Soldato
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- 8 Oct 2008
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The choice is terrible too, most use Creatives x-fi chip. Used to be worth it for the EAX effects in games but now that's obsolete with Vista/7
Is it worth spending £50 sound card + £100 headphones?
- Thread starter mikeyparkster
- Start date
I know what I'd do in this situation. I think I'd find it hard spending £100 on some good headphones and a further £50 or so on a sound card, when it's not always necessarily that beneficial upgrading the soundcard. You could easily hear better gains from a better pair of headphones and add an amp/DAC later. Put it this way, if I had the choice of either:
-Sennheiser HD 558s and a soundcard
-Denon D2000s, Sennheiser HD 600s, Beyer Premiums or similar and no sound card
I'd go for the second option. Yes some Beyers benefit from amping, and most certainly the HD 600s do too. I'd buy on the premise that I'd be buying at least a basic amp somewhen soon. It just saves time and money in the long run, as otherwise you end up buying and selling, and believe me, once you get bitten by the headphone bug, it's very easy to get carried away.
I decided that using a headphone amp fed from a soundcard was pretty daft, and went for a DAC fed from the optical out of my mobo to a headphone amp. Amplifying an already amplified signal doesn't bode particularly well for noise/sound quality in general.
It is utterly ridiculous to spend over £100 on a sound card when you can buy a combo amp/DAC for the same/less that will eat it for breakfast SQ wise.
Yes, I'm a bit of a hifi purist.
-Sennheiser HD 558s and a soundcard
-Denon D2000s, Sennheiser HD 600s, Beyer Premiums or similar and no sound card
I'd go for the second option. Yes some Beyers benefit from amping, and most certainly the HD 600s do too. I'd buy on the premise that I'd be buying at least a basic amp somewhen soon. It just saves time and money in the long run, as otherwise you end up buying and selling, and believe me, once you get bitten by the headphone bug, it's very easy to get carried away.
I decided that using a headphone amp fed from a soundcard was pretty daft, and went for a DAC fed from the optical out of my mobo to a headphone amp. Amplifying an already amplified signal doesn't bode particularly well for noise/sound quality in general.
It is utterly ridiculous to spend over £100 on a sound card when you can buy a combo amp/DAC for the same/less that will eat it for breakfast SQ wise.
Yes, I'm a bit of a hifi purist.
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Looking at the motherboard specs. If you intend to use SPDIF, and want 5.1 sound when playing games on the home theatre system, you will need a sound card.
That board does not have real time 5.1 encoding capabilities.
I don't know much about this area, but isn't it the case that if he has a receiver, it will take care of it at that end along with the software? Depends what he has, I thought.
Soldato
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- 8 Oct 2008
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Totally agree danza. It's better to upgrade one thing at a time starting with the speakers/headphones. I went straight for the HD650s and an amp 6 months later. Makes you appreciate the amp more when you haven't had it from the get go.
He didn't mention 5.1 but I would still put all the money into decent headphones then a 5.1 soundcard later.
He didn't mention 5.1 but I would still put all the money into decent headphones then a 5.1 soundcard later.
SPDIF is stereo. That's why Dolby Digital and DTS were created, so 5.1 could be compressed and sent via SPDIF.
If playing a DVD, then the 5.1 track is passed from the DVD to the external decoder. Any SPDIF connection will do.
Games, at least the majority, do not use Dolby, so the sound needs to be encoded with Dolby Digital or DTS so that it can be send to the external decoder.
Some motherboard do have this capability, but only the higher end boards.
A Xonar DS would do the job, as long as the home theatre can decode DTS.
If playing a DVD, then the 5.1 track is passed from the DVD to the external decoder. Any SPDIF connection will do.
Games, at least the majority, do not use Dolby, so the sound needs to be encoded with Dolby Digital or DTS so that it can be send to the external decoder.
Some motherboard do have this capability, but only the higher end boards.
A Xonar DS would do the job, as long as the home theatre can decode DTS.
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I recently bought some AD700's and xonar DX soundcard for BF3 and its an amazing combo.
I actually came across a thread via OCUK that some guy went to all the trouble of testing LOADS of headphones and soundcard combos and basically this combo was near the top.
Found the link
http://www.head-fi.org/t/483802/quest-for-holy-grail-of-gaming-sound
Hopefully some help for you.
I actually came across a thread via OCUK that some guy went to all the trouble of testing LOADS of headphones and soundcard combos and basically this combo was near the top.
Found the link
http://www.head-fi.org/t/483802/quest-for-holy-grail-of-gaming-sound
Hopefully some help for you.
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not overly impressed with the review if I'm honest. But after having a little look at the top Asus cards, they do look like they might be pretty good, unlike the X-Fi's.
edit:
lol, this story is just silly, i mean almost monster cable silly. Any half decent headphones, even £20 ones if chosen right will be 99 to 100% the same for competitive play as £2000 spent on a whole audio chain. This doesn't validate anything about getting high-end headphones. Will it sound nicer? sure, will it make you a better gamer? Ha!
edit:
from review said:
lol, this story is just silly, i mean almost monster cable silly. Any half decent headphones, even £20 ones if chosen right will be 99 to 100% the same for competitive play as £2000 spent on a whole audio chain. This doesn't validate anything about getting high-end headphones. Will it sound nicer? sure, will it make you a better gamer? Ha!
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The ones I listed have a higher DB output from the headphone channel - 124 db for the Asus cards, 113 for the Creative one.
It might be something other than DB, but basically the headphone output is amplified a little.
The difference in sound is pretty massive neologan.
I came from NS1000s and an X Fi to the Xonar DX and AD700 and the difference is just huge, honestly can't believe I didn't bother upgrading before.
Better gamer? Dunno as I don't play competitively anymore and play BF3 which you don't use positional sound as much as something like say CS or Quake 3 when you are listening for item pickups/pads etc..
I came from NS1000s and an X Fi to the Xonar DX and AD700 and the difference is just huge, honestly can't believe I didn't bother upgrading before.
Better gamer? Dunno as I don't play competitively anymore and play BF3 which you don't use positional sound as much as something like say CS or Quake 3 when you are listening for item pickups/pads etc..
yeah i'm sure it is. I honestly wouldn't knock the combo at all, I just think the guys review is very silly
