Upgrade from Xonar D2X

Hood · 23 Nov 2017 at 10:21

All,

looking to build a new gaming pc and update my sound card.

I can trawl through reviews here, and best soundcard lists there, but does anyone have a practical suggestion of which one to go for? My gaming is mostly flight sims (Rift) and first person shooters.

Cheers

H

rids57 · 23 Nov 2017 at 11:34

The type of game is immaterial, what matters is what else you use, ie. headphones and do you use virtual surround, or speakers and is it a 2.0, 2.1 or 5.1 setup

EsaT · 23 Nov 2017 at 12:50

If you use speakers integrated Realteks of better motherboards should be enough for human hearing if motherboard was designed well.

For headphone gaming Realteks are lacking in features usually missing in binaural simulation.
(Dolby Headphone of that Xonar not the best in that)
If using headphones what are you using?

mountaincow · 23 Nov 2017 at 13:38

There's a cheaper solution for virtual surround on headphones here. I'm very surprised I haven't yet seen it linked on this forum.

rids57 · 23 Nov 2017 at 16:40

too much faffing about

Hood · 23 Nov 2017 at 17:31

I'm using Sennheiser GAME ONE headphones or Oculus Rift.

H

Marsman · 23 Nov 2017 at 18:35

The only thing worth getting another sound card for would be for different surround sound simulation; so either a Creative sound card for SBX, or maybe a Sennheiser GSX1000 if that pops up on a Black Friday deal.

EsaT · 23 Nov 2017 at 18:55

Hood said:
I'm using Sennheiser GAME ONE headphones or Oculus Rift.

That's one of the few actually good heasets and apparently rather neutral bass can.
Which is good for Dolby Headphone's tendency to bloat bass...

Here's more of SBX Pro Surround

SB Z has very good feature set for its price.

mountaincow · 23 Nov 2017 at 18:55

rids57 said:
too much faffing about

I haven't found it any hassle, though I've seen others have issues with their schiit. I'm keeping it real-low-tek and I'm happy to avoid more creative solutions.

mistersprinkles · 25 Nov 2017 at 19:13

EsaT said:
If you use speakers integrated Realteks of better motherboards should be enough for human hearing if motherboard was designed well.

How do you know this computer is for use by humans? That's quite the assumption to make.

Seriously though USB DACs tend to be better than internal soundcards. Especially if you just want stereo or 2.1 output. The Audioquest Dragonfly Black is under 100 squids and sounds excellent.

Having said that if you are using garbage speakers or headphones, there is no point. If you have something like LSR305's or ATH M50X's (or better), sure, get a DAC.