New Sound Card

Tenko71

Tenko71

Tenko71

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25 Jan 2018
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I'm looking to upgrade the sound on my PC by adding a new sound card and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations.

The sound card will only be used for gaming, mostly FPS games, at the moment it's PUBG so footsteps and directional sound are important.

I'm currently using HD599 headphones but will consider changing these in the future if there are better ones available.

Budget for the sound card is £200 (not including the headphones).

I've been looking at the Soundblaster range but I'm unsure if the more expensive models are worth the extra money or is it just additional features that I'll never use. I'm not limiting my options to just Soundblaster though.

I've borrowed the Sennheiser GSX1000 from a friend and although the positional sound is very good, I've had a hard time hearing footsteps so the lack of settings that can be changed has put me off buying this.

Any recommendations are appreciated.
 
Try your headphones with the onboard in stereo and let your head work out where the sounds are coming from. It works OK for me in PUBG. I'm sure it can be improved but as it is now, it works.

I do output through optical from an onbaord soundcard to an AV amp (no processing enabled, no Windows surround enabled). But I have also just plugged straight into the onboard with headphones. My issue is more to do with closed back gear as open backs have an improved soundstage. There is a lot of evidence for good quality stereo headphones versus surround sound enabled kit.
 
Thanks for the reply

I've been using the onboard for some time and it just isn't loud enough for some reason, I borrowed the GSX1000 to see if this made a difference, and it did, not a huge amount louder, but better, albeit I have to have it around 90 volume.

The GSX1000 is great for directional sound when set to 7.1 (I know PUBG does not support this), but with this setting it seems to lose the sound of footsteps until the player is right on top of you, setting it to 2.0 improves the footsteps a little but reduces the directional sound, especially with gun shots. So even though you seem to be able to get one for £130 ish at the moment I'm not sure that is the way to go for me.

I've read that the Soundblaster sound card equalizier settings can be tweaked to get a good mix of the two, but I'm not sure if these are decent cards in general, which model is better and also if there is a better option from another manufacturer.
 
Tenko71 said:
I've been using the onboard for some time and it just isn't loud enough for some reason, I borrowed the GSX1000 to see if this made a difference, and it did, not a huge amount louder, but better, albeit I have to have it around 90 volume.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately Sennheiser GSX is snake oil overpriced for hardware.
It uses Conexant's cheap ass CX20745 DAC/output buffer chip meant for cheap toy... err smart phones.
And it literally struggles to match budget level Audigy Fx/Xonar DGX sound cards...
Which cost ~£30 with Audigy Fx still coming with Creative's very good binaural simulation.

At cheapest £50 Sound Blaster Z would have one level better D/A converter.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/search?ssearch=sound+blaster+z

and sound blasterx ae-5 has top level dac and one of the best headphone outputs of any sound cards capable to driving any headphone.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...aming-sound-card-70sb174000000-sc-104-cl.html

For external USB sound card Sound BlasterX G5 would be similarly priced while having roughly equal components.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...-card-with-headphone-amplifier-sp-183-cl.html


With integrated sound cards having matured and good enough for most uses and for speakers Asus is only other sound card maker.
But it's now Creative which offers lot better product support even having Win10 drivers for dozen+ years old sound cards.
While Asus ditched support of Phoebus line in barely five years and has lately even completely removed old drivers discontinued cards from their site.
 
Hi EsaT, thank you for the reply, having read a number of posts on this forum and done some additional research myself I decided to go with the Sound BlasterX AE-5.

This might be a silly question but what is the optimal setup for the card, i.e. how should I set Windows and what settings should I choose in connect to get the best out of my headphones?

The equalizer settings and pre-set options (FPS shooter, Gaming etc.) I can have a play with as I'm sure that will be down to personal preference, I'm just talking about the initial setup of the device.
 
Tenko71 said:
This might be a silly question but what is the optimal setup for the card, i.e. how should I set Windows and what settings should I choose in connect to get the best out of my headphones?
Click to expand...
Windows Playback channel configuration needs to be 5.1/7.1.
Selecting headphones and enabling surround in sound card's settings likely configurates it automatically, but it's good to check.

Would certainly minimize other settings like bass and treble boosting crystallizer etc...
 
Great, thanks again.

Just wanted to check as I'm never sure if it's best to select stereo or 5.1/7.1 in Windows settings when using headphones like the HD599's
 
I use the sound blaster X AE-5 and the sound in games and movies is brilliant, i have the same headphones too
 
Tenko71 said:
Great, thanks again.

Just wanted to check as I'm never sure if it's best to select stereo or 5.1/7.1 in Windows settings when using headphones like the HD599's
Click to expand...

Should not have to go into windows settings, all done by the Creative software that takes over from that :)
if you use the RGB strip then you also need a 4pin Molex plugin from the PSU
 
+1 from me for the AE-5.

I haven't had a lot of time lately for gaming, but hooked up to my MR1 speakers the sound quality is absolutely superb, especially with high res audio.
 
sound blaster X AE-5
^
Buy this. You have decent headphones and they will benefit from this card substantially.

BTW as was mentioned the GSX1000 is garbage. I'm actually surprised that Sennheiser would put out such junk. You would think the maker of the beloved HD800 would have more common sense.
 
I tried the AE-5 and sent it back - far too much hiss/noise on the mic (tried different mics too). And I am not the only one who had the same issues looking on the web. Also I would get random delays when talking, especially when using the presets or AGC. It was outstanding as an audio out only card in pure stereo, but I found the processing a little too much regardless of tweaks. Just seems the audio and voice would not live nicely together.
 
brakeinup said:
I tried the AE-5 and sent it back - far too much hiss/noise on the mic (tried different mics too). And I am not the only one who had the same issues looking on the web. Also I would get random delays when talking, especially when using the presets or AGC. It was outstanding as an audio out only card in pure stereo, but I found the processing a little too much regardless of tweaks. Just seems the audio and voice would not live nicely together.
Click to expand...

Yes I've read of those issues, although I've got a cheap XLR boom mic plugged into mine and seems OK.
 
I've only had a limited time for gaming over the last week so haven't been able to properly put the AE-5 through it's paces yet.

Playing PUPG with the sound card set to Direct HP (Stereo) I'm definitely experiencing a much clearer and detailed sound experience than I was with either on-board sound or the GSX1000.

Footsteps are a lot more obvious and I can easily tell the direction of vehicles, distant gun shots and things like the red zone.

When I get some more time I do want to have a play with the 5.1 surround settings to see how that performs with PUBG. If anyone does play PUBG with their headphones set to 5.1 then I would be interested to know what settings they are using.

The only negative I have for the card at the moment is that I do have some issues where the Connect software does not recognise the card is installed following a system restart, it's fine after a shutdown, but after a restart I have to un-install and re-install the hardware and software. Yesterday I also had a new problem where the card was working but in Connect it didn't give me the option to change the headphone output from Direct HP to 5.1, that whole row of icons was missing!

Other than the technical issues above I have to say I'm very happy with it so far though.
 
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