Realtek onboard sound just not cutting it

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Soldato
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I'm looking for a decent sound card to use in my PC when I'm not using HDMI out from my Nvidia GPU to my amp.

It has to handle both mic input well (which Realtek does NOT at all) and exceptional headphone playback quality. I've got an ancient pair of Senn's HD595's which are a decade old and absolutely bliss still.

I'm a gamer, it's not essential for the whole 5.1 gimmick stuff, a decent soundcard outputting decent stereo will do.

Thanks!
 
Depends on your budget really, the best is the Asus Xonar Essence STX II but that will set you back £185 (and is currently out of stock) or the Creative Sound Blaster X7, external DAC & Amp which is an eye watering £290.

It's a shame you didn't start looking a bit sooner because you could have got the older STX version 1, which is just as good as the new one but at least £50 cheaper (I got mine for £120). Sadly all the old stock seems to have gone now.

I wouldn't recommend the Strix cards as they don't seem to play nice with Windows 10.

The Powercolor HDX is a nice card at a great price BUT they don't seem to be particularly reliable (the one I had lasted just over a week).

Other than that, there is the Creative Sound Blaster Z (OEM) for around £50 BUT that has a high output impedance (22ohms) which will make the low end on your Sennheisers rather muddy due to the impedance mismatch.

It may be worth having a look at the small external amp & DAC combos from Creative, the E3, E5 and G5, which range from £85ish to £170ish, depending on which features you need. They have excellent reviews and contain some high end DACs.

One worth mentioning, Sennheiser have just released their own gaming DAC/Amp combo, which should be good quality but carries a price premium (around £200) for the Sennheiser name.
 
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If you're thinking of spending Xonar STX II money, then grab an inexpensive sound card instead, which will give you decent microphone input, then spend the rest on a decent DAC/headphone amp with optical input which you can connect the sound card's optical output.

People who pay around £150 for a sound card, do so for the good quality DAC, headphone amp and analogue outputs. Spending that amount of money on a sound card to get a good DAC and headphone output, these days is silly in my opinion, when this can be done externally away from EMI.
 
I have to agree, out of all the soundcards available there isn't one that I could say "get that one". The STX II is too expensive for what it is and the Soundblaster Z has too high an output impedance (the rest of the Creative cards are even worse).
 
Awesome input, so a decent headphone amp/DAC for the desk with optical input, connected to a standard sound card, like a bog standard creative sound blaster? As the digital output on the soundcard can simply be passthrough allowing the DAC to do all the magic...

Hmmmm, in that case, any decent amp's around that don't require me to sell my kidney?

Tube amp would be rather nice for aesthetics... But not essential as it's mainly down to quality of sound. And I know some tube amps are just a rip off.
 
DAC:

Schiit Modi 2 (£95) - USB input

Schiit Modi 2 Uber (£145) - USB, Co-Ax and Optical inputs

Solid State Amp:

Schiit Magni 2 (100) - Gain switch and powerful enough to drive most things

Schiit Magni 2 Uber (£145) - even more powerful than the standard version

Hybrid Tube Amp:

Schiit Vali 2 (£165) - stacks with the Modis and has external access to the tube.

Tube Amp:

Little Dot MkII (£130)

Schiit Valhalla II (320)

You could always go for an SMSL all in one, solid state, combo DAC & Amp. The SD-793II has coaxial and optical inputs (no USB) for only £41 while the M6 has all three input types plus a digital display for £120. They may not be end game in their sound quality but they will get you most of the way there. How close you want to get is up to you and your wallet. :D
 
Marsman said:
If you're thinking of spending Xonar STX II money, then grab an inexpensive sound card instead, which will give you decent microphone input, then spend the rest on a decent DAC/headphone amp with optical input which you can connect the sound card's optical output.
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Click to expand...

Example ?

Thinking of try some surround processing in games as I'm bored.:p
 
Xonar DGX -> optical cable -> SMSL SD793 II -> Headphones

For games the DGX will encode the 5.1 or 7.1 surround to a stereo binaural (virtual surround) stream that is decoded in the SMSL and sent as simple stereo (with added positional cues) to the headphones.
 
rids57 said:
Xonar DGX -> optical cable -> SMSL SD793 II -> Headphones

For games the DGX will encode the 5.1 or 7.1 surround to a stereo binaural (virtual surround) stream that is decoded in the SMSL and sent as simple stereo (with added positional cues) to the headphones.
Click to expand...

What about a creative z or not worth it ?

Why not just get an Asus u7 ? Is the SMSL SD793 II far superior DAC wise and amp wise ?

Will the SMSL drive HD 650 ?
 
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SB Z would be worth if you prefer SBX over Dolby Headphone. Unless you've heard both, hard to know which you'd prefer. Unless you've used DH before and dislike it completely, which some people do. :p

Could grab a U7, but that would really only be worth doing over a DGX, if you have too much EMI in your PC case for an internal card, or no room for one.

Not sure how well the SD793II will drive the 650. It may do a pretty good job, but looking at the specs on SMSL's site, it says 1.7Vp-p. That if I am correct is the peak to peak voltage swing. That's quite low, a lot lower than I expected to be honest. Even a FiiO X1 is 4.2Vp-p. According to NWAVguy, 650 needs about 5.6Vp-p for best performance.

Sometimes specs don't tell the whole truth though. Some amps look under powered, but do a better job than expected. IIRC, James Miller has HD650's and an SD793II, so he'd be the perfect guy to ask how well it does.
 
What about DGX just a DAC and a little dot 2 ?

I could then use my oppo ha2 DAC for music going into the little dot and the other setup for games :p
 
As long as the DAC has optical input, then I see no reason why you can't do that.

Edit: Actually, the SD793II has line out, so you could use just the DAC section of that.
 
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But that SD793II is 40 I was thinking about a PROZOR DAC Digital SPDIF Toslink to Analog Stereo Audio L/R R/L Converter Adapter - PS3 XBox HD DVD PS4 Sky HD Plasma Blu-ray Home Cinema Systems AV Amps Apple TV with Optical Cable Power by USB Cable on rainforest
 
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