does not know the goal or what is being measured with this test... then you have a single blind. Double blind is where you are completely out of role for both listener and operator. Neither one of them knows the goal and what is being measured in the test. This gets around experimenters bias. So as long as you know this is highly casual and simply wanting to just try it out... go for it and have fun! You can get A/B/X software plugins. I have not done any of this when it comes to audio, and only chalk up my experiences as casual comparison testing. Keeping in mind I am a flawed being, as I am human. So to not take my results all that seriously.

Earphone Buyers Guide by ljokerl Also there is the Best earphones under $50

Why? He doesn't need to switch between 3 patterns. Do they really need a -10db pad and an omnidirectional? No.

It is explained here. Btw, I think its great you are expressing an interest into all of this! "16 bits is enough to span the real hearing range with room to spare. It does not span the entire possible signal range of audio equipment. The primary reason to use 24 bits when recording is to prevent mistakes; rather than being careful to center 16 bit recording-- risking clipping if you guess too high and adding noise if you guess too low-- 24 bits allows an operator to set an approximate level and not worry too much about it. Missing the optimal gain setting by a few bits has no consequences, and effects that dynamically compress the recorded range have a deep floor to work with. An engineer also requires more than 16 bits during mixing and mastering. Modern work flows may involve literally thousands of effects and operations. The quantization noise and noise floor of a 16 bit sample may be undetectable during playback, but multiplying that noise by a few thousand times eventually becomes noticeable. 24 bits keeps the accumulated noise at a very low level. Once the music is ready to distribute, there's no reason to keep more than 16 bits." "In 554 trials, listeners chose correctly 49.8% of the time. In other words, they were guessing. Not one listener throughout the entire test was able to identify which was 16/44.1 and which was high rate [15], and the 16-bit signal wasn't even dithered!" xiph.org links the source on its page and leads you to here. Its a paper, so it requries membership to the Audio Engineering Society... but xiph.org links to other places to read up on the discussion around it on forums. Including the BAS supplemental.

It's very apparent you've done quite a bit of research! I like your post OP, very easy to read! Anyways, I have a pair of those sony mdr-xd200. You are definately due for an upgrade. Any of those headphones on your list should give you a very audible difference from what you are using currently. Speaking of which, in your list I'd suggest the Pioneer and Sure headphones are your best price to performance you have listed. I don't know much about pricing and avaliability in Canada, but hey... of your list those two are what stood out to me most without jumping to the three most expensive. As for your mic, the snowball ice shall treat you well. You can even pick up a boom stand or arm if you don't want it on your desk taking up space. I'm using this. Of course, this is not required, and I used the included stand with the snowball for years. You can adjust its height very easily to give it a few more inches closer to you as you talk. Unfortunately, your motherboard doesn't have the best of audio chipsets, but it will work. Again, anything you listed will be a big upgrade already, so I'd be happy with that for now.

Unfortunately, so many terms in the audio industry/reviews/advertising/etc fall into that trap. Either accidently or purposely.

You can check out the Audio forums FAQ to read up on it. The link is in my sig below.

Video documentation of the last 24 hours within the thread.