Sound blaster ae-7

Bill Turnip · 15 Oct 2021 at 20:44

Hi - After a little bit of advice on the sound blaster ae-7, has anybody used this?

I'm looking to replace on board audio on my PC (MSI Gaming Edge Z490) with a sound card, but it's difficult to decide if it is worth the upgrade. It will connect to monitor speakers front left and right, and a basic 2.1 setup for rears, both by 3.5mm jack. It'll also be connected to a sonos surround set by optical. Ideally I would like an internal card for convenience, and the ae-7 is my favourite candidate, but obviously there is a fair price to it.

It's most likely to mainly be used with the speakers, I have a pair of AKG 702s but they will (unless this proves to be a big improvement) connect via a guitar modeller - this works perfectly for headphones, but I get quite a buzz when using it for speakers. It'll be used for games and general music, not so much films. Any advice on higher but rate sounds (currently use Spotify and basic ripped cds)

Basically, is there likely to be a big improvement in the quality of sound outputted, or am I looking at a new shiny which won't offer a big step up?

EsaT · 16 Oct 2021 at 14:30

AE-5 Plus would do fine correcting AE-5's lack of DD/DTS encoder.

And newer higher Creative cards have headphone outputs perfectly capable to driving AKG headphones.
Unless you just want enough output power to burn drivers...

Bill Turnip · 16 Oct 2021 at 14:52

It's not so much additional power I'm after, as an improved quality of sound. The ae 5 plus is also an option, but it's more a question of whether the sound card is likely to be a step up from a modern on board solution, or if improved speakers / sub should be what I'm looking at. Starting to fall down a bit of an upgrade rabbit hole...

Bill Turnip · 1 Nov 2021 at 10:10

Thanks for that info - I cracked and bought the AE-7 last night. Interest free for 4 months and 30 days to return, so a fairly low risk experiment if nothing else. My speakers are JBL LSR305's so should be up to the job I think, it's just very difficult to get a good handle on these things from reviews as sound is so subjective.

I have no desire for RGB, but the volume knob with built in microphone would be very handy for my setup. As mentioned, it's quality I'm after more than anything else, so will be very interested to see how this performs in that regard.

Bill Turnip · 4 Nov 2021 at 07:47

Well I bought it, tried it... and it's going back. Nothing wrong with the sound, I would say it was a marginal improvement, but not the step up I was hoping for. The real deal breaker was that to change the volume of the optical output, you couldn't use the PC controls or the sound blaster software, it all had to be done on the receiver. As it's the same receiver I use for TV, music and other things, and the volume is vastly different at some point I was going to deafen somebody!

The volume control thing only affects headphones (maybe microphone as well, didn't test that) and not PC output which was a shame. I had already sorted surround sound output, so the main pluses were improved headroom and marginal sound gains. Not £170 of sound gains.