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I do apologise for bumping a very old tread by I couldn't resist from chipping in. This is my first post on the head-fi forum although I have been lurking for a good couple of years before I decided to register.
First of all I have to admit that I'm getting tired of reading Roller's constant praises on Creative kit. Are you on their payroll? You're promoting their soundcards with such conviction and vigor it's hard to believe it all comes out of your good intentions to help and provide an objective advice to fellow forum members. Instead all your opinions are so biased that I find it difficult to give them any credibility. I've used pretty much every single card from Creative over past 20 years and I can safely say it's all junk compared to Asus or M-Audio. This is my opinion however it many people here will agree with me. Right now, similar to BlackbeardBen, I use Essence ST (The PCI version with less jitter and lower noise) in my desktop PC and I also use a Lenovo T410 at work which sports Conexant 20585.
I totally agree with BlackbearBen, the Conexant 20585 is an excellent little chip and the SQ is definitely above average. I use HD 600, 595, 555 and AKG 701. I was considering getting a DAC for my laptop but after testing a few units ( including Ibasso D2, Fiio E7, Nuforce uDAC etc.) I came to a conclusion that the difference is so marginal that it just doesn't justify the cost. My amp is Fiio E9- and it is capable of driving HD 600 just fine. So in my opinion a properly amped high end phones will work very well even with an onboard sound chip like Conexant. Just make sure you stick to high bitrate tracks...
That's just my 2 pence added to the discussion ( long overdue and probably irrelevant at this stage).
Basically you're saying that source is irrelevant to you, and your point was taken in account
I also like how you put Asus next to M-Audio, which is kind of offensive to M-Audio, but that's going off-topic.
So, that Conexant onboard audio chip is above average. In that case, what exactly is average? The dirt cheap onboard audio chips that roam desktop and notebook computers alike?
Overall, it's great that you find proper amping and high quality tracks to be enough for your listening pleasure. Although, for others, that just isn't nearly enough, and there's no need to go on DACs costing many hundreds or thousands of dollars, since there is already a big enough leap of quality on budget DACs compared to onboard audio chips, despite their constant, yet quite slow paced evolution.
Tired of listening to my opinions on Creative hardware? That's really an issue of yours, just like how people do recommend the Asus Essence STX blindly, then quite some people end up returning it and actually getting a lower Asus card (yes, an Asus card, not Creative, in the event you decide to come up with another plot), this for users who don't go through the trouble of swapping opamps.
But then again, we could go over your headphone pickings, which would make your listening preferences taken in account on this whole discussion, and there's no need for that, as I don't judge you for what you like.
EDIT: Since apparently you're throwing accusations at me, you should know that I feel Creative cards have their specific target, and are not for everyone, mind you. I've always said that if gaming is a consideration, a Creative card is a must, mainly because onboard audio chips have little to no gaming features, and the only competition at the present time is Asus, which has high quality cards, but with a gaming feature set close to onboard audio chips. That was very clear from the start whenever soundcards and gaming was discussed. I could go on how the Titanium HD and the STX has different sound signatures, which appeal to different people, or how the fact that having multiple components all integrated on the same board affect audio negatively, but that is of no consequence to you, since you're tired of reading my praises and whatnot, despite me always explaining exactly why I feel the way I feel about such matters.