Internal soundcard/DAC help

Telecaster

Telecaster

Telecaster

Soldato
Joined
17 Jun 2012
Posts
5,951
I've never used an internal soundcard/DAC, can someone help me to chose one?

Main priority is music playback, but gaming also obviously. Do they connect to the front panel audio also?

What I'm after is 2 channel connection to hi-fi amp but also a high quality headphone output- at the minute the motherboard audio out is connected to the amp which means I can only use the front panel headphone out and it's terrible, absolutely terrible- interference, buzzing the whole lot so it's totally unusable.

TL;DR - need sound card/DAC with decent 2 channel and decent headphone output. Budget no more than a ton please and nothing with any silly sound altering super bass or anything like that, just a clean 2 channel output.
 
If you are getting electromagnetic interference with the motherboard audio there is a good chance you will also get it with an internal sound card. There's more chance you could get away with it with a top end card, like the STX II but that's well outside your budget.

Best advice is to get an external USB DAC/Amp such as the Arcam R-Pac as recommended by PapaLazaru or the FiiO E10K (which I use), which costs a mere £62 if you paddle up the big river in the rain forest :D
 
I quite like my SMSL SD-793II but it only has spdif input (optical and coax) but a lot (most? - mine doesn't lol) have this on-board.

Only £45 from rain forest. It does have a built in headphone amp, but I use an external amp tho (little dot tube amp).
 
rids57 said:
If you are getting electromagnetic interference with the motherboard audio there is a good chance you will also get it with an internal sound card. There's more chance you could get away with it with a top end card, like the STX II but that's well outside your budget.

Best advice is to get an external USB DAC/Amp such as the Arcam R-Pac as recommended by PapaLazaru or the FiiO E10K (which I use), which costs a mere £62 if you paddle up the big river in the rain forest :D
Click to expand...

I'm not getting it from the motherboard out, the board has great audio, it's the front panel headphone jack that has all the interference on it.

I have a dedicated hi-fi room so I was trying to keep the box count down in the PC room hence keeping it internal.

What about this one, looks decent enough at 124db SNR and £99?

https://www.asus.com/uk/Sound/Xonar_Essence_STX/
 
That's why I never connect the front panel audio, it sometimes acts as an antenna for EMI.

I use an STX myself and rate it very highly for both music and gaming but good luck getting a new one as they are discontinued and have been replaced with the STX II. The STX II is almost the same card, it has an extra low gain setting in the software for IEMs and uses different op-amps in the headphone amp but apart from that it's essentially the same card, except the price went up by about £50.
 
Just had a look myself and it can be had for under £100, which is a stupidly good bargain.

Seems like OcUK stopped selling them a bit too soon.
 
Curry's had it at £99, one in stock local so I went and collected it which is strange in this day and age, can't remember the last time I bought non food stuff from an actual shop!

First impressions are fantastic bit of kit, it's sorted my problem out 100% plus the headphone amp section is pure quality, easily on par with my dedicated 2 channel set up in the other room.
 
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