EVGA NU Audio Sound Card

[R3X]

Been using the card for 3 days now and it's brilliant, tried it with my Focal Clear's, Audeze LCDC's & Hifiman HE-400's and it's easily on par with my Schiit Lyr3 w/multibit & Schiit Bifrost Gen5.

Even using my old AE Aego speakers it sounds way better than the AE-5 it replaced, can't say anything about the digital side as all i bought the card for was the 2 x channel analogue & headphone out.

Cheers great info, I don't have the ££ or space for headphone amps and dac boxes so if a £230 soundcard can compete or equal with headphone amps/dacs worth almost 1K its gotta be a winner !

Had a feeling these UK based Audio engineers put together a card in which they would proudly buy and install themselves, I will however wait for the AE9 and check more reviews.

 

[EsaT]

Cheers great info, I don't have the ££ or space for headphone amps and dac boxes so if a £230 soundcard can compete or equal with headphone amps/dacs worth almost 1K its gotta be a winner !

You better read this...
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733-19.html

 

[Marsman]

Interesting. I don't recall you telling anyone that there is no point in getting a Creative AE-5, because an Audigy FX also has SBX prostudio and is £100 cheaper. If more money doesn't buy any better quality, someone is paying an extra £100 for what?

 

[EsaT]

Interesting. I don't recall you telling anyone that there is no point in getting a Creative AE-5, because an Audigy FX also has SBX prostudio and is £100 cheaper. If more money doesn't buy any better quality, someone is paying an extra £100 for what?

At least AE-5 gives genuinely notably better headphone output for its price extra over Creative's cheaper cards.
And without going into this "audiophile" luxury price category.

 

[R3X]

You better read this...
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733-19.html

Great read and article thanks, I will be the first to admit sometimes I am unsure if something really does sound better.

I am still confused by that article and the results, the general conclusion was he could not actually tell the difference between his $2000 DAC/Audio equipment over his $2 inbuilt onboard motherboard audio with his Sennheiser HD800 headphones.

That article does touch on the blind testing and testing methods and I agree with what he said its very hard to test the differences too.

This is like my 320k vs flac article.... tbh I don't think there was too much difference if none at all to my ears but I do still have flac anyhow.

Anyone else may wish to read that toms hardware link...... just don't throw your Nu soundcard against the wall

 

[Bluntwrapped]

You can buy the AE-5 for <£100 new.

Why would you choose this over the AE-5? Serious answers only please.

 

[R3X]

You can buy the AE-5 for <£100 new.

Why would you choose this over the AE-5? Serious answers only please.

According to an early real Nu review a guy compared it to his AE-5 and said the sound quality was much better.

https://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2914548

"The EVGA Nu Audio has more control, more detail, and more refinement than the Soundblaster AE-5. If you don't mince hairs and/or don't love audio, get the Sound Blaster. You'll be quite happy. If you close your eyes when you listen to music or listen to music in the dark, you absolutely should give this card a try!!

BTW, IMHO, movies and games are pretty easy to reproduce vs. music. After all, can you really tell what a starship sounds like? Or a dinosaur roaring? But music, that's a whole different matter. If you audio device can do music well (like the EVGA NU audio card), rest assured it can handle dialog and gaming just fine!"


So he said the control, detail and refinement much better then the AE5 but only in music, in movies and games not so much difference, he did also say some teething issues with EVGA nu drivers though but apparently they are fixing it atm.

This is early days so perhaps wait for more reviews and don't forget Creative have launched there new high end sound card the AE-9 which could be even better then the Nu card which is due any day now.

 

[kully1972]

Hi everyone
I just bought the card and can safely say it is a worthwhile upgrade over my realtek onboard audio.
Using asio output on foobar everything sounds cleaner and you get a deeper wider soundstage, more detail.
The separation of instruments is very noticeable and you can hear the subtle layers of sampling in a track much clearer.
The bass is tighter and deeper and more rhythmic.
I love hearing the cymbals and drums on this sound card. Van Halen's 1984 album sounds more alive than ever.
Overall the sound signature is very neutral and clean and is comparable to my external nu force dac hdp (sold awhile ago) which was 700 pounds in 2010.
As a long time audiophile I'm glad I bought this and has asio support built into the driver suite.
Asio drivers are important as you decode at hardware level only.
I have a high end x299 msi m7 motherboard and it's great to use another pci e slot as let's face it guys, SLI is effectively dead.

 

[Rroff]

According to an early real Nu review a guy compared it to his AE-5 and said the sound quality was much better.

https://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2914548

"The EVGA Nu Audio has more control, more detail, and more refinement than the Soundblaster AE-5. If you don't mince hairs and/or don't love audio, get the Sound Blaster. You'll be quite happy. If you close your eyes when you listen to music or listen to music in the dark, you absolutely should give this card a try!!

BTW, IMHO, movies and games are pretty easy to reproduce vs. music. After all, can you really tell what a starship sounds like? Or a dinosaur roaring? But music, that's a whole different matter. If you audio device can do music well (like the EVGA NU audio card), rest assured it can handle dialog and gaming just fine!"


So he said the control, detail and refinement much better then the AE5 but only in music, in movies and games not so much difference, he did also say some teething issues with EVGA nu drivers though but apparently they are fixing it atm.

This is early days so perhaps wait for more reviews and don't forget Creative have launched there new high end sound card the AE-9 which could be even better then the Nu card which is due any day now.

IMO the big factor in his comparison is the use of the Sennheiser 600 series - even the easier to drive models like the 660S love voltage - the AE-5 while driving the 600 series better than most consumer devices doesn't quite have enough voltage to get all the detail and control out of the drivers that is possible while IIRC the Nu has higher voltage drive capability on the headphone out and I suspect this is a big factor in that user's perception... big big factor infact.

I find it hard to believe that the Nu audio has that much more control, detail or refinement than the AE-5 overall - the AE-5 uses a decent DAC that is only one model down IIRC from the variant used in the high end Sennheiser DAC/AMPs, etc. and the choice of opamp has very low distortion, good detail, etc. and the design/circuitry overall is good. Now I can believe that the Nu sounds subjectively better for music listening as they seem to have bias on the side of clean, clear audio for gaming with the AE-5 while the choice of components on the Nu seems much more oriented towards music use as well.

Also both will take a big dump all over onboard audio - most of the motherboard implementations use cheap general purpose parts in the signal path even when using overall decent spec and that always seem to make the audio somehow duller sounding even when the detail is there.

 

[R3X]

Hi everyone
I just bought the card and can safely say it is a worthwhile upgrade over my realtek onboard audio.
Using asio output on foobar everything sounds cleaner and you get a deeper wider soundstage, more detail.
The separation of instruments is very noticeable and you can hear the subtle layers of sampling in a track much clearer.
The bass is tighter and deeper and more rhythmic.
I love hearing the cymbals and drums on this sound card. Van Halen's 1984 album sounds more alive than ever.
Overall the sound signature is very neutral and clean and is comparable to my external nu force dac hdp (sold awhile ago) which was 700 pounds in 2010.
As a long time audiophile I'm glad I bought this and has asio support built into the driver suite.
Asio drivers are important as you decode at hardware level only.
I have a high end x299 msi m7 motherboard and it's great to use another pci e slot as let's face it guys, SLI is effectively dead.

Great to hear, going to be more interesting when we see AE5/AE9 vs Nu reviews hopefully soon

 

[R3X]

IMO the big factor in his comparison is the use of the Sennheiser 600 series - even the easier to drive models like the 660S love voltage - the AE-5 while driving the 600 series better than most consumer devices doesn't quite have enough voltage to get all the detail and control out of the drivers that is possible while IIRC the Nu has higher voltage drive capability on the headphone out and I suspect this is a big factor in that user's perception... big big factor infact.

I find it hard to believe that the Nu audio has that much more control, detail or refinement than the AE-5 overall - the AE-5 uses a decent DAC that is only one model down IIRC from the variant used in the high end Sennheiser DAC/AMPs, etc. and the choice of opamp has very low distortion, good detail, etc. and the design/circuitry overall is good. Now I can believe that the Nu sounds subjectively better for music listening as they seem to have bias on the side of clean, clear audio for gaming with the AE-5 while the choice of components on the Nu seems much more oriented towards music use as well.

Also both will take a big dump all over onboard audio - most of the motherboard implementations use cheap general purpose parts in the signal path even when using overall decent spec and that always seem to make the audio somehow duller sounding even when the detail is there.

I read further comments on that page and its possible that guy who posted his thoughts did not enable HP direct mode on his AE5, he mentioned he just switched off the creative accoustic engine and other features so maybe its not even a fair comparison or review. Gonna take some time I guess for those real world test reviews !

 

[Rroff]

I read further comments on that page and its possible that guy who posted his thoughts did not enable HP direct mode on his AE5, he mentioned he just switched off the creative accoustic engine and other features so maybe its not even a fair comparison or review. Gonna take some time I guess for those real world test reviews !

Yeah that too - direct mode does noticeable boost detail and impact on the AE-5 though I think the biggest factor for that particular poster is his choice of headphones that are accommodated better on the Nu.

 

[R3X]

That is interesting about the voltage being better on the Nu then the AE5, my Sen HD650s sound pretty lifeless and dull on the AE5 while my K550s sound lovely, it does now come to think about it feel like its needs a push to drive to the cans.

 

[Rroff]

That is interesting about the voltage being better on the Nu then the AE5, my Sen HD650s sound pretty lifeless and dull on the AE5 while my K550s sound lovely, it does now come to think about it feel like its needs a push to drive to the cans.

To be honest I'm not 100% what it is as the volume control will still have an impact on the vrms at the output even though the AE-5 IIRC max is around 6VRMS and the Nu 8VRMS but I've build a few headphone amps running off different supply voltages and the HD600 series only really start to come into their own with higher supply voltages with like +/-10V rails and upwards (which gives potential higher VRMS output) and I've done the maths to make sure it isn't clipping due to the gain and voltage ratios, etc. and I can hear the difference if I stick my HD600s direct into the AE-5 versus using it as a line out to my amp.

 

[JasonM]

Been using the card for 3 days now and it's brilliant, tried it with my Focal Clear's, Audeze LCD2C's & Hifiman HE-400's and it's easily on par with my Schiit Lyr3 w/multibit & Schiit Bifrost Gen5.

Even using my old AE Aego speakers it sounds way better than the AE-5 it replaced, can't say anything about the digital side as all i bought the card for was the 2 x channel analogue & headphone out.

What is the background line noise on the card like?

 

[Amidar]

What is the background line noise on the card like?

Silent to my ears, could hear slight background noise on the AE-5.

 

[JasonM]

Silent to my ears, could hear slight background noise on the AE-5.

if you can't hear any line noise then it's a sign the EVGA a very good sound card.

 

[JollyJamma]

I just saw this sound card and it looks fantastic. Good reviews.

It's a touch expensive but if you have some money burning in your back pocket, this sound card with a decent pair of headphones would a good upgrade.

 

[V F]

I just saw this sound card and it looks fantastic. Good reviews.

It's a touch expensive but if you have some money burning in your back pocket, this sound card with a decent pair of headphones would a good upgrade.

I had been thinking about it when or if the Audigy 2 ZS drivers gets killed off in Windows 10. Just like what happened to the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude.

The Audigy 2 ZS still holds up well today for directional sound, silent background and great sound with a headphone amp. Which I'm surprised for a 2003 card.

 

[james.miller]

The NU Audio is a great card but you pay for it. If I wanted an xmos+ak4493 combo i'd do it externally and buy something like an SMSL Sanskrit for half the price.