Are Sound Cards Still Relevant? Sound BlasterX AE-5

[JakeTech]

I registered just to ask this question: what is the double RCA looking input going into that DAC at 7:00 in the video called? I want it for my amp at home, and I haven't seen a form factor like this.

 

 

[kilgore_T]

I have a motu 624 on my main pc and due to my son using that pc for his crazy machines

I was forced to plug my headphones straight into my msi laptops headphone out and jesus h Christ

I was actually shocked how terrible it sounded

[Radium_Angel]

Disappointed by the inaccuracies in this video

"joystick port on sound card"...yeah right. It's a MIDI port...you know an interface for keyboards and other synths.

If you're gonna review tech, do your research, otherwise you run the risk of looking silly

[Eduard the weeb]

don't mess with the shit .... I mean Schiit

[xnamkcor]

2 hours ago, JakeTech said:

I registered just to ask this question: what is the double RCA looking input going into that DAC at 7:00 in the video called? I want it for my amp at home, and I haven't seen a form factor like this.

 

 

Try "piggyback".

 

Also, that watch is "Android 2"? Is that Eclair, Froyo, or Gingerbread?

[JakeTech]

 

1 hour ago, xnamkcor said:

Try "piggyback".

 

Also, that watch is "Android 2"? Is that Eclair, Froyo, or Gingerbread?

 

Thanks!

[CADGuy23]

I own the AE-5 and I'm happy with the performance over my onboard audio. The scout mode 2.0 does work well in Rainbow Six Seige, although that's the only game I've tried the software with. I'd say you have to be fairly tuned into the game audio to notice a difference. 

[DildorTheDecent]

21 hours ago, Dackzy said:

Dennis is wearing the LCD2 backwards and I have zero idea how she got the pads to sit that way on the LCD 2. 

There used to be a picture on the Audeze website with Miley Cyrus wearing LCD-2's backwards.

 

I really don't understand how people get it confused.  Just tried it there now btw, so hard to even get them on. 

 

Rare breeds. 

[Dackzy]

Just now, DildorTheDecent said:

There used to be a picture on the Audeze website with Miley Cyrus wearing LCD-2's backwards.

 

I really don't understand how people get it confused.  Just tried it there now btw, so hard to even get them on. 

 

Rare breeds. 

the pads are even angled, so it should be even harder to get them on backwards by accident .

[minervx]

17 hours ago, Drak3 said:

In this day and age, the onboard of a half way decent mainboard is like a Honda Accord. Anything less than a professional sound card is the same Accord, with a flare kit and a Ferrari exhaust.

 

They've become irrelevant for a reason, and in this case, "good enough" actually is good enough.

its more like a 1983 tahoe.

 

seriously.  why do $1000 gaming rigs have equal or worse sound than $200 chromebooks.

[AnonymousGuy]

You need to add IEM's to the list if you're going to be doing testing . It's a lot harder to have a low noise floor when your buds impedance is <30 ohms and you need a <1 ohm impedence DAC to drive them well.   My UE18's have  an impedence of 21 ohms, crazy low compared to headphones!

 

My experience is no PCIe soundcard at any price does well with IEMs.  I had to get a JDS Labs The Element to use with them at my desk.

[DildorTheDecent]

18 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

the pads are even angled, so it should be even harder to get them on backwards by accident .

Can confirm, very hard to get on backwards. Angled pads are the hard part. 

 

I reckon even if I was impaired I could still get them on properly. 

[Guest]

BUT WHA-WHAA-WAIT LINUS.

 

What about the sound card and the DAC and some liquid cooling to go along with it?

 

And then just for fun a car amplifier to really boost it. (You run them off 12V remember).

[Redicat]

120 bucks more expensive than my DAC & AMP 

[Emily Young]

23 hours ago, Dackzy said:

Kek, was this video meant as a joke or? You guys choose to show the audio thread that is focused on headphones and not the also pinned post that is about DAC and amps. Well done. 

Dennis is wearing the LCD2 backwards and I have zero idea how she got the pads to sit that way on the LCD 2. Furthermore the chip it uses isn't that great neither is the implementation of it, the same goes for the amp part.

There are countless mistakes in this video and I think that you guys should reach out to people that actually know their stuff, instead of making a very misleading video. 

I'm not sure how the video is misleading exactly, since the only actual mistake you've pointed out is that Dennis and Max wore the LCD-2s incorrectly. Which... I guess is misleading if you're thinking about buying LCD-2s?  

 

As for your DAC and amps thread, it doesn't give any consideration to sound cards whatsoever (and let's be honest, for good reason). This video wasn't a "what DAC should you buy" video - It was a "what does it compete against" conversation, where it's right in line with high-end motherboard audio or the popular Schiit Magni+Modi.

 

As such, our conclusions were as follows:

1. All three solutions could drive each of our headphones to acceptable volume levels.
2. The Sound BlasterX AE-5 sounded better than the onboard audio.
3. The Schiit Magni+Modi sounded better than the Sound BlasterX AE-5, in particular with quieter sections of music (lower noise floor).
4. It has unnecessary RGB.
5. Creative's software is easy to use but has few features, some of which don't actually seem to work.
6. External DACs+amps are more versatile than internal cards.

If you have any objections to those conclusions, please let me know.

 

9 hours ago, Tenelia said:

@GabenJr Could you guys do audio reviews using this format: http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm

 

Without those measurements, it's no different from getting a gamer to sit and observe game performance... And using the observations as benchmarks...

I'd love to be able to do something like this, but we don't have the hardware to do it. We also rarely enough do audio reviews that it's likely not worth the thousands of dollars it would cost to get an audio analyzer. Just hooking it up to an oscilloscope isn't going to cut it, to say nothing of the time investment it would require to try and do it that way.

 

6 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

Disappointed by the inaccuracies in this video

"joystick port on sound card"...yeah right. It's a MIDI port...you know an interface for keyboards and other synths.

If you're gonna review tech, do your research, otherwise you run the risk of looking silly

Linus called it that, though more accurately it's called a game port... Not all of them are MIDI compatible (Sound Blaster was the first to implement a MIDI bus using redundant pins 12 and 15 for serial comms), and it was far more often used as a connector for joysticks and gamepads on PCs, so it's far more inaccurate to call it a MIDI port - Though it was famously used in the consumer space for the Roland MT-32 and other external MIDI controllers for a time when Sound Blaster and its clones were in widespread use.

[Dackzy]

17 minutes ago, GabenJr said:

I'm not sure how the video is misleading exactly, since the only actual mistake you've pointed out is that Dennis and Max wore the LCD-2s incorrectly. Which... I guess is misleading if you're thinking about buying LCD-2s?  

 

As for your DAC and amps thread, it doesn't give any consideration to sound cards whatsoever (and let's be honest, for good reason). This video wasn't a "what DAC should you buy" video - It was a "what does it compete against" conversation, where it's right in line with high-end motherboard audio or the popular Schiit Magni+Modi.

 

As such, our conclusions were as follows:

1. All three solutions could drive each of our headphones to acceptable volume levels.
2. The Sound BlasterX AE-5 sounded better than the onboard audio.
3. The Schiit Magni+Modi sounded better than the Sound BlasterX AE-5, in particular with quieter sections of music (lower noise floor).
4. It has unnecessary RGB.
5. Creative's software is easy to use but has few features, some of which don't actually seem to work.
6. External DACs+amps are more versatile than internal cards.

If you have any objections to those conclusions, please let me know.

Not misleading? You guys said the chip and such was good, it isn't, the implemtation of it is at best meh, if even that. You guys say nothing about detail level, signature of the sound card (don't even try with it is transparrent, because it isn't), width of the sound, micro detail, if the sound is compressed sounding (which it is) and so on.

 

There is a difference between driving headphones to acceptable volume levels and actually powering them properly. You have stuff like output impedance to take into account and if there is any noticeable clipping. Which is actually something I do talk about shortly in my topic.

 

Saying the stack sounds better than the AE-5 in particular quieter sections, says basically nothing and is extremely vague, expecially when there is basically no mention of detail difference between them or basically any other audio quality differences 

[Tenelia]

9 hours ago, GabenJr said:

I'd love to be able to do something like this, but we don't have the hardware to do it. We also rarely enough do audio reviews that it's likely not worth the thousands of dollars it would cost to get an audio analyzer. Just hooking it up to an oscilloscope isn't going to cut it, to say nothing of the time investment it would require to try and do it that way.

 

My thoughts are with you in such difficult scenarios, but surely Linus should know better than to upload such an unprofessional review? I'm genuinely trying to understand why he made such a move. Is this just testing the water for interest? Is he willing to at least consider investing in this area, and also establishing the media group as an audio specialist?

[Skanky Sylveon]

On 11/10/2017 at 12:54 PM, GabenJr said:

It has unnecessary RGB.

The RGB is VERY necessary.  

 

On a more serious note.

 

The sound card comes with an optical out.  Would there be any difference with a sound card's optical out vs the motherboards?

[TetraSky]

Considering my last sound card nearly made me deaf(I have trouble hearing things at a lower volume... I'm not even 30) and there's next to no support from the manufacturer, if any acknowledgement of the issue, it will be a while until I get another soundcard...

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/xonar-essense-stx-random-loud-high-pitched-ringing-noise.494565/

(none of the "fixes" in that thread actually worked, tried them all, gave up, sold the card, onboard is shittier but at least it doesn't destroy my hearing)

 

 

I mean seriously, this is a recording of the issue that I made before (caution headphones users, either lower your volume to the bare minimum or keep them slightly off your ears)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZqELNjFh0o

But even that, is a lot quieter than it really was, since I was recording with a shitty mic the "audio" (if you can call that audio) out of the headphones.

 

Imagine getting that noise, in your headphones, at complete random, when you least expect it.

I've literally thrown off my headphones in a hurry a couple times because of that, breaking them. Had to glue them back together...

 

I'm just glad I got rid of that soundcard... it's the problem of whoever bought it from me on ebay, now.

[William Payne]

I think linus media groups problem  with this review is not the review itself but the fact that audiophiles may watch it and that they pretty much expect perfection and science lab type reviews. 

 

I look at this different. Audiophiles probably weren't the target audience here, this was probably focused more on the average joe who wants better sound.