[fuerchter]

Hi there,
I've had a Sennheiser PC166 for quite some time now and typically used it with its USB soundcard as I only have onboard yet.
 
I'm thinking about upgrading my equipment but I'm not sure whether the stuff i've sought out is superior to what I'm currently using.
 
I'm not planning on going for a full scale upgrade (which as i've been reading would be something like the xonar essence stx with like 300€+ headphones? ^^). I'd prefer to instead go from somewhere between like 85-200€ total?
 
So I found from Mad Lust Envy's gaming guide that the Creative Aurvana Live apparently rules for the price it's worth (and it's currently only 52€ where I'm at?). Did anyone here use the PC166 before and/or can anybody compare the two?
 
Besides that I'm also considering getting a soundcard but again rather low or mid-end. I've seen the xonar dg get a lot of praise (and it would only cost me 35€), but it seems the dx is very good as well (costing twice the price though!)? How do they differ (except one being PCI and one being PCI-e)? Would an upgrade from my onboard Realtek chip make a difference?
 
Also please try not to answer in a too technical fashion (or if you use certain terms try to explain them ^^) as I am basically a noob on this terrain, I would just like to improve my gaming experience a bit (as far as directional hearing and such goes)
greetings

 

[KCxSmacker]

For a very budget set up you could get the audio technica ad700 and the Asus Xonar DG which has 5.1 surround. 
 
another option is a refurb Titanium x-fi http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102043 and use the rest of the budget on headphones. Again the ad700 is great but if you can find the hd598s for around 160-180 USA dollars, they are amazingly great. 

 

[skinnygamer12]

Pretty much any sound card will be an improvement over onboard audio. Even the cheaper ones usually sound better than onboard, an onboard chip may be good on paper but they tend to not actually perform as well as advertised. Plus a sound card will take the load off your CPU, which is always welcome. I find the software that comes with sound cards is very helpful also. As for what card to get, there are many options. The first choice to make is whether you want one that focuses on music at the expense of gaming, or focuses on gaming at the expense of music... From my experience and from reading online most gamer-centric cards are not all that great for music, but I find that music oriented cards are perfectly acceptable for gaming; they won't have all the gaming bells and whistles, but they still have decent positioning with the right settings.