Looking for sound card

[balancenoptions]

Hello I am looking for the best audio sound card for my pc I will be listening to music I don't game so it will be used for music I need something that will give me the best sound for my music price is not factor

[Guest Kloaked]

What motherboard are you currently using?

[Statik]

Xonar Essence STX is a great card.

[MattTheMayor]

in my opinion, sound cards are pretty much useless unless you have beefy audio. your computer's integrated sound should do fine.

[Tech_Dreamer]

asus xonar stx 2 , slightly better than the first one according to TTL so shouldn't be that bad..

[Laederem]

in my opinion, sound cards are pretty much useless unless you have beefy headphones. your computer's integrated sound should do fine.

actually they're useless for those too.

 

a dedicated dac and amp serve much better in those situations. 

[balancenoptions]

I will not be using headphones

[Guest Kloaked]

actually they're useless for those too.

 

That's not always the case.

 

 

I will not be using headphones

 

If you're not using headphones, you'll be using an external receiver, correct? Then you don't need a sound card.

[Laederem]

That's not always the case.

 

And it's not always sunshine every morning. But it's safe to make that assumption and is generally true. 

[balancenoptions]

the sound card will plug in directly to my   Audioengine A5+ speakers

[nanowatt]

A good sound card is not the only one contributing to a good sound experience.Headphoes are also a big part of this experience.Since you will listen to music i would recommend buying a dack for headphones.Why?Well you can find a good dack from 150$ and you will still have enough money to buy a decent set of headphones to go along with it.Most decent sound cards will cost a lot and they are not meant for headphones but for 5.1 and 7.1 systems.Considering you have a 5.1 or 7.1 a sound card will be around 30% of the sound quality you have on the output.Most modern speakers have their own presets,encoding,sound signature and so on.As for the card to recommend well...ASUS Xonar D2/Essence STX/st

[Guest Kloaked]

the sound card will plug in directly to my   Audioengine A5+ speakers

 

You don't need a soundcard then.

 

And it's not always sunshine every morning. But it's safe to make that assumption and is generally true. 

 

You said it as an absolute, and it's not true all the time.