[sQum]

Dear members of the Head-Fi community,
 
I hesitate about different sound cards, I'm looking at the Creative Sound Blaster Z (maybe the Zx), Creative Sound Blaster Titanium HD and the Asus Xonar Essence STX.
The sound-card needs to power my current Sennheiser PC360 (and maybe in the future higher grade headphones) it will be mainly used for FPS games.

The current prices of the cards in my country is:
 
Creative Sound Blaster Z: € 72,-
 
Creative Sound Blaster Zx: € 112,-
 
Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Titanium HD € 149,-
 
Asus Xonar Essence STX € 140,-
 
 
What do you recommend?

 

[sQum]

is their nobody who wants to help me?

 

[GREQ]

Depends what you need from the soundcard.
If you're just looking for higher quality sound than on-board sound you don't need to spend so much money.
 
The much higher end cards only really offer you hardware accelerated 5.1, 7.1 sound, which is useless for headphones.
I play FPS games through your average stereo USB DACs and the software audio does a good enough job of positional cues etc.
 
I would only get such a soundcard if you really need all the whistles and bells that they have to offer in the bundled software and you want the extra hardware acceleration.
Otherwise even a simple USB DAC would suffice.
 
 
I use one of these at work - http://www.ebay.de/itm/PCM2704-USB-DAC-to-S-PDIF-Sound-Card-Decoder-Board-3-5mm-Analog-Output-/201089065014?pt=Wissenschaftliche_Ger%C3%A4te&hash=item2ed1d7a036
(although it took about 2 weeks to get to Germany)
 
For my vintage 600 Ohm Beyer DT990, I need to put the system volume to 50%, otherwise it's too loud. 
It sounds great too. Totally silent background (no hissing even at max volume with IEMs).

 

[PurpleAngel]

  I hesitate about different sound cards, I'm looking at the Creative Sound Blaster Z (maybe the Zx), Creative Sound Blaster Titanium HD and the Asus Xonar Essence STX.
The sound-card needs to power my current Sennheiser PC360 (and maybe in the future higher grade headphones) it will be mainly used for FPS games.

The current prices of the cards in my country is:
Creative Sound Blaster Z: € 72,-
Creative Sound Blaster Zx: € 112,-
Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Titanium HD € 149,-
Asus Xonar Essence STX € 140,-
What do you recommend?

 
I would say to just get the Sound Blaster Z (72 Euros).
Can't think of a good enough reason to spend any more.

 

[Silverwind]

Earlier this week I picked up a pair of Fidelio X1 headphones.  My old headphones were USB so I needed a way to power the X1's.  I have ordered a creative OMNI usb soundcard for gaming.  This will give me the surround sound gaming. The amp is the same or close to the soundblaster Z (rated up to 600ohm).  
 
The nice thing is that it has RCA and optical output, if I ever want to hook up a more powerful amp to it down the road.  The price is right, too!

 

[sQum]

sorry if I revive this thread but I want to thank all of your for helping me eventually I have chosen the Sound Blaster z and it's rocking in game

 

[Silverwind]

sorry if I revive this thread but I want to thank all of your for helping me eventually I have chosen the Sound Blaster z and it's rocking in game

Glad to hear it is rocking in game. What game that you have played had the best sound?