Sound Card(s) | the less discussed and valued component these days?!

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penguin1
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Sound Card(s) | the less discussed and valued component these days?!

Post by penguin1 »

I have to admit I am wayyy out of touch on the Sound Card department. Currently I am using the onboard sound on my latest Set-up.


Think is, I am beginning to think its not quite good enough for me. At the beginning, I was quite impressed and satisfied with what it had to offer, but now I just miss the top-notch sound quality that the onboard chip just couldn't muster.. you know, that extra oomph in intense situations in movies and games, and the pure clarity of dialogues and production of those little finer sounds in the backgrounds from various source and distances..


From my (very limited) understanding, the lower end/grade sound cards are not quite worth their $$ that you pay for them. Is this true? And also that the good ones that are even worth your time cost cost an arm and a leg, they are also designed to be optimized more for games. Unfortunately I tend to watch more HD movies than game now these days .


Nevertheless, I am hell-bent on -hopefully finding- a suitable PCI-E x1 sound card around my budget of about $50-$120.


A little backgound!

I used to own a Creative Audigy 2 ZS Gold (rather badass back in the day) and later upgraded to a X-Fi Platinum 7.1, this card then went thru 2 system updates/changes with me.

Those were the Golden era of Creative and Sound Cards.. and I also remembered when ASUS first came out with their XONAR sound cards and shook up the industy. When I was building my PC back then, Creative was already slowly on their decline and losing their mojo, I considered the XONAR but there were only 2 or 3 models to choose from at their release and they were well over $200 a card even for the cheapest one. That was how I decided to go onboard and hold off for a better cost-value sound card, but Creative continued to disappoint... and so till today, I still haven't got anything new yet.. until now perhaps? haha

Image
A Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum card


Image
A ASUS Xonar D2 card


Are Creative and ASUS still the only major Sound Card players these days?

Once again, I am looking for a relatively new and the most bang-for-buck all around the $100ish price point for a PCI-E x1 soundcard. What would you recommend me? : )



I appreciate your sharing and inputs. & also hope this might turn up an interesting discussion with lots of nostalgia too, haha! Thanks peeps!
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sbohdan
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Re: Sound Card(s) | the less discussed and valued component these days?!

Post by sbohdan »

I will have to disappoint you. When it comes to sound quality, the best were made by creative 10-15 years ago and are stereo. Of course they are the best for music but not for movies. Anyway, you would of been best off wanting both to retain your old audigy because sound quality is getting worse with newer models and not better (despite the propaganda). If you still have your old card, than just do yourself a favour and save your money, if not than try to get an old used one and get better sound quality then the new flashy models and for the fracture of the price.
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penguin1
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Re: Sound Card(s) | the less discussed and valued component these days?!

Post by penguin1 »

I don't have my old cards anymore though. And even if I had them, they only fit into the old conventional PCI slots .. motherboard these days and the one I have (a mATX one at that too) only has a couple of PCIE x1 slot only !

So I guess re-using my old cards is clearly not an option for me!
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Re: Sound Card(s) | the less discussed and valued component these days?!

Post by KnightRid »

https://www.amazon.com/Blaster-Performa ... B009ISU33E

I always liked Creative so that is the only reason I picked that, other than the reviews - http://www.legitreviews.com/creative-so ... iew_155705

I use onboard audio from the MB myself as I used to have everything hooked through my home surround system. Even now that I dont have the surround hooked up any more I never bother with a dedicated audio card because I am cheap (LOL so true) and I don't have a good enough speaker system on the computer to make it worthwhile. You have to have great speakers/headphones to be able to hear great sound.
Remember, I am opinionated and nothing I say or do reflects on anyone or anything else but me :finga:
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