Why pay for expensive soundcard rather then DAC? - Page 4

It's DIY staff. We are talking about an average Joe wanting to get better sound quality. Assuming he does not know anything about DIY (as not many people do) he will not be able to get such DAC or will have to spend a lot of money for cheap parts to practise. While he might buy cheap parts for to practice it will in the end cost about the same money as Xonar STX. Also - we are not taling about DIY staff since we are comparing rather commercial products. It is obvious that things we can build on our own will generally cost much less and still sound very good. But this could say even a 11 year old boy. My point is that leeperry says that sound cards are bad in term of sound quality when they are not as long as we only compare units that cots about the same money and there is no sense in comparing $200 sound card to a stand-alone DAC for about $4000.

Again - you are now assuming that a 'random guy' uses 198kb/s files... Obviously if we are talking about such high-end sound cards (it is high-end for sound cards in my opinion) that cost ~$200 it is 'obvious' that the 'random guy' knows a little bit about file formats and does NOT use bad quality files. Why everyone on this forum refersto bad quality files anyway? Is there ANYONE who uses low rate mp3s in here? I doubt it. I doubt that a person, who buys STX also uses low quality mp3s instead of FLACs and other loseless formats. It is easy to say that for such a guy everything will sound amazing, but that is not the point of the argument.

You have bought Firestone. Ok. I believe that it may sound better than Xonar STX, but again - you can not really compare both just by technical data as it is not the actual sound output. Also rember that Firestone products are cheap... in USA. In Europe there is a point in buying Xonar STX instead of your combo as it will still have better price/valea ratio and I seriously doubt that the diffrenecies would be big. I really do not think they would although I agree that your Firestones may sound better than Xonar.

#47 - that was the answer to the other guys post, not yours.

EDIT: I also do not have Xonar STX or good DAC for now as I am building my 'proper' system for reference cans and none of the Xonar sound cards will be enough for reference cans. I will buy external AMP and separate DAC, but that goes far beyond Xonar's STX price.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Professor00179 

Once again - I am not profesionalist. Imagine I am a random guy, who looks for a better quality sound. I have absolutely NO IDEA what you are talking about. All I want is to get staff that has the best sound quality for the money...

You are taking entirely the wrong position.  Instead of throwing up your hands and crowing pride over being a know-nothing, why don't you make an effort to learn how audio devices work?  Do you really just want to listen to the opinions of others and pretend that you know what's going on, or do you want to be able to determine for yourself whether a piece of gear is worthwhile.  Claiming ignorance is not going to win any arguments or convince anyone of anything.  It'll also get you scammed.

You say that you want to know what would provide better sound than the Xonar for the money.  The card costs approximately $180 at B&H.  Here is what I would do:  first, find an old CD player on Craigslist.  A quick look turned up a decent old Sony for $20 and there are at least 100 more around the same price.  Second, I'd build something like a VanWaarde amp with the remaining $160.  That would be better than any soundcard.

You're going to say that you don't know how to build something.  Implied in that is that you have no desire to learn or even try.  You have to make some sort of effort to understand this hobby.  Otherwise, you'll end up getting scammed for overpriced junk.

Wow, I was just about to make a reply, but then I realized how stupid participating in this is.

You can't say "oh, we can't compare by technical data" and then say, oh i doubt differences are that great.

If we need to compare by sound, then we need to compare by sound. Comparing technical data is far more useful than comparing opinions based upon nothing.

I see people do not get what I mean. All I am saying is that:

@Uncle Erik

What really matters is the final sound quality that we get. If I need to compare something with other product directly I will buy them both and sell the one worse or try to audition both before purchase. Looking at the technical data is helpful to get a general idea, but this does not tell us almost nothing about the sound. I do not need to lear how devicec work because this is not the way that sound signature and quality should be examined...

@nullstring

"You can't say "oh, we can't compare by technical data" and then say, oh i doubt differences are that great." Do not get your point at all. What did I say wrong here? I only said that technical data (while still useful to some extend) is not telling us much about sound quality and give only the general view and also saind that I doubt differences between Xonar STX and Firestone producst (those mentioned by leeperry) would be huge. Nothing seems to stand against each other - whats your problem?

Originally Posted by Professor00179 

 

I doubt differences between Xonar STX and Firestone producst (those mentioned by leeperry) would be huge.

On its wallwart, I clearly agree. It's the linear regulated low ripple PSU that makes all the difference in the world. And also some ppl feel like there's way too many caps in the audio path on the STX, there's a few threads where ppl pulled off a lot of them and claimed major SQ improvements.

The best signal path is the shortest, and the less components in the audio path the less colored the sound will be in the end.

See this thread: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/410199/firestone-audio-supplier

That is true. The 'clearest' signal path, the better the result is. I have not really looked at the build structure of the Xonar STX as it really does not interests me since I will be moving to university next year and have to buy a laptop and netbook instead of 'full' PC. My point is that Xonar STX is a very competetive unit in the hi-fi segment and can be compared to DACs sold at the same price. I know it is not some 'sound stunning device of the year' like many cheap Chinese DACs become now, but it can compete with a lot of DACs that are here often described as a 'bang for a buck' and good entry level products. This is exactly the segment of the market that STX aims at and my point is to show it can really compete. While in USA there are many very, very good products for not high price (e.g. Nuforce, which is much more expensive in Europe and Firestone) in Euope and 'the rest of the world' STX is one of the best 'bangs for the buck'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Professor00179 

@nullstring

"You can't say "oh, we can't compare by technical data" and then say, oh i doubt differences are that great." Do not get your point at all. What did I say wrong here? I only said that technical data (while still useful to some extend) is not telling us much about sound quality and give only the general view and also saind that I doubt differences between Xonar STX and Firestone producst (those mentioned by leeperry) would be huge. Nothing seems to stand against each other - whats your problem?

My point is:

You don't own either product, so you cannot compare their sound.

You don't wish to use technical data as comparison criteria..

Yet you share these options that there wouldn't a big difference between the two devices.

What on earth are you using as criteria to form this opinion?

I have heard Xonar STX and have owned it for about 2 weeks (I really considered buying it to be fair). It is very good sounding unit. I have compared it to Arcam Solo CD Player and Marantz CD6003 (with an AMP also from Marantz and the same series) and STX won the competition quite clearly. I have read many reviews, opinions and comments regarding the performance of Xonart STX and recently when I started to look for a stand-alone DAC I have read a lot about DACs as well. You are comparing the performance of both devices based on technical data while I compare based on opinions I can find. I would say that you are not in position to accuse me of talking about some products not really knowing them because that is the exactly same thing you do. We only base on different information that we can both obtain generally via internet and what other people say. (That is what vast majority of people from this forum does anyway),

One of criterias for my opinion is the comparison I mentioned before - Xonar STX vs Carat Topaz. While Topaz seems to be not so good considering its high price I think that it shows that Xonar STX is quite good if it matches in performance units that are far more expensive.

the biggest enemy of the STX is the ST...strangely you can't find much "official" reviews about it, it kinda fixes the 44.1kHz jitter problem but brings others to the table 

From what I know St is slightly better. There is a thread on one of Polish forums where people compare STX in reference to ST and while I did not go in details (in my case I can only get ST) ST seems to be better. It has some technical differencies, which from what I remember have an effect on the SQ. It is not a huge sifference though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik 

You say that you want to know what would provide better sound than the Xonar for the money.  The card costs approximately $180 at B&H.  Here is what I would do:  first, find an old CD player on Craigslist.  A quick look turned up a decent old Sony for $20 and there are at least 100 more around the same price.  Second, I'd build something like a VanWaarde amp with the remaining $160.  That would be better than any soundcard.

It might sound better because of the amp but aren't we just talking about the DAC section?