New to sound cards. Need some advice.

The X-Fi Titanium HD is all about clean two-channel analog output. The rest of Creative's cards, not so much. Auzentech-built X-Fi cards are said to perform almost as well as the Titanium HD, barring any hardware faults. Since you have DT990s on the way, I think those would be headphones that would justify the better analog output of the Titanium HD.

I'd ignore the THX TruStudio Pro effects, which are in Entertainment Mode; you're either going to be in Game Mode for hardware DirectSound3D or OpenAL acceleration and CMSS-3D Headphone, or Audio Creation Mode for bit-matched playback and ASIO.

Buying a cheap X-Fi card would be a more viable option only if you have an external DAC that accepts S/PDIF input, so you're bypassing the cheap analog circuitry. Unfortunately, the FiiO E7 only has USB input...

Creative Labs just came out with the Recon3D PCI-Express sound card (SB1350), comes with a headphone amplifier rated up to 600-Ohms, costs around $100.

So far there are no review out yet.

Sometimes the Titanium HD goes on sale for around $100 (after mail in rebate).

What's the point of even bothering with a discrete sound card these days? An internal card is very noise prone. Most motherboards have optical and hdmi output. Why do any analog processing in the computer? Seems like a external DAC/Amp would be a much better option than internal. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by zachsilvey 

What's the point of even bothering with a discrete sound card these days? An internal card is very noise prone. Most motherboards have optical and hdmi output. Why do any analog processing in the computer? Seems like a external DAC/Amp would be a much better option than internal. 

Because sound cards have DSP effects for gaming, that's why. DSP effects that you cannot get out of integrated motherboard audio for the most part (EAX 1/2 is common, EAX 3/4/5 sure isn't, and just forget about CMSS-3D Headphone or Dolby Headphone), and certainly not external audiophile DACs. If you don't have a sound card that has hardware sound acceleration for older PC games, then you lose the effects and are now not being true to the source, as the game developers intended.

For that matter, I don't seem to notice any EMI/RFI noise through the analog outputs on my X-Fi Titanium HD, or the cards I used before that. The analog output on my SU-DH1 actually sounds noticeably worse because of the background hiss it introduces, though that's not an audiophile DAC with a proper analog output stage.

The reason for the sound card + external S/PDIF DAC approach is so that you can bypass the sound card's weaker analog stage, but preserve its DSP capabilities for gaming (and perhaps other uses). Best of both worlds, at least in theory.

Oh, and if we're just talking music playback, then it's said that the Xonar Essence STX will wipe the floor with any DAC/amp combo in its price range, like the FiiO E7/E9.

Use the cable which came with the Titanium HD, which has RCA on one end of the cable and 3.5 on the other.  Plug the 3.5 end of the cable into the Fiio E9's Line in plug on the rear of the amp, now plug the RCA  into the RCA out on the X-FI HD thats directly after the 3.5 jacks on the card.  Max the volume in the Titanium HD volume control and do all the volume control thru the Fiio E9 amp.

Quote:

Originally Posted by genclaymore 

Use the cable which came with the Titanium HD, which has RCA on one end of the cable and 3.5 on the other.  Plug the 3.5 end of the cable into the Fiio E9's Line in plug on the rear of the amp, now plug the RCA  into the RCA out on the X-FI HD thats directly after the 3.5 jacks on the card.  Max the volume in the Titanium HD volume control and do all the volume control thru the Fiio E9 amp.

I actually disagree on this one small point.

The reason for it is that with the X-Fi volume setting maxed out like that, if he wants to use the EQ, there will be no headroom for adjusting upwards before clipping occurs. 25% seems to be good enough to move a band on the EQ all the way up without clipping; 10% lets you do that AND pile on max bass boost on top of that if desired, without any apparent clipping.

Of course, if everything sounds too quiet even with the E9 on max, it's time to raise the Titanium HD's volume setting.