Need a gaming soundcard

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I have a pair of NS1000 headphones and wish to get a sound card for better sound performance. Main use will be gaming/music/watching movies. Need some recommendations on a sound card, dont want to spend a lot maybe upto £60-£70, thanks
 
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That's not bad - but the headphone virtualisation on Xonar (Dolby Headphone) is better suited to the NS1000's soundstage than the X-Fi.

I would go Xonar D1 or DX if you're spending up to £70.

I used to use NS1000s with a Xonar D2. I now have an X-Fi Prelude but use it with an external Dolby Headphone processor. I wouldn't have moved back to X-Fi without Dolby Headphone.
 
I can vouch for what Uriel said, Goldring phones are better suited to Dolby Headphone, than CMSS 3D on the X-Fi cards. Also, Dolby Headphone is far better than CMSS 3D when it comes to movies.
 
The Xonar DX is an excellent card for gaming (on the budget), I use one with my Sennheiser HD280s for MW2 and such - has great positional sound.
 
I have two sets of 5.1 headphones and in the same boat as the original poster. I have gainward 5.1 headphones & a set of 5.1 speedlink medusas and need a new sounds card. (my old SB Live now doesnt work as I have 4gb system memory and it cant handle that..... and my onboard realtec HD audio al888 clearly sux...)

As these headphones are both actual 5.1 would the xonar D1 that I am looking at getting be best or creative x-fi - if so which one. TBH I only have £60-£70 to spend.

I mainly play fps games live cod4, css etc and loved the positional sound the sb live gave me but its been a real faff trying to get that to work again so hey, thought i'd upgrade :)

thanks in advance for the help^^
 
I used my old Medusas a few times in stereo mode (CD / DVD switch on the older Medusas) with Dolby Headphone on a Xonar D2. It was markedly more realistic and spacious than the Medusas in 5.1 mode. Doing that test completely convinced me that the Medusas' design is hopelessly outdated, compared to virtualised 5.1 over stereo.

If you're getting a Xonar D1, I would recommend throwing £10-15 at a set of Goldring DR50s and another £5-10 quid on a desktop or clip on microphone. I use the logitech desktop mic (non-usb version). They completely blow the Medusas away (although the bass isn't rumbly if you like that sort of thing...).

If you really want to, you can use the Medusas in 5.1 mode with a Xonar but it would be a real waste of a good soundcard.
 
Uriel said:
If you really want to, you can use the Medusas in 5.1 mode with a Xonar but it would be a real waste of a good soundcard.
Click to expand...

Why is that if you dont mind me asking? I pretty much know my stuff with everything but sound cards...ask me about memory settings or o/c cpu im there...

Ill have a look at those headphones cheers. I love the sound of the gainwards over the medusas tbh and have a mic already for that logitech silver one on a stand and that works fine. Sorry for asking so many questions just wonding over simulated 5.1 sounds better than feeding the actual channels direct :)

if i did do as you suggested and put over stereo, do i still plug in all 4 3.5mm jacks to the sound card?
 
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