Spec me a *downgrade* from Essence STX II

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Hi

I had a moment of madness at the start of the year and purchased a new set of Sennheiser G4ME headphones (which are superb) and also thought i'd throw in the top dog STX II to pair it up with

The problem is however, i did very little research on the sound card (very unlike me, it was an impulse purchase remember!), and now realise that literally all i use the PC for is gaming, so it was a dumb purchase really.

I don't listen to music on here, don't watch films, don't have any stereo equipment setup to it etc, literally just the Sennheiser headphones.

I'm not even using all the Dolby features. I've played around with it loads and read everywhere Dolby Headphone is brilliant for FPS gaming and positional audio, but under my tests i just can't see why, it sounds too echoey for my liking, and doesn't (to me) improve positional audio or accentuate better what i can hear or am supposed to hear.

So i literally have it set to 8Ch audio, 192kz, which i'm aware a £30 Xonar DG could do.....

I was drawn in by all the Opamps, high quality caps this, high quality chipset that etc, and to be fair the sound is crystal clear, but it's wasted on me for what i'm using it for.

Therefore could somebody please spec me a downgrade, for purely gaming? (FPS games), because as much as this is a truly brilliant soundcard, i am just not using it to its potential!

Either that or could somebody please point me to where i am going wrong and how i can get the most out of this for FPS games :)
 
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Thanks gents.

My headphones are only 50 ohms lol. Will give the onboard a go first. I have a Z170 Gene with supremefx iii, so should be half alright.

Rids - i'm not sure what i want or what i need or which is best for FPS games thats the problem! I might drop back to onboard to start off with, if not give both those options a go and sell on what i least prefer. Is the soundblaster better than the Xonar options at that price point?
 
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Ok thanks for all your help. Will give onboard a go first

Does the soundblaster able to do dolby headphone? I take it not?
 
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