Budget SoundCard Suggestions?

[Tieox]

Finally got my A-S500 amplifier, and connected it to my AV-120 MK2's and I got nothing but pops, fearing the worst I begun to investigate and when connected to literally anything other than my onboard sound controller it works flawlessly. 

 

So far I have rigged it to work with my monitors headphone out.  Would this suffice long term?

 

So, anyone got any PCi-E soundcard suggestions, trying to keep it minimum budget, got enough going out at the minute.  

[BobVonBob]

Onboard sound isn't exactly renowned for its quality. Pick up a USB DAC, you generally don't want two amplifiers in line with each other like you would get feeding a sound card into a dedicated amplifier.

[Tieox]

Just now, BobVonBob said:

Onboard sound isn't exactly renowned for its quality. Pick up a USB DAC, you generally don't want two amplifiers in line with each other like you would get feeding a sound card into a dedicated amplifier.

So far it seems very happy taking audio from my Asus PG278QR.  Would any DAC be of use or can you recommend specifics, this is a whole new territory for me. 

[Tigerleon]

13 minutes ago, Kierax said:

14 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

Onboard sound isn't exactly renowned for its quality. Pick up a USB DAC, you generally don't want two amplifiers in line with each other like you would get feeding a sound card into a dedicated amplifier.

 

It is literally impossible to hear a difference between a pretty good onboard soundcard and an external solution. Maybe a cheap soundcard is bad but more expensive ones are good. If you are talking about the EMI on onboard sound cards. It is impossible to hear with newer soundcards since they got shielding for it. I mean if we are talking about 100$ or less then maybe you will hear a difference. Yes you will be against me and say that the external solutions will be better and that could be with the DAC quality overall.

[Tigerleon]

Also to actually recommend something and not start a battle. The soundblaster Z is a good choice.

[BobVonBob]

4 hours ago, Tigerleon said:

It is literally impossible to hear a difference between a pretty good onboard soundcard and an external solution. Maybe a cheap soundcard is bad but more expensive ones are good. If you are talking about the EMI on onboard sound cards. It is impossible to hear with newer soundcards since they got shielding for it. I mean if we are talking about 100$ or less then maybe you will hear a difference. Yes you will be against me and say that the external solutions will be better and that could be with the DAC quality overall.

Onboard amplifier absolutely there's an audible difference, even high end motherboard amplifier circuits are low end audio equipment. Onboard DAC I will agree the difference is inaudible, but I don't know of any motherboards with onboard line outs. Or maybe I've only ever had trash motherboards, who knows.

[rice guru]

The best cheap dac I've ever heard is the meizu hd pro sounds excellent for like the $30 it costs and has great measurements.