replace x-fi

[Krisali]

Soundcards may be more at risk to being effected by electrical interference but it doesn't guarantee it. Different cases and different components will result in plenty of different outcomes.

I'd imagine the Xonar D2X 7.1 is expensive mostly because it's a 7.1 card but it's not aimed at providing the best stereo sound quality possible (Essence STX and Titanium HD are the cards aimed at that afaik)

Yes I understand this. A friend of mine has an STX so I have heard it many times, haven't heard the Titanium though. I just picked the D2X as an example of a modern card that I have tested in my rigs in the past couple months. I have heard lots of others too although they all tend to suffer from the same issue(s). I have tested in 2 different PC's both of which have high quality PSU's (I seem to remember the D2X drawing power from the PSU). I don't as a rule by cheap components, I appreciate and buy quality.

Speakers I am using are PMC TB2i (space limited), with a Bryston 4BST/Classe CP50. Headphones are Audio Technica ath-ad700 and Beyerdynamic AMS-DT-990-Pro.

Now, what DAC's have you heard to compare your sound card to Sin_Chase?

 

[Sin_Chase]

Specific DAC components in the kit I bought? Who knows. I don't delve that deep into the specific DAC chips themselves. I've used external DAC/AMP combos from Philips, Denon, LittleDot to name a few.

My Xonar STX has no noise, no hissing and is indiscernible from my external kit I have used in the past from a 'quality' point of view. They all sound different, from a characteristic point of view, but none are 'better' and the sound card is not 'worse'.

I bought it specifically to retain Dolby DTS/Dolby Headphone technologies (Which I like in gaming) without having to spend an absolute fortune obtaining it with external kit. On my PC I game, watch movies/TV and from time to time listen to music. The STX provides exceptional audio without any issues for me in my PC.

 

[melmac]

Was wanting pci really because of the positioning of the slots on my current board. Looked at the new creatives but heard xonar had better drivers an also the d1 has higher snr.

If you only have a PCI slot available then your options are limited to Asus cards, and I would recommend you go for the Asus xonar ST.

What's your motherboard? Are you sure you don't have a spare mini PCI-e slot? If you do find a PCI-e slot then go for the creative Z, it will sound better in games. There are no driver issues with the new cards from Creative.