What is the best soundcard - Gaming & some music...

mda96bjh · 1 Jan 2011 at 11:52

Bit confused by the range on offer nowadays - run an X-fi in my XP rigs but due to much frustration with the drivers I decided not to touch creative again....

I have been using onboard sound on my Win7 rig but it doesn't sound at all good for music - very muddy so looking at soundcards.

Best seem to be the Asus range but a bit confused between the Essence cards & the Xense card as to which is the best.... Also the emphasis appears to be on headphones which is fine but I also want to be able to run my Logitech Z5500 5.1 speakers from it & preferably be able to leave my headset plugged in at the same time...

Which does bring me to another question - Which is the best "positional" gaming headset out there.... Do I need to get one advertised as 5.1 or 7.1?

Thanks for any comments

Uriel · 1 Jan 2011 at 16:05

The Xense is basically an essence card with PC350 headset bundled.

Marsman · 1 Jan 2011 at 16:59

Unless you have really decent headphones, I wouldn't bother with an Essence. Using the Essence with the Z5500's means digital connection, which makes it no better than a Xonar D1/DX. The Essence is stereo analogue only, and the benefit of having one is to use analogue connection.

The Xense is a better choice for use with the Z5500's, as it allows 5.1/7.1 analogue connection, which means the sound card is processing the audio, unlike digital. Xense can only be bought with the bundled PC350's, so might depend on what headset/headphones you have currently, as to whether it is a worthy buy or not.

mda96bjh · 1 Jan 2011 at 21:18

Marsman said:
Unless you have really decent headphones, I wouldn't bother with an Essence. Using the Essence with the Z5500's means digital connection, which makes it no better than a Xonar D1/DX. The Essence is stereo analogue only, and the benefit of having one is to use analogue connection.

The Xense is a better choice for use with the Z5500's, as it allows 5.1/7.1 analogue connection, which means the sound card is processing the audio, unlike digital. Xense can only be bought with the bundled PC350's, so might depend on what headset/headphones you have currently, as to whether it is a worthy buy or not.

Ta for above - some good info there.....

Pardon my n00bness on this but just to clarify I need my soundcard to output an already processed signal to my Z5500's then? The blurb on the Z5500 specs mentions onboard processing of digital signals - is this no use?

Uriel · 1 Jan 2011 at 21:54

You need Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect for 5.1 gaming over optical. These encode a 5.1 signal. Standard SPDIF over optical is 2 channel only.

DVDs etc are pre-encoded so you just need optical out to use them in 5.1.

Analogue only could be an option. Most soundcards have a better quality DAC than the Z5500s so using analogue connection would theoretically give better quality.

Edit: Just noticed your question about positional sound over headphones. I would say the best options are soundcards with Dolby Headphone (most Xonar Cards) or CMSS-3D Headphone (most X-Fi cards). Add a pair of stereo headphones and you're away. Of the two, Dolby Headphone is more 'speaker like' and I much prefer it. CMSS-3D Headphone sounds more like better directional sound over headphone but won't fool you into thinking you're using speakers.