how do i improve the sound from my pc?

[nburge]

Hey Guys,

I have a top of the line pc but want improve the audio part of it. I currently have the x-fi extreme music. I am a gamer and as such i need my first priority to be for gaming. I am looking at either upgrading to a x-fi prelude,x-fi elite pro or getting a dac. would a dac be the best choice and if so how would i connect everything?what would i need to get it connected up and what would i need to run everything thru in order? I also would like to keep the total tab under 500$ preferable below 400$. I want something thats hopefully is gonna make me notice a huge difference over my x-fi extreme music. It would be nice to have a headphone amp as well. thank you

 

[pez]

Not sure about what's good, I'll let the experts deal with that, but I know as far as connection it could probably be either, SPDIF, Mini-to-RCA, Mini-to-Mini, USB to USB, and I'm sure there's other types of connections. It just depends on what is recommended.

 

[Nicolas2305]

My knowledge is not that big but what I heard over the forums tells to get an USB DAC, ASIO4ALL(freeware) and your favourite music player(foobar2000,MediaMonkey,Winamp,etc.) you need to configure ASIO4ALL a little to get it to stream your music directly to your DAC and tell your music player to play your music directly to your DAC thru ASIO4ALL.

All of this is really theorical for me because I don't have any DAC yet but I plan to get one really soon. The advantage with that is that your current soundcard can still be used for your games (the default sound output being that soundcard) and you have the DAC for your music enjoyment.

Another advantage with the DAC, on some models you can have other inputs than USB so you can use it with multiple sources.

If I'm wrong somebody will surely correct me right away but I thing the overall logic is there...

 

[nburge]

Thx guys those are some good answers. I have all my music on my computer,i currently use foobar/media monkey and have the asio4all set up. I just dont know what connection to use for best results and how to connect everything up i guess once i find a dac i can see what connections it has and go from there but i do need a headphone amp. I currently am comming from my sound card to my logitech z5500 speakers which has an amp but not a very good one for headphones and thats how i get my sound right now. although i rarely use the speakers i mostly use my darth beyers they are like being in a nightclub so there is no need for the speakers

 

[TaZ82]

If gaming is your first priority, then I guess the creative soundcards will serve you better as the EAX will provide better sound effects.
A dac from my experience is more for music playback. I switched from a creative audigy 2zs to a Keces DA-151 and what I noticed was that the soundstage became wider and the music became a tad warmer but at the expense of bass. Both of them have their merits. Hope that helped.

Cheers

 

[nburge]

well yeah

I wanna improve the sound for gaming as well as music and movies primarily gaming though.