Sound card upgrade - any reccomendations ?

[mrlimbo]

Hello everyone , cant believe i wasnt a member here , thought i was DOH !
 
 
Hi , i recently upgraded my computer , which included a "ASUS Xonar dgx" well its not a bad card but im not happy with it , and it doesnt compare to my very old "M-AUDIO - Audiophile 2496" , so im looking at a new card , ive been looking at these
 
I'll using it with headphone amp and speakers

AUDIOTRAK Prodigy HD2 ADVANCE DE - £65.39
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AUDIOTRAK-Prodigy-HD2-ADVANCE-Sound-Card-2-Channel-/110775775269?pt=US_Sound_Cards_Internal_&hash=item19cac03025

AUDIOTRAK Prodigy HD2 ADVANCE DE Special - £52.18
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AUDIOTRAK-Prodigy-HD2-ADVANCE-Special-Sound-Card-2-Channel-/110968908015?pt=US_Sound_Cards_Internal_&hash=item19d64328ef

These are within my budget , to buy new , is the more expensive one worth it ?

Im also looking at these 2nd hand
 
 
XONAR D2X / D2
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD

If money wasnt a constraint id buy a "Asus Xonar Essence ST/STX"

Any advice or help would be great , many thanks

 

[cel4145]

Sorry. Never heard of those cards you found on Ebay.

Titanium HD is an excellent card and definitely a step up from the Xonar DGX. Since you can probably find one of them that is a bit newer than the D2X/D2, that would be my choice.

 

[mrlimbo]

Quote:

Sorry. Never heard of those cards you found on Ebay.

Titanium HD is an excellent card and definitely a step up from the Xonar DGX. Since you can probably find one of them that is a bit newer than the D2X/D2, that would be my choice.

Thanks for your input , just found out the "Titanium HD" has a major flaw.
 
RE: *
""HOWEVER, you CANNOT have speakers and headphones plugged in simaltaneously. The headphone port is designed (hardware not software) to mute the other outputs and there is no way to switch this. You have to crawl to the back of your PC and manually unplug your headphones every time you wish to switch. This is a horrible design flaw that the ASUS competitors do not suffer from.""
* Taken from Amazon review 
 
So unfortunately that rules that card out for me

 

[cel4145]

Thanks for your input , just found out the "Titanium HD" has a major flaw.

RE: *
""HOWEVER, you CANNOT have speakers and headphones plugged in simaltaneously. The headphone port is designed (hardware not software) to mute the other outputs and there is no way to switch this. You have to crawl to the back of your PC and manually unplug your headphones every time you wish to switch. This is a horrible design flaw that the ASUS competitors do not suffer from.""
* Taken from Amazon review 

So unfortunately that rules that card out for me

That's too bad.

 

[mrlimbo]

Mind you , my use would be 99.8% headphones , and on the rare occasion i need speakers , i could plug them into the headphone amp ? 

 

[KimChee]

Are you using the unified drivers for the Xonar card, it made a noticeable difference imho.

 

[mrlimbo]

Quote:

Are you using the unified drivers for the Xonar card, it made a noticeable difference imho.

Hi , no i havent , didnt think it would increase the sound quality of the card , does it ?

 

[KimChee]

Yes I think it does it's worth a shot anyways it's free