Sound Card Manufacturers with Excellent Driver Support

[Ben Soundczech]

Hi there,

 

upgrading to Windows 10, I am now for the second time in the situation of having a sound card with a three-digit price tag bail on me due to poor driver support. Since I find this situation frustrating to say the least, I am now looking for manufacturers that are known to provide excellent driver support. Can anyone help me out? I've had this experience with Creative and Focusrite thus far.

 

Thanks!

Ben

[Timopomer]

who on earth uses sound cards?

 

get a dac and you will be golden

[GlassBomb]

who on earth uses sound cards?

 

I do..?

 

And generally, most manufacturers that produce sound cars just bail on the driver support. The Xonar STX that I own and use gets its drivers from individual users that create their own.

 

And an external DAC is also a good alternative if you can't find a sound card that suits you.

[Suffokation]

I do..?

 

And generally, most manufacturers that produce sound cars just bail on the driver support. The Xonar STX that I own and use gets its drivers from individual users that create their own.

 

And an external DAC is also a good alternative if you can't find a sound card that suits you.

+1

 

Sick of unjustified Sound card hate from people who watch a single LTT video on it.

[GlassBomb]

+1

 

Sick of unjustified Sound card hate from people who watch a single LTT video on it.

 

I personally prefer them since I can hook all of my audio into it, and then just switch between them in software. And I also don't have to deal with having an external device.

 

My brother got my old Xonar ST, and he had two headphones hooked up to it (One wireless that used optic, second using the normal jack), along with his speakers.

 

But I can see how many like external devices for audio, since it doesn't get as much interference that internal devices can get.

[Timopomer]

+1

 

Sick of unjustified Sound card hate from people who watch a single LTT video on it.

i cant hear you over the static noises from your motherboard

[Ben Soundczech]

The Focusrite actually is an external USB audio interface whose ASIO drivers also hit the fan once I switched to Windows 10. They may or may not decide to update the drivers at some point but since the last driver update for that device occurred in 2012 I don't have a lot of faith. I will buy a new high(er) quality interface at some point but the purpose of this thread was to find a backup/workhorse alternative that I can just slam into the case and be sure that the bloody thing works.

[Theo]

i cant hear you over the static noises from your motherboard

I cant hear you over the broken record you are repeating 

[KaminKevCrew]

The Focusrite actually is an external USB audio interface whose ASIO drivers also hit the fan once I switched to Windows 10. They may or may not decide to update the drivers at some point but since the last driver update for that device occurred in 2012 I don't have a lot of faith. I will buy a new high(er) quality interface at some point but the purpose of this thread was to find a backup/workhorse alternative that I can just slam into the case and be sure that the bloody thing works.

If you were to get something that doesn't require drivers (and there are many DAC amp combos that do that) then you will be totally fine. Every OS since windows 7 (and possibly earlier) supports USB class 1 audio, and if you use MacOS or Linux, then you also get native support for class 2. Anyway, that means that you won't have to worry about drivers, ever.

 

I do..?

 

And generally, most manufacturers that produce sound cars just bail on the driver support. The Xonar STX that I own and use gets its drivers from individual users that create their own.

 

And an external DAC is also a good alternative if you can't find a sound card that suits you.

Yup... (I don't use a sound card though.)

 

I personally prefer them since I can hook all of my audio into it, and then just switch between them in software. And I also don't have to deal with having an external device.

 

My brother got my old Xonar ST, and he had two headphones hooked up to it (One wireless that used optic, second using the normal jack), along with his speakers.

 

But I can see how many like external devices for audio, since it doesn't get as much interference that internal devices can get.

Personally, I prefer external solutions, because I prefer using hardware switches over using software to swap devices. Also, I like having a physical volume knob, because that means I can use 16-bit audio without fear of degradation of the audio quality by turning down windows volume. But hey, that's me

 

+1

 

Sick of unjustified Sound card hate from people who watch a single LTT video on it.

So, yes, many just repeat things without reason, but there is justification behind the school of thought that sound cards are generally inferior to external devices. Output impedance is generally fairly high on sound cards, no matter how high end you go (from a consumer standpoint, at least. There are professional alternatives, but those are generally intended to be used with external devices anyway). Also, external devices also tend to have more powerful amps, if you have low sensitivity headphones. Plus, they give you more connectivity options, e.g. full size XLR, etc. (and it's a fact, XLR and mini XLR are the best connectors in the world for low-level audio applications.)

[Suffokation]

-snip-

The justification for the why it's bad, is good.

 

But too many people watch a single video and use that as a final source for any argument related to audio solutions. It's an argument from authority.

[SSL]

The justification for the why it's bad, is good.

 

But too many people watch a single video and use that as a final source for any argument related to audio solutions. It's an argument from authority.

 

You think? Welcome to LTT forhams.

[scottyseng]

I can recommend HTOmega Sound cards. I have the Claro Plus (From 2010) myself and I have never had any issues with it, even with Windows 10. HTOmega support is very awesome as well. Unfortunately though, it doesn't have any gamer 3D sound like Creative or a flashy interface like the ASUS cards do. The interface is actually pretty XP looking in design. It works though.

 

External DACs are better though. In fact, I'm hoping to get one in the future. Sounds cards are a nice in between to me.

[CierroMierdo]

+1

 

Sick of unjustified Sound card hate from people who watch a single LTT video on it.

I would prefer a sound card over an external DAC because I like even having one square inch of extra space that can be allocated for something I want to put there, tbh. I just wish that companies who do make them would natively keep supporting it with drivers instead of consumers ending up making a driver for it, especially on the higher priced ones. I

[KaminKevCrew]

I would prefer a sound card over an external DAC because I like even having one square inch of extra space that can be allocated for something I want to put there, tbh. I just wish that companies who do make them would natively keep supporting it with drivers instead of consumers ending up making a driver for it, especially on the higher priced ones. I

I mean, you could get one of the any number of USB stick style ones, and you could have better sound quality without taking up any desk space...

[CierroMierdo]

I mean, you could get one of the any number of USB stick style ones, and you could have better sound quality without taking up any desk space...

Fair enough.

[KaminKevCrew]

Fair enough.

[BrightCandle]

The main reason I continue to use a sound card is for the surround sound effect over headphones. Nothing currently beats SBX for that and its vastly superior to Realtek/DAC/Windows DX defaults so I understand why you would want a sound card, although I am very partial to SBX and not a lot else. There is not static on one of these cards, this BS that keeps getting spread about external DACs being the only way is ludicrously ignorant.

 

I have my Soundblaster ZX working well in Windows 10, drivers seem to work and I haven't noticed any problems although I have found a lot of people have issues generally with these cards when they use the optical out. I just plug some speakers and some headphones direct into the card so its about as standard as you can get really.

 

I have nothing but trouble with my Xonar in Windows 8.1 and I have no idea what happened in Windows 10 but my guess its the same messed up driver situation if not worse.