Sound card <£100

phate101101

phate101101

phate101101

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I'm completely clueless when it comes to sound cards/dacs etc..

I'm just looking for some recommendations around the £100 mark (pref less). Have over ear momentums and razer kraken forged headphones currently using crappy onboard, I only realized how bad it is when I started using my headphones in work on my mac pro.

I've read that external dacs/amps are usually the way to go? is that true at this price point? i.e. how does the Asus U5 and U7 compare to say the Creative Sound Blaster Z?

Thank you!
 
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U7 is good. You can also bag an Arcam rPAC on the high street for £100.00 if you get lucky and you have a store near you with one in stock.
 
Thanks rPAC looks interesting, I assume you reckon the extra cost is worth it compared to the U7?

I was reading up on the new schiit fulla, is that something I should be looking at?
 
What is the sound quality like with the U5 and U7? Are they comparable to the Asus Xonar DG, Asus Xonar DX or Creative Sound Blaster Z?

Just trying to decide what route to do down?
 
phate101101 said:
Thanks rPAC looks interesting, I assume you reckon the extra cost is worth it compared to the U7?

I was reading up on the new schiit fulla, is that something I should be looking at?
Click to expand...

The rPAC will be better than the U7, though I cannot personally compare as I only have the rPAC.

The fulla looks like it could be good, but appears out of stock on their website. It is quite a small unit though and whilst this does not mean much, I prefer something that sits properly on your desk. It looks like a Cambridge Audio dacmagic xs (which should also be considered).
 
External DAC & Amp: No positional audio for gaming

External sound card: Has positional audio processing

If it's just for music, go with the DAC & Amp, otherwise you're probably better off with the U7
 
After much reading I've ended up ordering the fiio e10K dac/amp, u7 does look decent but I'd prefer better sound and sacrifice positional audio at the hardware level as I don't play fps games that much anymore.
If anyone is interested I'll update with my thoughts after testing it!
Thanks for the replies.
 
Can you go with a sound card for positional audio(I know they have AMP's and DAC's built in) and have an External DAC or would this be very stupid? :p
 
I use an STX for gaming and movies and a Schiit Modi (DAC) and Vali (Amp) for music and just use the Windows Playback Devices console to switch between them.
 
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