need a sound card and headphones for music and possibly gaming

xpygmy · 8 Oct 2014 at 23:02

Firstly, I am looking for a sound card for my computer, my budget is around £30. I will be listening through my headset, using it for music and gaming. I mostly play FPS games, currently CS:GO.

I am also after a good pair of headphones, my budget for these are around £100, these will be used for music, but it would be an added bonus if I could use these for gaming as well. I currently have a pair of plantronics gamecom 380 that I use for gaming.

hyperseven · 8 Oct 2014 at 23:14

Xonar DGX + CALs + ModMic

PapaLazaru · 8 Oct 2014 at 23:24

hyperseven said:
Xonar DGX + CALs + ModMic

+1

If the Modmic seems too steep for your budget, just get a clip-on mic.

hyperseven · 8 Oct 2014 at 23:28

PapaLazaru said:
+1

If the Modmic seems too steep for your budget, just get a clip-on mic.

if going clip-on, you can't go wrong with the speedlink spes, cheap as chips and decent pick up.

rids57 · 8 Oct 2014 at 23:30

Xonar DGX + Kingston HyperX Cloud headset = Job done for less than £100 the lot.

xpygmy · 9 Oct 2014 at 08:47

hyperseven said:
Xonar DGX + CALs + ModMic

May I ask what CALs are?

TwsT · 9 Oct 2014 at 09:07

creatiive Aurvana Live 1's

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SP-179-CL

or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SP-001-KS&groupid=702&catid=1058

microphone comes with the kingstons and they are pretty similar if not better than the cals

xpygmy · 9 Oct 2014 at 11:04

TwsT said:
creatiive Aurvana Live 1's

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SP-179-CL

or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SP-001-KS&groupid=702&catid=1058

microphone comes with the kingstons and they are pretty similar if not better than the cals

thank you

Ryanr1987 · 9 Oct 2014 at 16:45

Go for the HXC. The CAL are built like a twig.

rids57 · 9 Oct 2014 at 16:52

HXC = Hyper X Cloud by Kingston
CAL = Creative Aurvana Live

Not everyone knows the acronyms.

xpygmy · 9 Oct 2014 at 17:10

rids57 said:
HXC = Hyper X Cloud by Kingston
CAL = Creative Aurvana Live

Not everyone knows the acronyms.

haha, thanks.

TALON1973 · 9 Oct 2014 at 17:57

£30 on the soundcard and £100 on headphones .... your wasting the headphones

rids57 · 9 Oct 2014 at 18:03

and what would you suggest then?

TALON1973 · 9 Oct 2014 at 18:08

rids57 said:
and what would you suggest then?

well his options are abit low ...... all im saying is I think hes wasting £100 . The onboard might as well be used

hyperseven · 9 Oct 2014 at 18:30

TALON1973 said:
well his options are abit low ...... all im saying is I think hes wasting £100 . The onboard might as well be used

But since he is playing FPS with probably want to use Dolby virtual speaker, which few motherboards have.

rids57 · 9 Oct 2014 at 18:45

At his price point the HyperX are certainly the best option for headphones as they are well made, good for gaming and music and have a dedicated microphone included. That eats up £65, which leaves £65 for a sound card....

To be honest, if I were in the OP's place I'd try and save another £20 and get the ROG Phoebus Solo (internal) or the Asus Xonar U7 external sound card.

xpygmy · 9 Oct 2014 at 22:35

TALON1973 said:
£30 on the soundcard and £100 on headphones .... your wasting the headphones

I am more then happy to spend more on the soundcard, I just don't really know much about soundcards and what they are worth (although I don't want to invest heavily into one). Any suggestions? My maximum budget would be £65 I guess, since I am going for the hyper x cloud headset.

rids57 said:
At his price point the HyperX are certainly the best option for headphones as they are well made, good for gaming and music and have a dedicated microphone included. That eats up £65, which leaves £65 for a sound card....

To be honest, if I were in the OP's place I'd try and save another £20 and get the ROG Phoebus Solo (internal) or the Asus Xonar U7 external sound card.

Are these 2 sound cards good ones to get, for the money, and if so what is better internal or external?

rids57 · 9 Oct 2014 at 23:50

I wouldn't have recommended them if they weren't decent - as to which is best, that's entirely up to you.

The Phoebus has a stronger headphone amplifier but as you will be using low impedance, easy to drive headphones that isn't an issue.

Then again the U7 has the benefit of giving you a real volume control knob right on your desktop and somewhere to plug your headphones into as well.

With the Phoebus I would suggest using a short, good quality headphone extension and leaving it plugged into the headphone socket permanently - that way you can connect/disconnect your headphones without fishing around behind the computer.

Angst · 10 Oct 2014 at 13:33

As said hyper x clouds are the best option for you at this price, as for soundcard since you play fps i wouldnt be able to recomend anything other than the creative soundblaster z.

rids57 · 10 Oct 2014 at 14:29

Soundblaster Z has no gain settings so with low impedance headphones (HyperX Clouds are 60ohm) volume control can be a problem.