Recomended Sound Card...

EniGmA1981 · 19 Sep 2010 at 13:07

I've been looking at upgrading my soundcard from my Audigy Platinum EX - I originally bought an X-Fi XtremeMusic on ebay, but it arrived wrapped in bubble wrap stuffed in a jiffy bag and was DOA so that's in the process of being sent back...

But over the last few days I've read through many threads on here and the only cards anyone recomends is the Asus Xonar variants... which rules out my looking at X-Fi cards straight away! Now, the trouble is that there are indeed so many variants... with D1/DS/D2/DX/DG etc, it's slowly making my brain melt!

Can anyone tell me straight up which one is best for a man on a seriously tight budget!

The Xonar DG is the one I'm aiming at right now as I have no need for a 7.1 output so the DS/DX would be wasted

Is this a fair choice? Or is the DS a significantly better card and worth the extra few quid?

(I'm currently using Creative Inspire 5100 speakers)

Mr Krugga · 19 Sep 2010 at 13:39

Budget speakers, budget soundcard. I'd bet DG would be fairly enough for this setup.

Marsman · 19 Sep 2010 at 16:02

Mr Krugga said:
Budget speakers, budget soundcard. I'd bet DG would be fairly enough for this setup.

That does make sense. Technically though, the DG is more aimed at headphones, with Both Dolby Headphone and the headphone amplifier being no use to speakers. The DS is more aimed at speakers, but it doesn't have any features aimed at analogue speakers, like the DG has features specifically for headphones. The DS does have slightly superior components, but I think anyone would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the DG and DS using speakers.

Mr Krugga · 19 Sep 2010 at 16:25

Asus Xonar DS can be had for £33.50 inc, not a bad choice either.

Marsman · 19 Sep 2010 at 16:43

Mr Krugga said:
Asus Xonar DS can be had for £33.50 inc, not a bad choice either.

Very true. I had a DS for a time, before I sold it to get an Essence. Was very pleased with the sound quality the DS delivered.

EniGmA1981 · 19 Sep 2010 at 17:10

So just how pointless would the DG be for me using speakers
(which, for the record, weren't budget when I bought them 9 years ago! lol)

cos for this money, it does look promising...
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-011-AS&utm_source=froogle

Marsman · 19 Sep 2010 at 17:43

It's not pointless at all to get the DG and use speakers with it instead of headphones. It's just it's aimed at headphone users. Taking the features out of the equation, and looking at it as a basic sound card, there is no reason not to use it with speakers.

Marsman · 19 Sep 2010 at 17:45

EniGmA1981 said:
So just how pointless would the DG be for me using speakers
(which, for the record, weren't budget when I bought them 9 years ago! lol)

Friend of mine also has them. Think he has had them 9 years too.

EniGmA1981 · 19 Sep 2010 at 19:11

So how would the DG compare to the X-Fi range? As tbh I'd like to steer away from SoundBlaster cards as that's all I've ever used (appart from the odd CMedia cheapo in other builds) and fancy giving someone else a go.

What would you guys rate the quality of the DAC/ADC in the DG? Reviews I've read for it sound pretty promising. I want to use it for recording through Guitar Rig 4 as well so it needs to have a pretty good input stage too...

flankdospin · 21 Sep 2010 at 03:50

EniGmA1981 said:
So how would the DG compare to the X-Fi range? As tbh I'd like to steer away from SoundBlaster cards as that's all I've ever used (appart from the odd CMedia cheapo in other builds) and fancy giving someone else a go.

What would you guys rate the quality of the DAC/ADC in the DG? Reviews I've read for it sound pretty promising. I want to use it for recording through Guitar Rig 4 as well so it needs to have a pretty good input stage too...

Well, could you please share where you find the review posts? I can now only find the full spec of Xonar DG released from ASUS officially but no reviews I can find until now.... :confused:

EniGmA1981 · 21 Sep 2010 at 05:46

Can't remember where it was I found them now, I was looking for reviews on the XtremeGamer and a couple of sites were reviewing it alongside the DG/DS