New external sound card to replace AE-7

sativa

sativa

sativa

Associate
Joined
1 Jan 2004
Posts
1,553
Location
UK
I have owned internal soundcard for the past 20 years, however, my current motherboard does not have space for an internal sound card: I have to retire my trusty AE-7.

Please can you recommend an equivalent external sound card?

I use the AE-7 sound card with goods quality headphones (no speakers), for gaming and listening to music/videos.

Also, which USB port do you plug these things into?
 
Basically uou get a DAC/AMP, plug it into any usb port, or optical. connect headphones to it and go.

PC outputs a audio encoded bitstream straight from source file/app and the DAC decodes it.

Plenty of options at every price point. Can even be separated out into specialised mini hifi components. Lots of connection options, and capability regarding EQ and sound customisation. Some gaming specific ones as well. Been years since I used a soundcard, so I assume you'd lose any extra sound enhancement options the soundblaster had. I als9o assume they do an external option, but it will be functionally equivalent, with iut's own DAC and processing chips as well. Plenty of full on audiophile options too. The cheaper ones are generally excellent value for money for what you get.

Check out Fosi Audio, Fiio, Topping, Schitt, ifi audio.

Edit, there's also the option of a dongle style DAC, so no use of desk space, but they usually terminate in s straight usb-c from what I've seen. Still an adaptor might work.
 
Last edited:
Thank you Starvald: I have always had Creative, and am looking at the G8. I am happy to spend max. 200 GBP. I am more concerned that nothing external will match a PCIE internal card e.g. latency
 
Latency wise, I've not noticed any real difference. My Desktop amp, the drivers buffer size can be tweeked to reduce or increase latency. Even an internal card will have processing latency as well. My driver says my latency is around 8.5 milliseconds. I've not really got to grips with understanding ASIO yet, but I can feel a read up coming.

The advantage of using a gaming oriented one will be they generally offer microphone in as well, which might be tidier for you.
 
I've largely used USB dac/amp setups which don't require drivers (at least not in the way a Creative device might for the software suit) for 10-15 years now.

If you're wanting Creative for virtual surround, I'd suggest disabling your Creative suit and testing some of the software solutions such as ATMOS and DTS:X, most if not all virtual surround frankly is software based now anyway. Take the much lauded Audeze Mobius for example, the Xbox version actually comes with an ATMOS licence, being why it costs more than the Playstation version which uses Sony's proprietary method for the console.

There's a lot of good options out there depending on your needs, but it sounds like a dac/amp combo might suit your needs rather than having the two separate (yes, you can get the DAC and AMP stages separately so if you need amplification make sure you don't just by a DAC).

What headphones do you plan on using/own? Suggestions might differ depending.
 
Starvald said:
ifi audio
Click to expand...

I'm a little um iffy on ifi - pretty much everyone I know in person who has bought their devices has had malfunctions or failures crop up after a couple of years or so, which isn't good as they are mostly premium priced devices.
 
You can't really go wrong with Fosi in my experience, I wouldn't say they're the best but they're generally solid and I doubt you'd regret buying anything from them.

I know people who have iFi Zen stuff that has been spot on, not seen many failure reports, but then I'd also play it on the safe side.

There's a lot of Chi-Fi (aka Chinese import audio kit) out there too which can be hit and miss, I've used a bunch over the years and some is better than others. Aune, GD-Audio etc, if you buy from a company like that try to do so from a place that offers good customer support like Richer Sounds. I've had a few Aune products plap the bed in various ways over short-medium periods of time and while I've heard they've improved it's not something you want to faff with if you're not hard into the hobby.

I'd opt for the Fosi K5 though tbh, it's a powerful little bit of kit for cheap.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom