Why do I keep wasting money?

FatRakoon · 13 Dec 2016 at 09:53

I have been using creative cards for ever I think ( hehe ) but more so, since I had my first SBLive! with the LiveDrive 5.25" drive bay add on. I found this to be one of the most useful things ever.

I have gone up through the ranks, to the Audigy, Audigy 2 and then the XFI Fatal1ty, and then the Recon3D Fatal1ty, all of them I only got with the Live Drive add on.

My main speakers have no volume control or headphone socket and so the life drive has been a bit of a god send for me there too!

But moving up to Windows 10, my Recon3D was fine for about 2 months but then it started to souhnd stupid, eventually I knew it was duffed and so I decided to give another Asus a shot. I went for the Strix. Not one bit impressed, I stuck with it but after a few weeks, of a near useless card, I put it back in the box and threw it in with all my other bits and I got myself a SoundBlaster OMNI. This is a USE job and I thought why not give it a shot? - I found that this too seemed to not quite be there... Especially under heavy gaming, and I thought it would be fine for that, but no.
So I got the Creative Z.
This has no external controls and I found it lacking and so I then thought stuff it, lets go the whole hog and I then got the ZXR and for a time, I was fairly happy, but the headphones is still not quite making me feel 100% happy.

The Recon3D was all there and I put it in another PC to see how it did, and it ran just fine... I left it go for a couple of days and I never had any issues with it at all and so I thought I will try it in my main system and if it started to play up then Windows 10 has to go.

Its been back in my system now for a week and it has run flawlessly.

So, I have just spent over £500 on soundcards just to now come full circle back to my old Recon3D.

I am also trying to work out if there is any actual difference between the recon and the Z in terms of quality... Many comparison pages suggest the Z is superior, but Im not too sure... I think they are exactly the same?

Similarly I am using a set of well old Altec Lansing Speakers, and I have gone through the Z5500 and more recently the Z906 and again, I have come back to the Altecs because they are simply superior sound in every way.

Ah well, at least all my PCs get good sound options I suppose LOL

Marsman · 13 Dec 2016 at 10:45

Hard to resist the desire of new shiny.

Women love new handbags, jewellery and shoes. Men love getting new technical stuff; electronics, flashing lights and buttons.

It takes a person with some will power to resist and stop buying the things that they don't really need.

rids57 · 13 Dec 2016 at 18:45

What headphones were you using with the ZxR?

TALON1973 · 13 Dec 2016 at 20:45

I wouldn't have bothered with a sound card full stop. So many more options using a dac/amp

Nevakonaza · 13 Dec 2016 at 21:32

Im the same,at one point i had like 5 sound cards lying around because i bought different ones at around £30-40 pop used to try them out.

I still have 2 or 3 lying around that ive not got around to sell yet.

But now that im moving away from Desktop and more into Laptop i think next il invest in a Dac/Amp setup with a good pair of headphones.

Dont get me wrong ive had some proper good sounds cards before,But interference has always been a problem in all the different pc builds ive had.

rids57 · 13 Dec 2016 at 22:12

I wouldn't have bothered with a sound card full stop. So many more options using a dac/amp

Maybe because the speakers he uses are active multichannel, so an external DAC & amp wouldn't have been a lot of use.

FatRakoon · 16 Dec 2016 at 15:56

rids57 said:
What headphones were you using with the ZxR?

I've not got any really decent headphones... I have a fair few options though.

I got Tinchy Strider over ear ones that are a bit lacking but have a nice warm sound
I got a set of Sony things that are really nice, old as heck and the model I dont know.
I got some Monsters that are supposed to be quite good and they are, but when you compare them to anything half decent you realise they aint that much
I got stenheissers that are among the better side of mid range but theydont sit too nicely on my head

I have a few other pairs of ... They look nice for £20, lets see if they are any cop... Thrown into various cupboards cos I just wasted another £20 jobs lying about

TALON1973 said:
I wouldn't have bothered with a sound card full stop. So many more options using a dac/amp

The Mobo output is dire! - I dont know why but when I try to use the optical on it, it glitches and crckles like hell.
Also I have used the output on many boards I have and to say that they are all the sam,e is a simple flat out lie. some are better than others.

Nevakonaza said:
Im the same,at one point i had like 5 sound cards lying around because i bought different ones at around £30-40 pop used to try them out.

I still have 2 or 3 lying around that ive not got around to sell yet.

But now that im moving away from Desktop and more into Laptop i think next il invest in a Dac/Amp setup with a good pair of headphones.

Dont get me wrong ive had some proper good sounds cards before,But interference has always been a problem in all the different pc builds ive had.

I have NEVER had any form of interference in any PC that I have built in the ... What? 15+ years that I have built them. I have never been able to understand about any interference at all to be honest.

Now, in saying that, I am calling myself a liar here, but mobile phones too close to my monitor gives me issues... You can tell when I am about to get a call or text cos the monitor goes funky and I do get that!

extrememachine · 16 Dec 2016 at 23:10

I have the same problem , I have 3 unused asus rampage v exreme motherboards

james.miller · 17 Dec 2016 at 13:44

That's more than just a problem lol

wedrum · 17 Dec 2016 at 13:45

there was me thinking £50 on a soundcard was plenty

rids57 · 17 Dec 2016 at 17:31

Hi, I am Steve and I am a computer bits hoarder

I was checking my loot drawer and found a Z68 mobo, i5 2500K and 8GB of RAM, an HD 7950, an HD 6950, a GTX 460, an HD 3850, a 7600 GT and on the sound front a Xonar DGX, a Sound Blaster Z and even an old Chaintech AV-710

keybaud · 21 Dec 2016 at 11:58

rids57 said:
Hi, I am Steve and I am a computer bits hoarder

I was checking my loot drawer and found a Z68 mobo, i5 2500K and 8GB of RAM, an HD 7950, an HD 6950, a GTX 460, an HD 3850, a 7600 GT and on the sound front a Xonar DGX, a Sound Blaster Z and even an old Chaintech AV-710

My 486 DX33 laughs at your concept of computer bits hoarding.

I went to the tip to get rid of some old parts and came back with a dead PC someone else had left there...

rids57 · 21 Dec 2016 at 18:05

LMAO - therapy should definitely be considered

Rroff · 21 Dec 2016 at 18:11

keybaud said:
My 486 DX33 laughs at your concept of computer bits hoarding.

Until recently (think I got rid of it in a tidy up) I had parts old enough to have a Winchester interface onboard

http://www.aten-hosted.com/images/DSC00078S.jpg

FatRakoon · 21 Dec 2016 at 19:50

I still have a fully functioning Apricot 286 6Mhz running MSDOS 6.22 and Windows 3 in GreenScreen

I also have a 386 Laptop I have Win3 installed onto an SD Card thats in an adapter tahts in an adapter thats in an adapter just to get it to work. No faster of course but still fun to mess about on.

rids57 · 21 Dec 2016 at 20:04

To be fair, I did get rid of all of my computer stuff when I moved to the US back in the early noughties. That was some garage sale as I had been running seven or eight powerful machines, a couple of them dual CPU for distributed computing (the electicity company loved me).

Just the one PC since moving back to the UK though, sense has prevailed so far.

FatRakoon · 22 Dec 2016 at 03:09

I have been doing a complete overhaul of my attic ready for my move and I have found 2 absolutely sweet cards that I forgot I had.

I will get a piccy but for now they are packed up.

Basically, one is ISA and the other is PCI, and what they are, are full-on PCs that simply plug into the slots of a host PC.
The PCI one I have never used, I cant remember why right now, but I am sure it was because it required software?
The ISA one is a 386 on an ISA card, that has 2 RAM slots, for its own RAM, its also got an IDE port and Serial port, PS/2 and VGA and it was a parasite PC. I played with this loads when I got it.

Among the other junk I have found are half a dozen Voodoo 1 cards of various description... Maxi gamer 3D and Orchid Righteous and so on, also a couple of voodoo 2 cards, but I have not yet found one of the SLI bridges, and I do remember that I have had a few different types of these bridges with the twist in different places and so I hope to find the right one.

These are all ridiculously mental toys that I will definitely be building a Machine to run them... Win98SE here I come LOL And yeah, Definitely got to play abotu and get one of the K6 Setups back up and running and then try to wring its neck to get the best gaming I can out of it... Unreal Tournament Classic is a definite LOL

Anyway, I ama seriously bad hoarder and I have brought down 47 crates of bits and out of the 47, I have only re-filled 9 crates, the rest have all gone to the skip.

Much of that are things that are simply nroken, or are bits and bobs that are seriously worthless or simply absolute junk and of course a great deal of it, are bits of wiring and old PSUs and Drives of some description or another, all junk.

But its sad to see a whole skip full of computer bits that I did at one time want to keep but I have had to be very hard on myself cos we are moving house in January.

Its shocking just how much utter rubbish you do end up keeping.