[x7007]

   
Months ago I tried my DT990 600-Ohm on a Sound Blaster Z (not Zx or ZxR) and the DT990 600-Ohm was driven decently.
So I would assume the ZxRs headphone amplifier would be better?
 
Did you try asking on the Creative lab's own Sound Blaster thread?
http://forums.creative.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6

I will but they might not have the best experience there, maybe not Hi-Fi headphones.
 
How do you know  or compare a Sound Card (ZXR - Phoebus - STX II ) to  a dedicated AMP , in a words of "driven decently"  .  I mean what the differences you will hear ? that's the correct quesiton.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  I will but they might not have the best experience there, maybe not Hi-Fi headphones.
 
How do you know  or compare a Sound Card (ZXR - Phoebus - STX II ) to  a dedicated AMP , in a words of "driven decently"  .  I mean what the differences you will hear ? that's the correct question.

 
I like to use the word "decently" because it's a very generic description I can use when I can't really offer any better description.
(my brain works best when it has a lot of time to think something over and come up with a "good" detailed answer)
I do not own the ZxR, Phoebus or STX II (just original STX), so i can only loosely base my opinions on those cards because they really use the same headphone amplifier chip as my STX.
I was fairly happy with my STX driving my DT880 600-Ohm and DT990 600-Ohm headphones
The four sound cards come with the same class of PCM179X DAC chips, i do not think you truly best them until you spend $150 for an ODAC USB DAC (Sabre DAC chip)
I consider my JDS O2 headphone amplifier a little better then my STX's amp, but the O2 costs $130 and offers a lots less features then a sound card.
So that $280 (O2/ODAC) for getting hopefully better sound quality, more then you might be willing to budget, the Schiit Modi/Magni external DAC/amp seems to offer good sound quality for it's $200 price.
When I wanted to improve over my STX, I spend $300 for a Audio-GD NFB-15.32 external DAC/amp
(Technically I bought the NFB-15.32 for several minor improvements (like dual WM8741 DAC chips), over my STX).
If you really want to drive headphone to their best, you need to be willing to spend the cash, external do offer better amplifiers, but it costs you.
Another advantage of external is no "electrical noise" in the audio signal, so an external gives you a very "black' background.
You can have "electrical noise" in your analog audio signal from an internal sound card, from being inside the computer case, but it might be just barely noticeable, if noticed at all, or never really notice the difference until you go external.
To me a sound card is usually really good enough for the person who has a set budget, Creative and Asus try to offer the best they can, for a given cost to manufacture their cards.
Creative and Asus have equal access to the sound card parts available in the world and they seem to share more parts with each other then they might admit, so maybe there is really only very minor differences between the cards.
They do use difference main audio processors, SoundCore3D vs C-Media.

 

[Swordchan]

Just got the Q701 with the creative sound blaster z! I first tried with onboard soundcard. Damn the sound was so bad.
And arter that i installed the Sb Z. Damn! The difference is Huge from my sennheiser 360!

 

[x7007]

The big question is, is it possible to use the External DAC and have the SBX surround from a Creative Z series ?
 
I understand what you say, but the big "Wanting" and "Money" is not a problem if it's not cost more than $1000 and if the quality will really have a difference.
 
Again, I don't have any idea what DAC actually have in comon or what is different from each company, there are just too many, like cars.
 
If you say 1 company or 1 model, I have only a choice to choose this, that's why I ask for recommendation.
 
Thank you for the answers, but I still need a bit more information to really understand ^^

 

[PurpleAngel]

Just got the Q701 with the Creative Sound Blaster Z! I first tried with on-board sound card. Damn the sound was so bad.
And after that I installed the SB-Z. Damn! The difference is Huge from my Sennheiser 360!

 
Hopefully you disable on-board audio (in the BIOS), when you installed the SB-Z.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  The big question is, is it possible to use the External DAC and have the SBX surround from a Creative Z series ?
 
I understand what you say, but the big "Wanting" and "Money" is not a problem if it's not cost more than $1000 and if the quality will really have a difference.
 
Again, I don't have any idea what DAC actually have in common or what is different from each company, there are just too many, like cars.
 
If you say 1 company or 1 model, I have only a choice to choose this, that's why I ask for recommendation.
 
Thank you for the answers, but I still need a bit more information to really understand ^^

 
A Sound Blaster Z ($75-$85), connected (optically) to an Audio-GD NFB-11 external DAC/Amp ($355+shipping).
Should provide you with really good headphone sound quality and gaming Win PC computer.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Blaster-Beamforming-Microphone-SB1500/dp/B009ISU33E
http://audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB112014/NFB112014EN.htm

 

[Swordchan]

A Sound Blaster Z ($75-$85), connected (optically) to an Audio-GD NFB-11 external DAC/Amp ($355+shipping).
Should provide you with really good headphone sound quality and gaming Win PC computer.

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Blaster-Beamforming-Microphone-SB1500/dp/B009ISU33E
http://audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB112014/NFB112014EN.htm

Will that increase the quality *alot*?

 

[PurpleAngel]

Will that increase the quality *alot*?

 
Assuming you currently are using a Sound Blaster Z?
There will be a noticeable improvement in audio quality.
A few months ago I tried the SB-Z for a month.
To me personally it's worth the improvement, I use the NFB-15.32, which is not considered to offer as much "audio detail" as the NFB-11.
Might also depend on what headphones your currently using?

 

[Swordchan]

Assuming you currently are using a Sound Blaster Z?
There will be a noticeable improvement in audio quality.
A few months ago I tried the SB-Z for a month.
To me personally it's worth the improvement, I use the NFB-15.32, which is not considered to offer as much "audio detail" as the NFB-11.
Might also depend on what headphones your currently using?

Yes the Z.
I recently got the Akg q701
So i can get a dag and plug it into my soundcard. I dont see how that work.
Will i still have all the sound blaster features like surround and so on. And gain better sound quality?

 

[x7007]

   
A Sound Blaster Z ($75-$85), connected (optically) to an Audio-GD NFB-11 external DAC/Amp ($355+shipping).
Should provide you with really good headphone sound quality and gaming Win PC computer.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Blaster-Beamforming-Microphone-SB1500/dp/B009ISU33E
http://audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB112014/NFB112014EN.htm

Ok, it's not seem expensive, I need to check if they deliver to Israel though :X , just 2 problems, after I connect like you say and I enable SBX, what should the options in the Creative control panel and the game, movie, music options should be ?
 
If I use Pot Player I guess there should a hell of options to set before I could hear like I should.
 
The settings is what confusing me, there are too many to think about, Lav Audio has it's own mixer , Pot Player has it's own Audio renderer options. 
 
EDIT : yes they send to israel, how much tax did you pay ?  The big bloody problem is the tax 18% and the customs will reach to insane $450 minimum (over $375 there are customs charge ), I can't afford that much sadly, cause I could buy the ZXR with no tax and customs for $305.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Ok, it's not seem expensive, I need to check if they deliver to Israel though :X , just 2 problems, after I connect like you say and I enable SBX, what should the options in the Creative control panel and the game, movie, music options should be ?
 
If I use Pot Player I guess there should a hell of options to set before I could hear like I should.
 
The settings is what confusing me, there are too many to think about, Lav Audio has it's own mixer , Pot Player has it's own Audio renderer options. 
 
EDIT : yes they send to Israel, how much tax did you pay ?  The big bloody problem is the tax 18% and the customs will reach to insane $450 minimum (over $375 there are customs charge ), I can't afford that much sadly, cause I could buy the ZXR with no tax and customs for $305.

 
When Audio-GD ships out the NFB-11, Audio-GD will claim a $100 value for the unit, with the shipper, so your import tax will be $18.
As I live in the USA, there is zero import tax.
I only tested the SB-Z for a short time, so I'm sure what to say about the settings.
But whatever setting you would use for plugging the headphones into the SB-Zs headphone jack, would really be the same for optical output.

 

[aer0pr0]

hello everyone,
 
i just bought a sound blaster z
 
its really a big improvement over my onboard audio, no questions about that, both on maxvolume as well as for quality goes, and for gaming its also really good, sounds seems so much better now.. Im using it over headphones sennheiser hd518
 
my question is, listening to music, i actually prefer turning the "sbx pro studio off", the music sounds more natural to me.. im no audiophile, not even close, and i dont know if turning this option off is really better or just my imagination. What config do you think is better for everyday use? i tried to tweak those sbx settings a little bit ( surround, crystalizer, crossover frequency) but still prefer turning it off

 

[genclaymore]

  hello everyone,
 
i just bought a sound blaster z
 
its really a big improvement over my onboard audio, no questions about that, both on maxvolume as well as for quality goes, and for gaming its also really good, sounds seems so much better now.. Im using it over headphones sennheiser hd518
 
my question is, listening to music, i actually prefer turning the "sbx pro studio off", the music sounds more natural to me.. im no audiophile, not even close, and i dont know if turning this option off is really better or just my imagination. What config do you think is better for everyday use? i tried to tweak those sbx settings a little bit ( surround, crystalizer, crossover frequency) but still prefer turning it off

When it comes to music, it best to turn all of the SBX effects off, the good thing is you can make profiles for music and gaming so you dont gotta do the settings again.

 

[NCSUZoSo]

I only turn on SBX effects with music and turn them off on everything else (since most music is 2.0 or forced 2.1).
 
There are no damn magic settings that anyone is going to post, try stuff and stay with what sounds best to you.

 

[x7007]

Did anyone figured the settings with SBX on in BF4 ? does it needed there, someone on hardforum said that it's best to play this game with SBX off.
 

SBX isn't better than straight stereo in BF4. It might improve some games but so far I have not heard one that does. 

Good stereo headphones + stereo source = best sound. The less steps you have in the chain the better. 

 
What I wrote there is 
 
ok, that's only in BF4 ? 

But people usually choose Home Cinema + Stereo or Surround, I still don't understand if the Stereo is 2.1 and the Surround is 5.1/7.1 is it game processing engine or is it just the channel you for sound card.

No one yet find the answer to this.

If I go headphones SBX off and I want Stereo 2.1 from the game, do I set HomeCinema + Stereo, what will the surround do then ?

If I choose with SBX On and I want surround, do I set HomeCinema + Surround, what will the stereo do ?

It's bloody complicated