Audio engine a2, which card?

airdrawn

airdrawn

airdrawn

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5 Nov 2005
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I am listening to my music through my pc more and more and so have just purchased some Audio engine A2's, which i am pretty happy with, but can't help feel that a dedicated sound card would be worthwhile.

I know nothing about sound cards, and do they really make a difference over the Realtek HD on board sound?

So, what do you guys recommend, budget up to £80.

Thanks

Si
 
I'll stick with the above Xonar recommendation then. Just choose based on whether you want to use a PCI or PCI-E slot.
 
The D1 is a low profile card. D2 is full size. The D1 has a front panel audio connector. The D2 doesn't have one. The D2 does Dolby Digital Live and DTS connect (2 different types of 5.1 signal for digitial receivers) over optical. The D1 only has Dolby Digital Live. The D2 has marginally superior analogue sound components, although reviews I've seen say they're almost indistinguishable when listening.

I own a D2 and haven't heard the D1 but I trust the review sites I've seen enough to believe that it's very good and very similar.

My only word of warning is that Asus haven't exactly been quick at updating drivers to deal with a few game problems. I've had some minor compatibility problems with some games as a result. Trouble is none of the other soundcard manufacturers seem particularly good at it either.

If games were your main priority I might have recommended one of the X-Fi series but I had problems with their drivers too. Game compatibility was marginally better though. Music sound quality from the Xonar D2 is the best I've heard from a consumer internal soundcard.
 
Oh one other warning - in some ways a Xonar can seem too good. I'd encoded my entire CD collection as 192kbs mp3s. With the Xonar I can hear the difference in quality. I've had to start again - using FLAC.
 
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