[Swansboy]

Hi, I am considering to buy a sound card / external dac and an amp. Will buy Magni 2 Uber as amp but I am torn between sound blaster ZXR and Modi 2. 
 
Could you suggest which one would sound better? I have heard that modi 2 has a bit harsh highs and is slightly unclear. Is that true? Also, I have heard ZXR uses a better dac. Do you think ZXR will be a better option? 
 
I am mostly into music and movies, not gaming. 

 

[nhasian]

I haven't personally heard the ZXR, but I frequently see people asking about them, especially compared to the schiit DACs. Ultimately either one will be much better than onboard audio. One thing to consider is that the new Modi 2 has a multibit option that just came out a few months back. Another thing you might want to look into is the Schiit Jotunheim.

 

[Swansboy]

The problem is Modi multibit is not available yet in my country and shipping from any online website (including import duties) will make the total cost outrageous. Otherwise, the multibit version would have been an excellent choice. Modi 2 uber will be cheaper than ZXR but I am not too sure if it will sound better (particularly for movies). 

 

[seamon]

If getting the ZxR, you need to change the op-amps. Stock op-amps have very bloated bass.

 

[Swansboy]

I am a basshead. Do you think the bass would still be too much for me? Also, by bloated bass, do you just mean too much bass or bass without definition as well? 

 

[seamon]

  I am a basshead. Do you think the bass would still be too much for me? Also, by bloated bass, do you just mean too much bass or bass without definition as well? 

I am basshead too. By bloated bass I mean bleeding bass that bleeds all over. It's just a pain in the ear to listen to. But even with cheap replacements such as JRC 5532DD in the I/Vs and the LT1028ACN in the buffers, the bass is fully controlled. This modification will cost you $10-15 and involves unscrewing the EMI shield and pulling out old op-amps and adding new ones. This is supported by Creative too. However, replacing stock with premium op-amps such as Burson V5/V5i is recommended.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Hi, I am considering to buy a sound card / external DAC and an amp. Will buy Magni 2 Uber as amp but I am torn between Sound Blaster ZxR and Modi 2. 
 
Could you suggest which one would sound better? I have heard that Modi 2 has a bit harsh highs and is slightly unclear. Is that true? Also, I have heard ZxR uses a better DAC. Do you think ZxR will be a better option? 
 
I am mostly into music and movies, not gaming. 

 
If your not really into (FPS?) gaming, then there really is no good reason for getting a sound card (SB-ZxR), over an external DAC/amp (Modi/Magni).
Music and movies really do not use any of the features a sound card comes with.
 
Internal sound cards can pick up electrical noise generated inside the computer case.
An external DAC does not have that issue.
 
Technical the SB-ZxR might have a better (slightly better?) DAC chip, but there are other hardware factors that also effect audio quality.

 

[seamon]

   
Internal sound cards can pick up electrical noise generated inside the computer case.
An external DAC does not have that issue.
 
Technical the SB-ZxR might have a better (slightly better?) DAC chip, but there are other hardware factors that also effect audio quality.

 
Theoretically, this is true but the SB-ZxR never suffers from noise. The EMI shield does a great job of blocking any radiation and even without, the card is resistant as sht. I have my card sandwiched between 2 GPUs and I never get any noise whatsoever.

 

[PurpleAngel]

   
Theoretically, this is true but the SB-ZxR never suffers from noise. The EMI shield does a great job of blocking any radiation and even without, the card is resistant as ****. I have my card sandwiched between 2 GPUs and I never get any noise whatsoever.

 
Yea, I've never really had much of a issue with internal sound cards and electrical noise.
But if the Thread Starter has his mind on getting the Magni 2 Uber, I think it's better to get the Modi, over the SB-ZxR.

 

[Swansboy]

I have already ordered Magni 2 uber online. But I was wondering if ZXR and Magni would be a good combination as I could use the bass for movies and DnB and switch to magni when using headphones (assuming the headphone amp on ZXR wouldn't be as good as Magni). What do you say?

 

[Swansboy]

@seamon Since you have the card, could you advice on the following: a lot of people on creative forum  and newegg complains that the card is not being recognised by the windows after the PC boots up. Did you ever face such an issue?

 

[seamon]

  @seamon Since you have the card, could you advice on the following: a lot of people on creative forum  and newegg complains that the card is not being recognised by the windows after the PC boots up. Did you ever face such an issue?

Never. However, when upgrading Nvidia drivers, I have to set the default sound system to ZxR as by default Nvidia Control panel recognizes the main monitor's speakers as the speaker system. This is more of an oversight on Nvidia' part than Creative's and this only happens when upgrading drivers.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  I have already ordered Magni 2 Uber online. But I was wondering if ZxR and Magni would be a good combination as I could use the bass for movies and DnB and switch to Magni when using headphones (assuming the headphone amp on ZxR wouldn't be as good as Magni). What do you say?

 
To feed the best analog audio signal from the SB-ZxR to the Magni, you would want to connect the SB-ZxR's Front Speaker jacks to the input on the Magni.
Which bypasses the SB-ZxR SBX Headphone surround sound, which is not a big deal for music audio.

 

[Swansboy]

Yeah, I was thinking along the same line. Thank you.