sound card for positional audio

atomic7431 · 24 Dec 2013 at 11:29

I have a Gigabyte G1 Sniper Z87 mobo at present and i am using the onboard Sound Core3D™audio processor in conjunction with a pair of sennheiser hd518s and im finding the postitional sound in games to be poor imo. The front to back isnt that great at all, i have played around with the pro studio software and there isnt much i can say thats good about it again imo.

So is this onboard audio really junk or is it me ? and which sound card would give a much improved positional sense in games like BF4 ?

Is the creative z range any good compared to what i have or is the Asus dx etc better still ?

also been playing with this its fun

but the surround sound is rubbish for me

Marsman · 24 Dec 2013 at 12:33

I don't know why Creative ditched CMSS 3D found on their X-Fi cards for the SBX Prostudio, as I have seen quite a few comments saying SBX is poor in comparison. CMSS 3D was very good.

Don't see the point in trying a Soundblaster Z, as the board you have has the same Core3D chip. Even if there is an improvement in the overall sound quality with a SB Z, you'd be still using SBX Prostudio.

Xonar DGX might be worth considering. Uses Dolby Headphone, and is cheap at around £20+. Some people don't like DH though as they find the surround sound has an echo to it. One of things that you can't know until you've tried it, but as the card is cheap, might not matter too much if DH isn't to your liking.

Other possibility would be a second hand X-Fi card. There is a OEM PCI version of the Titanium SB0770, that pops up on the famous auction site from time to time.

atomic7431 · 24 Dec 2013 at 13:47

Thanks for the input, Xonar DGX may be the way to go and see how i get along with it as its cheap enough. I should have known better when i bought my mobo that the onboard was not gonna cut it as i have never really liked creative since the early days when drivers were a major headache

Marsman · 24 Dec 2013 at 14:18

Creative have been rather lame in the past, but they seem to be doing a decent job with the SB Z series of cards. They are very good cards, just a shame they decided to replace CMSS 3D with something inferior. Never tried SBX Prostudio, so can only go on what others say about it, and I've not seen one person say it's better than CMSS 3D. Having used both CMSS 3D and Dolby Headphone, they are both very good. I could happily use either. The former being slightly better for gaming, but for movies, DH craps on CMSS 3D from a great height. One area where CMSS 3D is much better than DH is when using VOIP whilst gaming. CMSS 3D has a filter so when you're using VOIP, surround sound effect is not applied to other people's voices. With DH, that is applied to all audio, which can be a little weird at first listening to other people with a surround sound effect. Soon get used to it though, well I did at least.

atomic7431 · 26 Dec 2013 at 14:13

ok been looking still and looked at the Asus Xonar Essence ST but its pci and not pcie, is this becoming a major issue with the pci slot supposedly being fazed out?

Marsman · 26 Dec 2013 at 14:43

Yes, at some point it will disappear. Maybe not on all boards, but certainly higher end and motherboards aimed at gamers. There are already quite a few boards that have done away with PCI.

atomic7431 · 26 Dec 2013 at 14:59

the more i read the more im not sure i bought the right head phones? i was originally advised to not buy a `gaming headset` as they are cheaply made gimmick. But i keep reading that i need dolby headphones? What current sound card will give me great positional audio for games and good audio for my music?
The issue i have at the moment is the left to right sound works fine, but front to back isnt distinguishable?

As i say i have the Sennheiser HD 518 headphones at present, have upto £140 pound to spend on a good sound setup, please help as the more i read the more im unsure.

atomic7431 · 26 Dec 2013 at 23:30

ok gone with the Xonar DGX for now as they are cheap, and pcie,see how i get on with the positional aspect of those and go from there.
Will post back once i have tried the card out thanks all for help.

silversurfer · 28 Dec 2013 at 16:24

Marsman said:
I don't know why Creative ditched CMSS 3D found on their X-Fi cards for the SBX Prostudio, as I have seen quite a few comments saying SBX is poor in comparison. CMSS 3D was very good.

Years ago I remember the 3d sound on bf2 being excellent at times with an xfi, often just ordinary but when it works it was great

Marsman · 28 Dec 2013 at 20:03

atomic7431 said:
the more i read the more im not sure i bought the right head phones? i was originally advised to not buy a `gaming headset` as they are cheaply made gimmick. But i keep reading that i need dolby headphones? What current sound card will give me great positional audio for games and good audio for my music?
The issue i have at the moment is the left to right sound works fine, but front to back isnt distinguishable?

As i say i have the Sennheiser HD 518 headphones at present, have upto £140 pound to spend on a good sound setup, please help as the more i read the more im unsure.

Sorry I didn't reply to this before. HD518 are good headphones, and a definite improvement over the previous 515 they replaced. In general Sennheiser's 5xx series headphones are considered to be very good for gaming. The PC350/360 headsets are based on the same design as the 595/598.

I've already mentioned Dolby Headphone. It's found on most Xonar sound cards, it's not actually a pair of headphones. It's the best alternative to what you have at the moment, as the other is SBX, which you are already using with your motherboard.

Xonar DGX is a good choice, as it will give you DH for not a lot of money.