What is the current opinion on this card? I lost one on an auction about a year ago but am now thinking about it again.
Never had decent audio using my PCs as a source... they always sound like a nasty storm of electrical interference. Silence that isnt' really flat black silence but a hissy mess... hearing the hard drives spin up and down and so on.
I'm once again wondering if I should try yet-one-more card now that the STX is a bit cheaper... but it is still around 170 Euros. So, is it worth it?
I'm looking for decent sound, but it is essencial that the card has good isolation from external interference, ie, not hearing HDs seek, cdroms rev up and having flat dead silence when expected. In other words, is this card properly shielded and isolated from the EMF chaos that the average PC desktop case generates?
My current setup is:
-Desktop PC (obviously) with a fairly decent PSU (Seasonic-built) and otherwise mainstream motherboard (Asus with Intel 2500K CPU).
-Several headphones but all low-impedance. The ones used more often are the Sony MDR-CD3000, Koss PortaPro, Fischer Audio Eterna and Mylar X3. All are 60 Ohm or less.
-I also have a Meier Corda Move DAC+AMP but don't think it will be necessary for such impedance headphones.
My main worry about the STX is really on having proper shielding and being able to pump out a clean sound that never reveals interference from other components on the PC, even with very revealing low impedance headphones.
Any feedback on this is wecome. Thanks.
PS: If there are better cards for this in the market now, other suggestions are welcome. But I only care about normal stereo sound for 2-channel headphone usage, so paying a lot for features I will not use (7+ channels, DTS, etc, etc) is not an option.