Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 vs Creative Sound Blaster X AE-5

[Kalith]

Hey all,

I've had my Xonar DGX for quite some time, it came with my PC originally, unfortunately it seems something has blown during a powercut and the microphone port doesn't work anymore. I can get audio but mic not working, tested two headsets and they work fine on another computer.

So, I see the thread about the AE-5 and it seems quite a popular card, though the price is quite a bit higher. Wondering if I'm going to actually hear the difference and get value out of it, can anyone recommend the AE-5 or am I better off sticking with another Xonar 5.1? PC used for games predominantly, currently using Sennheiser GSP 600 if that's relevant.

 

[Kalith]

Yes, it was the stupid Windows settings!

I went into the Security -> Privacy -> Microphone settings.
'Microphone access for this device' was already set to On, however the 'Allow apps to access your microphone' section was set to Off.

I never knew this existed, spent all my time messing about in the Playback/Recording options + Windows Sound page + messing around with drivers. The places you'd actually expect to make your devices work.

Switched the option on which changed the entry in the Recording tab from 'Currently Unavailable' back to 'Default Device'.
It still didn't work at that stage, however I went into Right click -> Properties -> Custom and found 'Front Mic' was enabled again, probably when I tried reinstalling driver last night, removed that and mic is working.