Astro A40 No MixAmp Gaming Solutions

[KailJoric]

Okay, so quick rundown of my situation.

 

Ryzen 1700x

Nvidia 1060

16gb 3200

B350 Tomahawk

 

So, I have the Astro A40's without the Mixamp and I've been using them for about a year. It was a vast upgrade from what I had been using. I'm getting ready to upgrade some things to get better quality Audio, specifically for the Mic side of things, but during my research I'm finding that without the MixAmp for the A40's I'm barely getting Stereo Sound and that I need something that will enable Dolby Headphone/Dolby Digital Live.

 

The B350 Tomahawk mobo I'm using doesn't have a S/PDIF option on board so I'm looking at what possible value options I have to provide me access to better quality sound. I've heard/read the debates between DAC/AMP vs Sound Cards and I've waded through the hate towards current Sound Cards due to improvements with On-board Audio. All that being considered, what I'm looking for is help/suggestions towards the most straight forward way of gaining a noticeable improvement on Gaming Audio for the A40's (Yes, I know other headphones out there would be a better choice, but I have a rather large head and the A40's column style construction has proven both comfortable and durable as most headphones don't have the flex on the sides to allow for proper fit on my head).

 

I'm currently looking at the Asus Xonar DGX PCI-E GX2.5 as a Sound Card option to provide me access to Dolby Digital Live/Dolby Headphones which matches what the Astro MixAmp provides at a much more affordable price point. What would be other options or perhaps BETTER options around the same price point, basically looking for a sub $70 option here.

 

Any and all legit help would be greatly appreciated. I will be ordering new Mic equipment with an Audio Mixer for sound input in the next couple of days.

Thanks in Advance!!!

[Max_Settings]

No sound card or DAC/Amp is going to improve the gaming experience. It doesn't work that way. Games don't have high enough fidelity audio where that matters. You will need new headphones for an improvement.

[EsaT]

You don't need Dolby Digital Live for anything, unless you want some 5.1 speaker system attached digitally through optical cable.

Alternately doing that encoding for getting 5.1 sound to some external device to drive headphones would only add latency.

 

As for Dolby Headphone, despite of all Dolby hype it's rather average for gaming bloating explosions etc.

And while it's been good budget level card (class higher DAC than in ALC892 of your mobo) DGX is such old card that driver support might not continue that long.

Unless Asus just doesn't want to bother making new budget card...

(but then again C-Media might pull plug from that old PCI sound chip)

Creative's Audigy Fx would have more sure longer time driver support.

Also Creative's binaural sound simulation algorithm is better for gaming treating bass neutrally.

 

Though depending on your local pricing you might get Sound Blaster Z for nearly that $70.

 

 

For headphones fitting to big head check something like Beyerdynamic DT770/990.

I could fit fingers of both hands under headband with it at max length.

[an actual squirrel]

He need dolby digital live to send surround sound to the mixamp. The xonar dgx doesn't actually have dolby digital live, but it has dolby headphone on it. So you wouldn't need a mixamp for headphone surround sound anymore at that point.