New Dac or Sound card?

atomic7431

atomic7431

atomic7431

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This thread is relative to exactly what im experiencing with my current Xonar STX.
I have had for a while now numerous people on chat via team speak or gamevox for instance complain of buzzing/whirring/cow noises lol from my mic.
Now i have replaced the mic from a zalman to a mod mic in recent weeks and the issue is still present.
Today while playing some games i noticed this buzz/radio like interferance through my speakers and headphone. So i did some research and it seems this card suffers from this issue as reported by several people.

So the question is do i replace with another sound card or buy a Dac like the FULLA 2 ?

I mainly game so positional audio helps a lot, and i listen to music too. I have Senheiser HD598SE headphones.

All help welcomed :)

Budget ideally no more than £130
 
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ok found this now -
Sennheiser GSX 1000 Gaming Audio Amplifier - Black/Red

over my budget but looks like it ticks all the boxes.....
 
The soundblasters don't seem to have a good mic input either. I have a SBZ and the mic input is not great, bit low etc.

I can't help with the soundcard or dac, but for your mic, get a Sabrent usb adapter, they are cheap (£6), and work really well with the modmic. That's what I have mine running through, you can find plenty of youtube reviews etc praising that setup for it.
 
If you're getting interference problems with a Xonar Essence, then it's probably unlikely another internal card will be any different.

A USB device is the next thing to try, although interference can affect USB as well. Without trying an audio USB device though, there is no way of knowing whether that will be affected or not.

For positional sound the Sennheiser GSX is top of the pile. It is expensive, but if positional sound is a priority there is nothing better. You'll have a good pairing with the HD598 headphones, so nothing to worry about when it comes to the GSX driving the headphones well, as some more demanding headphones it doesn't do well with; such as Sennheiser HD600/650 AKG K612 K702, etc. No problems with easy to drive headphones though.

As for some of the others you've mentioned; Schiit Modi is just a DAC, so you'd need to buy an amp as well, such as the Magni 2. Fulla 2 is both DAC and amp and would be a good choice, but either of them will a better choice for music than gaming, as there will be no positional sound. You need some something aimed at gamer's for that.

I wouldn't bother with the Omni, but the X-Fi HD is a decent choice if you want something a lot cheaper than the GSX. I'd go for the X-Fi HD over the Surround Pro you've mentioned. That's a better choice for anyone with 5.1 speakers.

Creative X7 is a good bit of kit. Has a lot of good features, but it depends how many of those do you actually need?

Same headphone amp that's in the Essence and ZxR cards, IIRC, so would be an ideal external choice for more demanding headphones. You don't really need an amp like that though with the HD598's and it also has an amplifier for passive speakers. Unless you plan to get some passive speakers to use with it, then the X7 is a device that costs more than the GSX and for primarily gaming, ultimately is not as good. X7 really makes better sense if you plan to use the capabilities that make it a stand out product.

If you feel you might want to get some more demanding headphones at some point and maybe would like to add some stereo speakers, then maybe the X7 would be ideal. The trade off is that the positional sound is not as good as the GSX, and that the GSX won't be able to drive more demanding headphones.
 
@Marsman Thanks for that detailed post, much appreciated.

I am very tempted to get the GSX 1000 as primarily the pc is used for gaming, bf1, Zombies in spaceland, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Occasional Elite etc.

I have not long since purchased the headphones so will be keeping them for a decent stint going forward.

Tempted to test the onboard audio to see if it has interfereance just to see if i can say 100% its the STX, although the noise wasnt there when i initially bought the STX so maybe that says enough.
 
A bit late to be discussing troubleshooting the STX (assuming that is possible), but have you upgraded anything else within the PC since the interference problems started?
 
Did it start when you installed the 1080?

Just curious really. Not that it really matters, because if it's the GPU causing it, not a great deal you can do about that, except more the sound card further away if possible. even then, sometimes that doesn't help.
 
no i have had complaints about the mic issues for best part of say 8 months or so, so i maybe had my 980 TI back then as well.

Odd how it effects some and not others as no one else i speak to online has this issue, really starting to think it is the Xonar
 
Because the buzzing gets worse when you are gaming then it's almost certainly caused by your graphics card. It seems to be a lucky dip as to whether or not a graphics card will cause noticeable EMI, I used to run my STX in the top PCIE x1 slot, so it was practically touching the graphics card and never got any interference whatsoever. Ironically, my Schiit Modi picks up a little interference from somewhere (not sure where, router possibly), so going with an external sound card is no guarantee it will cure the problem.
 
Zxr has superb clarity on mic, not sure if the rest of the range does.

I have a gsx 1000. Alright but not worth the 200 quid premium.

Ditched the 1000 and 360's, got modmic/akg 712/chord mojo. Leaves the rest standing.
 
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I use a Behringer XENYX 302USB external dac/headphone amp & mixer. Can be had pretty cheap and works well for me. Using Sennheiser Game One headphones and mic.

Have a HRT Microstreamer as a higher quality DAC but it's output only - no mic support.
 
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