Is there ANY source out there that would be a good fit for me?

First I'll have to apologize for the long post but it's required for you to get a better understanding of the background I have and I hope at least some1 will take their time and I'll appriciate it. Otherwise you can skip further down.

For quite a while I've been a fan of Audigy 2 ZS using kX Audio drivers due to the full control over the hardware they bring. I like especially how you can for example adjust EQ values by 0.1 (!) increments and the plugin system offers all kinds of adjustment capabilities, bunch of different reverb plugins that allow all kinds of adjusments and very price so that you get the exact amount u were looking for etc. However the hardware itself is getting so outdated by now and especially the quite poor 48kHz resampling on these cards is quite a serious limitation and the driver development has slowed down to the point it's a bit unsure if there will be any future updates and there would still be quite a few things that needs to be addressed for Windows 7 64bit use at least. So I thought it's perhaps time to start moving on.

I already tried a X-Fi Titanium HD as well as ASUS Xonar D2 soundcard. I wasn't quite as satisfied as I wanted to be with either of them. I did like Titanium HD more of those though, the Titanium HD had perhaps a little too warmish sound to it to be concidered neutral but it had a pretty good working EQ which is very important to me but I didn't quite like the interface and how you had to use different settings/modes for different tasks (I'm the one that prefers configuring up one optimal setting which works great for everything). And I wasn't either quite satisfied with the positioning/soundstage. I never seemed no matter how I set it up, I tried different speaker config besides stereo and stuff but it wasn't quite sounding the way I wanted it to.

ASUS D2 then again had this slightly too "screetchy" / bright / analytical / thin sound to it to be concidered neutral, if I was to choose between the two different signatures, warm sound beats it for me although neutral as possible is always winning for me when it comes to the source, I don't want to color everything I plug in to a certain way so, I let the headphone/EQing etc do that work. The interface was a big letdown for me though, it was just too dumbed down which is something I really hate with today's products, everything gets dumbed down as if it was "better" for the customers. WHAT? I see the more stuff I can tweak the better. The EQ also sucked BIGTIME, it's questionable if not even onboard chips EQs could match it.

So then Skyrim was released and I had this "low volume issue" like many others when using my Audigy 2 ZS so I was forced to use Realtek onboard and set the speaker config to 5.1 to get proper volume in this game for some reason. Altough at the same time I discovered how well this sounded like, the positioning/soundstage is greatly improved over using stereo speaker config while either gaming and especially when listening to music with my custom tweaked foobar2000 dolby headphone config. The soundstage is so large and it sounds like having a 5.1 speaker set around you when set the speaker config to 5.1, the positioning is so accurate and the music is surrounding you, not in your head so you're in the middle of it. At the same time I had to admit to myself as a previous Realtek onboard hater, Realtek onboard has come a long way since I last tried it like 5 years ago. My motherboard Gigabyte P55-UD5 has this ALC889A which is the newest chip before the very recently launched expensive X79 chipset motherboards which usually features ALC898 chips. I must say this ALC889A chip sounds very neutral to me. More so than both Titanium HD or ASUS D2, it's somewhere in-between those. Paired with a ZO2 it sounds actually wonderfully to my ears but it does have a major issue though and that's the electrical noise it snaps up from HDD activity or a simple flash video object is displaying on some webpage etc.

So now I'm looking for some source and it doesn't matter what type if it's a soundcard, USB DAC, external source or whatever but soundcard I think is probably the only type that offers everything I'm looking for:

- Neutral sounding as possible

- Great EQ (that doesn't distort or color the sound, well as little as possible anyway. I've looked at hardware EQs but I have a hard time finding something that would work)

- "Works" for gaming (I don't seem to need fancy effects as DH nor CMSS3D, as long as I can get similar positioning as I get with Realtek HD onboard set to 5.1 speaker config I'm fine)

- The more configurable/advanced software the better (basicly I'd probably want a "professional" soundcard with gaming capabilities)

- Preferable not expensier than $200. 

Well setting the speaker config like this (doesn't matter if you do it through windows control panel or the Realtek interface):

And I choose "Heaphones" as the plugged in device to the green jack. It works nicely, I get sound from all channels and don't miss out on any sounds in any game no matter what speaker config is set ingame or when listening to music or watching movies etc. In the speaker test I get sound from every "speaker" except the sub and it sounds like coming from the right direction too. Rear speakers give such a positioning as coming from "behind" me and the center speaker like just in front of me. Aprox like this if I was to sketch up the positioning of the speakertest:

For me it's a night and day improvement over using stereo.

Thanks for the tip, will look into those, I've so far only looked into the more mainstream "gaming" soundcards, I think I need to look into that other direction as I think those will be a better fit for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich 

Ah, yes! You were doing what I was trying to describe - having the computer process the audio as 5.1 and then send it out for headphones. That's one of the ways you "should" be doing it for gaming/movies.

 

 

Yea and with the X-Fi Titanium HD card and the Creative drivers I was unable to get it working correctly since the drivers had their own "speaker config" settings (separate from windows one) so it didn't work like the standard Realtek onboard that simply works according to the Windows speaker config standards. Creative have some kind of own system to it which IMO broke this what Realtek HD does for me.

Wonder if that's the case with E-MU 1212M too?

Well I just didn't think the soundstage was quite as large on the Creative card in "headphone" mode and speaker config in control panel set to 5.1. It sounded more cramped in compared to what I have on Realtek HD onboard with above setting. And I've never liked the sound of "headphone" mode on Creative cards, I always preferred stereo speakers or 2.1 or whatever over Headphone as it applied some kind of filter/EQ to it in my ears. So in my opinion the system they add on top of Windows own only has negative effects.

All the instruments and sound effects sounds like they move so freely around me with above speaker config on Realtek HD onboard, like it's a constant volume match between the different channels so the position becomes accurate which is then applied like a "virtual 5.1 channel" into stereo sound.

Basicly I'd just need a soundcard that is a bit like Realtek Onboard with preferably better hardware components and better EQ, I don't really need all these "Reverb Lite" "Chorus" etc effects that are standard for these professional grade soundcards. Only reverb is something I might use if it has some kind of "intensity"/volume (read a slider and not 3-button setting or something like ASUS cards) adjustments so I can make it very subtle sounding so it's barely noticable.

I dunno I didn't like the interface for starters and that it still has the own speaker config system in the drivers is just ruining it for me I doubt it's much different with a lower-grade X-Fi card and don't like how EAX needs to be configured for every game etc. The E-MU cards seem to have somewhat lacking EQ adjustability with 3 and 4-band EQs and alike, then there's this "Multimode EQ" I'm unsure how it works. I'd either want minimum a 10-band EQ (31-band would be heaven!) or a graphical EQ with a possibility to use at least 10+ filters working similarly as Electri-Q with the peak filters.

But there must be something except Creative (read X-Fi) or ASUS or is it really that bad? HT Omega fails on the EQ point, same craptastic EQ as ASUS cards with no values given and doesn't sound very clean.

The DBX EQs were a good suggestion, I've looked at Behringers earlier. The DBX 131s looks quite suitable to me, a single 31-band EQ with 1/4" TRS in/outputs http://www.dbxpro.com/131s/index.php But I'm kinda green on these things so is there any impedance issues etc connecting an EQ like this straight to a computer soundcard? It costs like 200 EUR here in europe though which is a bit expensier than I'd want to pay.

DEQ2496 is just perhaps overkill and costs like 250 EUR which is quite a lot more than I'd want to pay and besides I have no idea how I should connect it and also should amps be placed before or after it.