Best sound card, bang for buck?

jg623

jg623

jg623

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Hi,

As my creative titanium pci e, basically gave up on me after a few years I'm in search of a new sound card.

I have the sennheisers hd 650's and they are awesome, got them about 3 years ago, I need a card that will be used mainly for games and music.

looking at the cheaper option:
Asus Xonar DG

seems ok, but looks like its had a few unconvincing reviews. Have creative stepped up there game with the titanium HD ? their drivers have always had bad rep. I've heard the HT Omega's are the best, but kinda pricey. Asus and Auzuntech I'm not so sure about.

Three cards i have my eye on are the Asus xonar d2x, and the Asus xonar dx/d1 is there much difference between them?

Any help is greatly appreciated,

cheers,

#jg623
 
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DG is certainly the best bang for buck sound card, but it is a £20 card, something some people seem to forget. You can't really compare a £20 card to one that costs say £60 or more. It's a great card for anyone not wanting to pay too much. It's certainly not good enough to be using a pair of HD650's with though.

What headphone amp do you use with the HD650's?
 
Marsman said:
DG is certainly the best bang for buck sound card, but it is a £20 card, something some people seem to forget. You can't really compare a £20 card to one that costs say £60 or more. It's a great card for anyone not wanting to pay too much. It's certainly not good enough to be using a pair of HD650's with though.

What headphone amp do you use with the HD650's?
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I'm embarrassingly going to say i haven't paired it with an amp yet. Any amps i read up on for these headphones are in excess of 150~300+ so needless to say im not buying one just yet.

Although the past few years using them with the creative titanium has been excellent, i always knew buying these would need a good amp to really get the best out of them, when i got the sennheisers, it was a recommendation from a friend, can't fault them at all.
 
Xonar Essence would be worth considering if you don't want to shell out on a separate amp. There are a few members with either HD600's or 650's, and a Xonar Essence. They find it does a very good job of driving the Senn's.

Having said that, there are opinions from some people that the Essence amp is rubbish.

Might be worth getting a cheaper sound card, and a separate amp. The HD600/650's scale very well, so one could spend silly money on an amp, and see a benefit.

Not saying you need to spend silly money, but they are not like some phones, which see no benefit from an expensive amp.

FiiO E9 might be worth looking at for £75, and possibly a Xonar D1/X.

FiiO E7 would be a good partner for the E9, instead of a sound card. Being just a DAC and USB, you will get no surround sound capabilities through the headphones.

If you just want plain stereo, and no surround sound effects, then a FiiO E7 + E9 would be a decent combo.
 
I have HD650 with the Titanium HD, and they work very well together. The HD is pretty neutral, and very clear in the top end, so it balances out the Senn's warm bassy sound nicely. But you really should buy a dedicated amp if possible - I have a Matrix M-Stage and going from the line out of my old Auzen Prelude to the amp was a very big step up.
 
Dx is still the best bang for buck imo as for the fiios If I could afford senn 650's i'd be wanting something better possibly tube amps.
 
Not sure if helpful, but:

Currently got Xonar DX > Darkvoice 336 SE (£160) > HD 650. Sounds great :cool:

However, got a Cambridge Audio DACMagic (also £160 SH) arriving next week so will let you know how that sounds. Planning to do DX > dacmagic (optical) > darkvoice > hd 650. Some said get an amp first, some said DAC, but as they were both the same price we'll see which one has the biggest effect on the sound :)
 
Not really good bang for the buck, but you could try the Asus Essence ST/STX. Here's a review that used a HD650 to test the cards headphone out:

http://www.stereophile.com/computeraudio/asus_xonar_essence_ststx_soundcards/index.html

Headphone listening
I didn't have the space in the original review to discuss the Essence STX card's sound quality with headphones, though I did say that the fact that the headphone output's maximum level could be adjusted to match the headphone impedance was a blessing. The output impedance of the ¼" headphone jack was 10.7 ohms at all frequencies and settings, which is usefully low. However, there was a relatively high DC offset on this output, at 19mV left and 15mV right, this unrelated to the anomaly in digital output noted above.

Through my favorite headphones, Sennheiser's HD-650, I was consistently surprised by the quality of the Xonar soundcard's output. Yes, in comparison with the CEntrance DACport USB headphone amplifier ($395), which I reviewed in June (p.99), the highs weren't quite as silky smooth; and my reference Benchmark DAC1 ($995), fed with the Essence STX's digital output, offered tighter, deeper lows and a generally greater feel of dynamic swings. For example, Mark Flynn's snare drum on Attention Screen's Live at Merkin Hall (CD, Stereophile STPH018-2) exploded from the Sennheisers as it should when the headphones were driven by the Benchmark; driven by the Essence STX at the same level, the drum sounded as loud, but without quite the same jump factor. The low frequencies did have a greater feeling of power and drive than they did with the DACport, however, and backgrounds were silent, with no noise interference from the PC. Overall, the Essence STX's headphone output was better than you would expect from so affordable a product.

As we prepare this issue of Stereophile for publication, I'm working on the first mixes, using Adobe Audition 3.0 in multichannel mode, of the concert Attention Screen played last April at the Yamaha recital hall in midtown Manhattan (see "Update" in this issue). Whether listening to the mixes through the Sennheiser headphones driven directly by the Xonar soundcard or via the card's optical output fed to my big rig, I get no sense of missing anything that I should be aware of.
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I use my HD650 directly from the Essence ST headphone out (using +12db gain setting) and I think it sounds fine. I'm sure it can sound better with a proper external amp, but it will be mostly a refinement of existing qualities, not massive difference. As the review states, I don't hear anything that is obviously missing, the sound is clean, balanced, punchy with plenty of volume.

Plus, worst case scenario, you can purchase a proper amp in the future and still use the Essence ST/STX as an excellent source (using the line out instead).
 
Depends a lot on budget, and the upgrade path you're after.

I'm suspicious of these (jolly expensive) 'integrated' DAC headphone amp internal sound card. You definitely get a better upgrade path buying separates. In my case, the next thing to do (not for a good while yet as the system is sweeeet) would be to replace the darkvoice with a balanced amp, I'm looking mainly at the littledot vii+ and a balanced HD650 cable. Because the DACMagic has balanced XLR outputs it can definitely stay.
 
I will look into the essence ST/STX, ive ordered the DX though atm, its not a bad card for £50, my friend wants a new replacement pc, so i can throw the DX into the build then go for the ST/STX.

Another question...

i switch from my speakers to my headphones a lot. I do have a 3.55mm audio splitter
audio-splitter.jpg


obviously i plug my speakers and my headphones into it, but I'm not sure whether it degrades the sound even if the other component is not active. i.e Turning the speakers off physically but keeping the jack in.

I also have the option to plug my headphones into the speakers, but again I'm not sure if this is effecting the sound rather than going directly into the speaker jack.

Thanks for your help so far, its much appreciated
 
jg623 said:
I will look into the essence ST/STX, ive ordered the DX though atm, its not a bad card for £50, my friend wants a new replacement pc, so i can throw the DX into the build then go for the ST/STX.

Another question...

i switch from my speakers to my headphones a lot. I do have a 3.55mm audio splitter
audio-splitter.jpg


obviously i plug my speakers and my headphones into it, but I'm not sure whether it degrades the sound even if the other component is not active. i.e Turning the speakers off physically but keeping the jack in.

I also have the option to plug my headphones into the speakers, but again I'm not sure if this is effecting the sound rather than going directly into the speaker jack.

Thanks for your help so far, its much appreciated
Click to expand...


I have a xonard1 which is the pci version of the card you just ordered. Despite my issues with the actual card which i wont bore you with, the way I was told to get it working with headphones etc was to use a switch.

Google for Plantronics PC Headset Speaker Switch thats the one I am using and works well.
 
The DX has a front panel audio connector; so if your case has audio outputs you can use the front panel for headphones and the back for speakers and switch between them in the Asus software (I actually have my speakers plugged into the front panel as the dodgy wiring in my case picks up a little bit of interference which is more audible with headphones).
 
A switch would be better, but either way I'd suspect you'd get some sound quality degradation; how much will depend on your audio setup and your own ears.

The Essence ST/STX has separate line out and headphone out, which means you can have both your headphones and speakers hooked up to the sound card and change what you want to output to via the driver control panel.
 
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