[genclaymore]

Yea Nijs it does work with them, when you use the program the usb input of the external dac is shown and you can select it and use it.

 

[SaLX]

  Yea Nijs it does work with them, when you use the program the usb input of the external dac is shown and you can select it and use it.

That's really good to know genclaymore. Kind of heard it before, but I've not seen it confirmed. So unless you're really into your games you don't need a soundcard at all - just an external DAC + AMP. How is usability with it though? Is the Razer Surround software easy enough to toggle on and off - also movies too.. any good?

 

[genclaymore]

Yea its easy to turn on and off after you config it, just right click the task-bar icon and highlight Razer surround and a option will pop up to enable or disable.  I don't use it for movies since I watch all of my tv and movies from Comcast Xinfinity online and I recall comcast not using the 5.1/7.1 audio stream for their online watching service. It works good or bad depending on how your Calibrated it for your ears/headphones.  For me it does a good job in game's, I might get around to one day trying it with my blu ray movies, I wont be using it fully with the blu ray movies, because of my NFB15.32 having Full blu ray audio format support thru its usb input.
 
One more thing you have to make a Razer Synapse account to log in and save you calibrate settings which is transferable to which ever computer you log in with the software.

 

[DJINFERNO806]

I don't know what it is, if its razer's resampling engine when mixing the hrtf signal or what not but the sq takes a big drop.

It makes sense though, you probably have to make compromises as there is no DSP or audio processor to do the calculations just the CPU.

This was when outputting through my zxr to headphones.

 

[genclaymore]

The only thing it tends to do is make the sound pop some times, but most of the time it works like it should.

 

[TheUnknown]

I recently upgraded my computer from a built-in realtek to a Soundblaster Z card. I chose this card because of the built-in HP amplifier.
 
After discovering this topic, I see that Nameless suggests steering away from this card and I am wondering if I made the wrong choice.  Are these bad cards? Should I return it and get a Xonar?
 
To me they sound great, but not sure if there are other issues I have not run into yet.

 

[DJINFERNO806]

I don't see why it is a bad card? If it does what you want then isn't it good for you?

IMHO the z series are superior to the xonars especially for gaming. And I don't think you'll get better sq without getting an stx or Phoebus. I don't think you have much of a choice for sound cards except maybe the x-fi series. But thats if you want older gaming support.

Is there something you don't like about the card?

 

[TheUnknown]

No, not at all. Some quirkyness in the control panel, but otherwise I think its fine.  Then again, I do not know much about computer audio and was concerned after reading the first post in this topic.

 

[TheUnknown]

Actually the only thing I don't like about the SB Live Control Panel is that I can't set volume settings for the headphone profile that are different from the speaker. Not sure if thats normal, though, for all cards.

 

[DJINFERNO806]

Ya I think that's a normal thing. I guess because the volume you are controlling is actually tied to the windows mixers volume.

Regardless I think the OP hasn't updated that portion of the thread talking about the soundcore3d. That was written before the z cards came out I think. He probably went based on what the recon3d cards were(subpar) since they share the same processor.

The z has improved on those cards in many ways. Most importantly the sound quality since they have external analogue components to handle conversion and amping.

Really good DAC and decent low cost headphone amp.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  I recently upgraded my computer from a built-in Realtek to a SoundBlaster Z card. I chose this card because of the built-in HP amplifier.
 
After discovering this topic, I see that Nameless suggests steering away from this card and I am wondering if I made the wrong choice.  Are these bad cards? Should I return it and get a Xonar?
 
To me they sound great, but not sure if there are other issues I have not run into yet.

Did you remember to disable the motherboard's on-board (Realtek) audio? in the BIOS.
 
The Z  (& Zx) sound card's headphone amplifier has a 22-Ohm impedance, which is not the best choice for lower impedance headphones. The ZxR and Essence STX & ST have a 10-Ohm impedance (better then 22)
Where as some external headphone amplifiers have an impedance of less then 2-Ohms
 
But I'll let Nameless post his reasons.

 

[NamelessPFG]

DJINFERNO806 is right. I'm extrapolating my experience with the Recon3D USB, the only Sound Core3D device I have experience with, and making an inference that all Sound Core3D devices have similar strengths and weaknesses.

If anyone wants me to do a Z-series review, lend me a card for a few weeks. I'm gonna be building a new PC ovet the next few months anyway, so I'll have a shiny new testbed for this, free of bloated, years-old Windows kludginess.

 

[Evshrug]

RPGwizard apparently has a ZxR sitting in a drawer, he prefers his Realtek onboard with his AKG K271.

 

[shrimants]

ok so here's the question i end up with: How do you know which games will "support" multichannel sound and which wont? I have a full 5.1 system, and i can connect to the receiver either as 2.0 PCM, 5.1 PCM over HDMI, or 5.1 DTS over S/PDIF because of my sound card and hdmi audio. So how do know which game will do 5.1 and which games will do 2.0 (which I DONT want upmixed to 5.1). In other words, how do you tell the native sound format of the game?

 

[TheUnknown]

RPGwizard apparently has a ZxR sitting in a drawer, he prefers his Realtek onboard with his AKG K271.

 
Any particular reason he prefers his onboard over the ZxR?  I honestly have not noticed a huge difference and only bought the SB Z as I thought I would need it to power my headphones properly. As it is, I don't think I needed them as I need to keep the volume on 7% when using the headphones or it will be too loud.