Upgrade from xonar dgx to recon 3d??

shuzzbutt · 22 Jan 2013 at 23:10

Recently bought an asus xonar dgx and was blown away by the sound quality on my razer blackshark headset not only for sound but especially for my mic recording quality.

Now I'm getting the upgrade itch again and wondering if the creative recon 3d is a worthwhile upgrade. The main attraction is having a dedicated headphone jack and separate jack for speakers as currently I am only using my headset as I don't like the idea of using a headphone splitter cable just as it seems like a cheap shortcut and I like things done a certain way!

Any thoughts??

JamieH · 24 Jan 2013 at 14:03

Can you not just use the front header on your case for the seperate channels?

Marsman · 24 Jan 2013 at 14:36

I wouldn't consider a Recon3D. Marketing BS as it's finest. Sticking a nice new processor on a pretty bare board, doesn't make a good sound card. Creative obviously thought most people were fools, and would buy it, purely because it has a 'Core3D' processor. No surprise then, that many people found it to be poor. The sooner it disappears, the better.

The Creative SB Z, is a much better card, and is what Creative should have released in place of the Recon3D. Also has a headphone amp, just as the DG does, but it also has separate speaker and headphone connections, just as the Recon3D does.

Try the front audio first, as suggested above, if you haven't already done so.

shuzzbutt · 24 Jan 2013 at 18:32

JamieH said:
Can you not just use the front header on your case for the seperate channels?

I could but I don't want to plug stuff into the front of my rig

Marsman said:
I wouldn't consider a Recon3D. Marketing BS as it's finest. Sticking a nice new processor on a pretty bare board, doesn't make a good sound card. Creative obviously thought most people were fools, and would buy it, purely because it has a 'Core3D' processor. No surprise then, that many people found it to be poor. The sooner it disappears, the better.

The Creative SB Z, is a much better card, and is what Creative should have released in place of the Recon3D. Also has a headphone amp, just as the DG does, but it also has separate speaker and headphone connections, just as the Recon3D does.

Try the front audio first, as suggested above, if you haven't already done so.

Ah thanks for that- will look at getting the soundblaster z instead! The main thing I'm after is the dedicated headphone and speaker jacks so I don't have to connect my headset to the front panel and also avoid using a jack splitter

Marsman · 24 Jan 2013 at 18:42

It was a good move by Creative to add a separate headphone connection on the Recon3D. Probably the best thing about it!

Glad to see they have carried it over to the Z series. I'm surprised it hasn't been done sooner. I know there is a front audio connection on most cards now, but even if people do want to use it; it's quite common for there to be interference. That leaves many people looking for a speaker/headset switch, of which there are very few. A splitter is another option, but you were wise to not go down that route. Splitters alter impedance, which degrades sound quality.

shuzzbutt · 24 Jan 2013 at 18:46

Marsman said:
It was a good move by Creative to add a separate headphone connection on the Recon3D. Probably the best thing about it! Glad to see they have carried it over to the Z series. I'm surprised it hasn't been done sooner. I know there is a front audio connection on most cards now, but even if people do want to use it; it's quite common for there to be interference. That leaves many people looking for a speaker/headset switch, of which there are very few. A splitter is another option, but you were wise to not go down that route. Splitters alter impedance, which degrades sound quality.

Thats what I'd heard about splitters and I too was surprised to see the lack of availabilty when it came to searching for a headphone/speaker switch!

I can see people are not keen on the recon3d series vs the z series- what makes the recon3d so undesirable?? :confused:

Marsman · 24 Jan 2013 at 19:56

Lack of components on the board. If you take a graphics card, it's all about the GPU. Sound quality is about more than just a fancy looking processor. With a sound card, it's about the quality of other components. The Recon3D has a very minimalistic board, you could say.