Tips on Buying a Soundcard

[BCreation]

This is pretty straight forward. I have no budget.

SP2500s

Razer Carcharias

Post suggestions on what soundcard I should get for the best experience. Thanks :)

[MiracleMan]

Buy an Xonar DGX, your audio gear isn't worth buying a expensive soundcard

[Metallurgico]

Buy a DGX or a DX. Everything more pricy than those is wasted for that kind of peripherals.

[BCreation]

Well I have a pair of AKG Q701s, but I feel that is overkill for gaming. I use those for studio purposes.

[MiracleMan]

Audio gear can't be good enough :P

I'm using an LCD2 for gaming and it's great.

For the Q701 i would recommend an Xonar Essece STX

[WayToWenzhou]

My tip for buying a sound card:

CPU usage. Some sound cards really do use some resources noticeably.

[Metallurgico]

I agree with MiracleMan about the Essence STX. For speakers and the other headset you can use some adapters if you want.

[BCreation]

Alright, I'll definitely look into that and maybe even an Essence One for my studio. Thank you.

[MiracleMan]

My tip for buying a sound card: CPU usage. Some sound cards really do use some resources noticeably.

Since CPUs are ridiculously fast nowadays it doesn't really matter anymore.

[Crowcore]

The Sound blaster Z by Creative is an affordable option as well.

[Dragon_Cannon]

If money is not an issue look in the Asus Essence line of cards and dacs as they all have extremely high signal to noise ratios. Remembering that an increase of 3 dB in relation to signal to noise ratio is a doubling of quality.

[Metallurgico]

The Sound blaster Z by Creative is an affordable option as well.

Creative isn't good as in the past

[Nick B]

I just bought the Audio Technica M50 headphone.

Are there any suggestions for a soundcard?

[Guest]

I just bought the Audio Technica M50 headphone. Are there any suggestions for a soundcard?

Depends on your budget. Also worth a look; http://sound-cards-review.toptenreviews.com/

[virusal19]

Go onto your local retailer (NCIX ect...) website and look up "xonar", any "xonar" sound cards i would recommend. Just look up one that would fits your budget. Easiest way to look up a great sound card.

[Nick B]

Yes, but isn't there a kind of ideal soundcard to headphone price ratio?

A 1000 dollar soundcard would be overkill for a 50 dollar headphone...

Thanks for your quick response btw! ;)

[ThatDamnHacker]

Buy the best 'Asus xonar' in your price range. I just have the DGX 5.1 but the improvement over on board audio is massive

[thekanabolt]

For Me personally and quoting Linus here "choose your budget and buy the Asus Xonar Card that is corresponding"

[Nshadd2455]

I just bought the Audio Technica M50 headphone.

Are there any suggestions for a soundcard?

Anything in the Xonar line would be fine but m50s don't really need much power to sound nice.

[Emil]

Get a Xonar card, any of the ones from the Essence series.

[ThatGuy]

I would just get an Asus Xonar DX. They are very powerful and good sounding cards without being very expensive, plus I'd say they are all rather user friendly, no XLR or RCA connections to mess with if you just want to plug headphones or general speakers in. I've been running with a DX for 3 years now and it was fine pushing all my lower end audiophile headphones. Now that i've got some serious audiophile gear, I'm running an external headphone amp off of the DX's optical out. I'd consider myself a huge audiophile, and I've only bought one sound card in the past 3 years because the DX is doing everything it needs to, so that should give you an idea of how good a buy that might be!

[ThatGuy]

I just bought the Audio Technica M50 headphone.

Are there any suggestions for a soundcard?

I had a pair of M50's that i ran off a Xonar DX. When your headphones start to cost twice as much as your sound-card that's when you know you need something new, but like Linus's said in one of his videos, power requirements for headphones isn't linear, you go up a huge amount of power usage for a little sound improvement, so unless you're buying a pair headphones with a 1/4" jack, the DX will run them.

[Birdie]

My DGX broke :(