Sound cards are.........Irrelevant?

[Tiby]

Sound quality is such a hard thing to touch. I remember even Linus at some point said that he prefers natural sound as to what most gaming headset output and then in a later video said he actually started to prefer a more tuned sound (comparing to what M50x can output). You learn to love the sound you listened to each day... (PS: don't start collecting headsets  )

[GoodBytes]

The problem I have with gaming headsets, why I hate them so much, is that the manufacture thinks "Gaming" "FPS"... "Oh I know, let's make gun shots more pronounced", and stuff like that. And not on "let's balance thing to offer a headset with decent mic and headphones at an affordable price, with maybe, depending on the price range a pretty decent dedicated sound card in the USB connector."

[BoredErica]

And I thought these threads were dead and buried a while ago.

This is LTT. Rehashing dead topics and things listed in FAQ/other threads started by other people rehashing other dead topics is what we do here.

 

I wish I was joking.

 

 

You can't buy for example a pair of HD 800's or any high impedance headset and expect that they will sound crystal clear on onboard audio solution (regardless of how much they are hyped now). 

Stop it.

 

I think @Dark_wizzie and @Lays did just that, using their HD800 with various sources, and couldn't find 'good enough' differences between onboard and various dac/amps... 

If you check your quote, it says @ [m3mber=Dark]_wizzie. I think the underscore throws it off.

[RatedBlam]

This is LTT. Rehashing dead topics and things listed in FAQ/other threads started by other people rehashing other dead topics is what we do here.

I wish I was joking.

If you check your quote, it says @ [m3mber=Dark]_wizzie. I think the underscore throws it off.

Apparently.

If you want to get tagged you need to manually type

@[member=Dark_wizzie]

because as you said special character throws it off.

[ShearMe]

Apparently.

If you want to get tagged you need to manually type

@[member='Dark_wizzie']

because as you said special character throws it off.

 

 

It's official, Dark_Wizzie is a special snowflake.

 

[BoredErica]

[Lauen]

Apparently.

If you want to get tagged you need to manually type

@[member='Dark_wizzie']

because as you said special character throws it off.

 

Last I checked you don't even need the @

 

test: Dark_wizzie

 

EDIT: Test successful.

 

 

also: I've used two dedicated soundcards in my life, both Asus Xonar, one DX and one D2X. the DX got some weird interference on the mic, directly related to the graphics card (at the time I had an XFX HD6870), there would be a noise (on the mic), and the pitch of the noise changed with the FPS I got in games. Minecraft would give it a very high pitched whine, and DayZ gave it a low hum. I then swapped it out for a D2X, and no more trouble with that.

 

Later down the road I have upgraded my setup a bit, I now have a pair of ATH-M50's, SRH440 from Shure, Sennheiser PC360 (basically 518's), and CHC Silverado, JBL J33 in-ears, and Soundmagic PL50 in-ears. When I got the J33s, I tried to plug them into the D2X card, and the high output impedance of the D2X (10~ ohm) barely gave me sound through the 16 ohm in-ears. the dampening factor actually broke the J33s. So there's that. And I can't hear any difference at all between that card and my onboard (Realtek ALC892 on an ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0). I have also checked with other people, and they can't hear any difference either. My hearing isn't bad either, I used to have slightly impaired hearing but over the years my ears have become more sensitive than any of my friends (who supposedly have perfect hearing).

 

Sure, there might be super high end soundcards, but those are ludacris amounts of money. and it being inside the case doesn't exactly help. Then there's output impedance, which pretty much all of the ASUS Xonar cards (and most of the Creative Soundblasters) usually put out like 10 at least. the new STX II has, by my research, around 40 ohm output impedance, rendering it useless for any headphones with less than 320 ohm impedance, due to the dampening factor where headphones should be 8 times the impedance of the output of the amp.

 

 

 

If you want good onboard, there's stock Realtek, and then there is ONE good solution: ASRock's Purity Sound. It uses a Realtek ALC1150 dac, which is very good spec-wise, and then a TI NE5532 headphone amp, which is a transparent amp, no coloring of the sound, 0.3 ohm output impedance, and enough power for most headphones on the market, and the amp itself is less than a dollar if I can remember correctly.

If you absolutely need an internal soundcard for something, just grab a cheap Asus card, like the DGX. I wouldn't trust it to be AMAZING or anything, but it would probably do its job quite fine.

 

and then there's the best solution from my perspective, just getting an external setup. it'll be outside the computer, you can have it on optical for no ground loops and as little as possible interference, it can have its own psu for cleaner power, and you can even use it on different computers just by unplugging it from your pc, and into another, even laptops, where a dedicated soundcard wouldn't be usable.

 

And not to mention: the STX II is like $300 or something, while you can get an o2 and odac for less, which will be better for straight up stereo music listening, cus it has low output impedance (0.1 ohm or something), enough power for pretty much any headphone ever, and it's a completely transparent amp, no sound coloring. For $40 you can get the Syba dac which also works absolutely great, it even has a mic input on it.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Lauen

[creatip123]

-snip-

 

I'd imagine even the O2 still got some degree of sound coloring, but very very low/little. Perhaps the lowest in the market/existence

 

I think I read somewhere that a perfect amp would be: zero sound coloring, infinite input impedance, zero output impedance. But of course, 'perfect' doesn't exist.....

[Lauen]

I'd imagine even the O2 still got some degree of sound coloring, but very very low/little. Perhaps the lowest in the market/existence

 

I think I read somewhere that a perfect amp would be: zero sound coloring, infinite input impedance, zero output impedance. But of course, 'perfect' doesn't exist.....

yeah that would be a perfect amp, but the closest we get now (including value) is probably the O2

[Skora]

As a music producer, sound cards are a disgrace. I hate them with a burning, fiery passion, i'm glad they're becoming irrelevant. 

 

Always opt for an audio interface, my favorites are the Behringer UM2, and M-Audio M-Track Plus.

[othertomperson]

Yea well, even outside it is prone to interference. Should be on the moon.

 

Reductio ad absurdum. My point was that a small change by using a shielded external box connected via USB makes a huge difference over a shoddy compromise that is internal PCI, and your retort is to put it on the moon.

[Brawhammer]

I disagree.

 

I bought a £60 sound card of amazon. EVERYTHING is so much fucking better.

 

Mine came with a headphone amp and my Sennheiser HD 598's are soooo much better now. My speakers are alive and full of bass.

 

I recommend sound cards to everyone now.

[ApplePi]

In a perfect world you would want to use an Isolated DC Supply for your DAC as USB power is ground referenced, you will some times pickup ground loops. But as a general rule of thumb it's best to get your audio device as far away from the EMI noisy environment of a PC (all those bleeps a boops you likely heard from your front panel audio jack). Having an External DAC/AMP allows for a lower noise floor as well as a more powerful Amplifier (to drive higher impedance headphones) than what is normally available on board or with many internal sound cards.

[Tiby]

Not true. Some headphones even if they are marketed as lower impedance does not mean that they will not require an amp just hear those higher frequency sounds (IE800 comes to mind or ckx in-ear beauties from Audio Technica).But I'm sure this has been discussed here, as most already pointed out.

In a perfect world well we wouldn't be using a PC just to hear good quality music now when we have very nice gadgets that do this flawlessly for much cheaper.

[creatip123]

Not true. Some headphones even if they are marketed as lower impedance does not mean that they will not require an amp just hear those higher frequency sounds (IE800 comes to mind or ckx in-ear beauties from Audio Technica).But I'm sure this has been discussed here, as most already pointed out.

In a perfect world well we wouldn't be using a PC just to hear good quality music now when we have very nice gadgets that do this flawlessly for much cheaper.

 

Yep. The hardest to drive headphone (that's not electrostats) in the market now is the HE-6. 50 ohms, but will make 70% of headphone amps cry a river....

 

Oh, and in a perfect world, I'd book a small concert hall, and pay Norah Jones to sing just for me...