[duranxv]

I haven't compared them to Bursons either, but Andrew at Sparkos is great to deal with. When I ordered mine, he gave me a deal on ordering the whole package. Might want to reach out and see if there is a discount for getting both duals and singles.

Agreed. He's really pleasant to deal with!

 

[enb141]

I just got my sparkos, I have to say wow, pretty much end game for me, it sounds terrrrrrrrrriiiifffffffffffffffffiiiiiiiiiiic, is a huge improvement, before that, the bass was in front of everything, now the bass is there but the rest of the sounds is not being covered by the bass.

Thanks guys, I highly recommend the sparkos OP AMS for the Sound Blaster AE9

 

[duranxv]

I just got my sparkos, I have to say wow, pretty much end game for me, it sounds terrrrrrrrrriiiifffffffffffffffffiiiiiiiiiiic, is a huge improvement, before that, the bass was in front of everything, now the bass is there but the rest of the sounds is not being covered by the bass.

Thanks guys, I highly recommend the sparkos OP AMS for the Sound Blaster AE9

Nice! Glad we could help

 

[enb141]

I'm wondering why the AE-9 is not very common around here, to me with the combination of a good OP AMPs is overkill, I don't think anything under $2000-$3000 can beat them.

 

[duranxv]

I'm wondering why the AE-9 is not very common around here, to me with the combination of a good OP AMPs is overkill, I don't think anything under $2000-$3000 can beat them.

Well, the problem is the stigma against anything made by Creative. They've had a history of poor QC, and some products that were just plain bad.

In this case though, I don't think people are giving the AE-9 a fair shot, especially when the op amps are swapped out.

 

[enb141]

Well, the problem is the stigma against anything made by Creative. They've had a history of poor QC, and some products that were just plain bad.

In this case though, I don't think people are giving the AE-9 a fair shot, especially when the op amps are swapped out.

I'm wondering why, for example to me Hifiman has pretty bad quality issues, in the sound card space, I haven't seen any other company as creative labs that had driver improvement over time, look at Asus or EVGA, pretty much they stop delivering drivers after 6 months.

 

[goodsguys]

Do soundcards get affected by the motherboard they are slotted into. Am getting poor sound quality using the ae-9.

Trying to figure it out.

Is this soundcard something i can plug into any motherboard and it will work immediatly or is there a possible compatibility issue. Have you ever heard of a sound or graphics card not performing well as it is in some way being restricted or not getting along with by the motherboard for some reason.

I am using the asus H170I-PRO motherboard which i purchased simply because it was the most expensive board in the shop, most other mini boards were £50- £80, the asus was £159. I hoped that the extra money may go into higher quality components and better design work not sure need some advice on this as i don't know that much.

Thanks.

 

[enb141]

Do soundcards get affected by the motherboard they are slotted into. Am getting poor sound quality using the ae-9.

Trying to figure it out.

Is this soundcard something i can plug into any motherboard and it will work immediatly or is there a possible compatibility issue. Have you ever heard of a sound or graphics card not performing well as it is in some way being restricted or not getting along with by the motherboard for some reason.

I am using the asus H170I-PRO motherboard which i purchased simply because it was the most expensive board in the shop, most other mini boards were £50- £80, the asus was £159. I hoped that the extra money may go into higher quality components and better design work not sure need some advice on this as i don't know that much.

Thanks.

Could be to several reasons, first that motherboard has only one PCI express slot, most likely is specialized for video cards.

You need a good power supply, if you have an el cheapo bronze power supply, then don't expect to get good clean audio from that.

This sound card needs an extra connector from the power supply to work, without it, it will not work.

 

[goodsguys]

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

I am using a corsair 600 watt, does corsair have a good reputation?

I am using the extra connector, read somewhere that this is only for the breakout box but i am certainly using it.

It is a good point you make about the pci slot only being for video, unfortunatly i only have the one motherboard so cannot swap the card around and try the ae-9 in another board. Is there anyway to find out more about this. Could you recommend any alternate boards to purchase, which board are you using your card in and what is your experience.
And do you have more suggestions as to troubleshooting as to where the problem may be.

 

[enb141]

Watts doesn't matter that much, what matters is how they distribute the power in their lanes, are you using adapters?

If I were you I would try another power supply (platinum if possible) and as I said, you have a motherboard with only one PCIe port, which should be optimized for video cards, so check in your bios if there's a way to configure it as normal PCI express and not just for video cards, if not, well, you have to check for another motherboard.

I have an Antec Signature Power Supply (equivalent to platinum according to today's standards, when I bought it, those nomenclatures didn't exist) and my motherboard is an Asus Prime Z370-P

 

[goodsguys]

Okay, i am searching around trying to find more about all the bios information before me. There is an option to use onboard graphics or use the pci-e slot for graphics, at the moment this is set to auto, i'll try onboard only and see what effect it has.
Also i've picked up a second atx power supply and am using this to power the sound card only. Hard drives, optical drives, cpu all inject noise into the power supply giving the sound card its own power supply may help to improve performance. Also there is a 1500uf capacitor on the sound card power supply i've replaced this with a 2200uf quality panasonic cap, and there is a cheap cap on the sound card's pci-e interface i've replaced this with a 1500uf panasonic. Which has lead to a good improvement in performance more detail coming through, snappy intstruments, happy for a cheap quick mod.
There's four nichicon gold caps at the top of the board but i can't find any information on what they do.

 

[duranxv]

Okay, i am searching around trying to find more about all the bios information before me. There is an option to use onboard graphics or use the pci-e slot for graphics, at the moment this is set to auto, i'll try onboard only and see what effect it has.
Also i've picked up a second atx power supply and am using this to power the sound card only. Hard drives, optical drives, cpu all inject noise into the power supply giving the sound card its own power supply may help to improve performance. Also there is a 1500uf capacitor on the sound card power supply i've replaced this with a 2200uf quality panasonic cap, and there is a cheap cap on the sound card's pci-e interface i've replaced this with a 1500uf panasonic. Which has lead to a good improvement in performance more detail coming through, snappy intstruments, happy for a cheap quick mod.
There's four nichicon gold caps at the top of the board but i can't find any information on what they do.

I also recommend you swap out the op-amps on the card to improve the sound quality. Also, are you using the card with an external amplifier? Or are you using the included Audio Control Module it came with to plug in your headphones?

 

[goodsguys]

Hi. I am not using the acm, am using speakers and not headphones. I am using external amps, three quad power amps to produce the 5.1 sound. It's a shame only the front channels can be op-amp rolled on the soundblaster ae-9, i still have the asus stx II soundcard and all the channels can be rolled on that one.

Have tried all the bios options to address the pci-e slot problems but no improvement in sound. Looks like i may have to purchase a new mother board. Have been searching around for anything hi-end and suitable, keep hearing about asus rampage gene series. Any thoughts on that or do you have any alternative motherboards in mind.

Many thanks.

 

[enb141]

Any asus motherboard with more than one PCIe port, About another sound card, good luck, Asus, Evga, etc, they only release drivers once or twice, then they abandon the drive development, they only two companies that give lots of driver support are sound blaster and RME, but RME costs 3 times the price of an AE-9

 

[duranxv]

I can see now why people are wary of Creative products. Unfortunately, their Quality Control needs improvement. I just had my 2nd defective AE-9 in the span of 8 months. Basically, the left channel literally just shorts out and no sound except static comes out of it. I fear these cards just aren't designed to actually handle op-amps other than the stock ones, despite them marketing that they're fully swappable.