Please help me with sound setup

Steveocee

Steveocee

Steveocee

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Joined
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Location
Derbyshire
Hi all,

So I was quite happy with my setup which was an Asus D2X with some CALs. It did what I needed it to, I play games like BF4 and Dayz and listen to some music now and again and found the CALs were a huge step up from my nasty Roccat Kaves I had previously.

I've recently upgraded my CPU cooler from an AIO Antec to a Noctua D15, it's amazing but it's huge and means that my D2X no longer fits in the top PCIe slot.

I can't use an alternative slot as it then covers my graphics card cooler. So it's been removed, my motherboard is a Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H with Realtek 898C (if that means anything) supposedly it's got some kind of build in amp stuff?

Anyway, the motherboard has an optical output so I thought now might be the time to upgrade to something better than the D2X but not onboard.

What do I need? Is it a DAC? or an amp> or is it both I need? I have no idea where audio is concerned. I would prefer an upgrade to the D2X I had and I'm looking to spend about £100(ish) but the lower the better.

Thanks
Steve
 
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If you want to keep some gaming audio features then the Asus Xonar U7 should fit the bill nicely.

Alternately and only as I have one and think it it excellent, an Arcam rPAC can be bought for £100.00.

Both are DAC / Amp combo's.
 
Yes it's very good but doesn't have any of the surround sound features you get with a sound card. I use a FiiO E10K for use with my collection of IEMs, it's a very good little Amp/DAC, specially for the silly price that FiiO sell it for.
 
rids57 said:
Yes it's very good but doesn't have any of the surround sound features you get with a sound card. I use a FiiO E10K for use with my collection of IEMs, it's a very good little Amp/DAC, specially for the silly price that FiiO sell it for.
Click to expand...

Thats not too much of an issue to be fair, I don't use surround sound at all as my CAL's are stereo only.
 
Yes but you get virtual surround sound through headphones and it can be quite effective. I spent many hundreds of happy hours playing Skyrim with my stereo AKG K702s while getting very good surround sound from my Asus Xonar STX via Dolby Headphone.

To get it to work I just select the number of channels I want (6 or 8) and then hit the GAME button and I get virtual 5.1 or 7.1 through my stereo headphones. The hardware/software creates a binaural stream which simulates what you hear with physical surround sound speakers. It may sound far fetched but it does work and we only have two ears after all and they work fine with multiple speakers. It's also what most gaming headsets use as it's cheaper and usually just as effective (if not more so) than a headset with six tiny speakers.
 
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