Upgrading my PC, should I get a new sound card or a DAC?

[Acknown3]

 
[size=small] First off, I'll start with what I use my PC for, in the order of most often to least often:[/size]

[size=small]

• Gaming
• Listening to music
• Producing music

[/size] [size=small] If possible, I'd like a solution that fits all three of the above equally well. The third reason is actually why I'm upgrading, so that is a must. So far, I've looked at the Xonar Essence STX and various DAC's / amps like the D1, Cmoy's,Objective 2, HRT, Little Dot, FiiO E7 + E9, and Tube Magic.[/size]

[size=small] If anyone can steer me in the right direction, I would appreciate it. My budget is $200. Additionally, I'll be using these with headphones (ATH AD-900's) and speakers (Audioengine A2's).[/size]

[size=small] [/size]

[size=small] And as a random, less important question, my friend is going off to the navy soon and needs a pair of portable headphones that don't require an amp, are preferably closed, have good bass, and are comfortable. Would the V-Moda M-80's work? His budget is $200 as well.[/size]

 

[Roller]

Well, considering your listening priorities and your budget, you should consider a Creative X-Fi Titanium HD, well within your budget, with a solid and pleasant signature and a complete gaming audio feature set, which excludes Asus cards, for instance, and virtually all external DACs.
 
It seems you're a bit confused about DACs and amps. Think of DACs as soundcards of sorts (all soundcards contain a DAC within, but for the sake of a simplified explanation), while amplifiers can't work on their own since they require an audio stream to work with, which is the DAC's job.
 
About your friend, what kind of music does he listen to and through what kind of gear?

 

[Acknown3]

 
Quote:

Well, considering your listening priorities and your budget, you should consider a Creative X-Fi Titanium HD, well within your budget, with a solid and pleasant signature and a complete gaming audio feature set, which excludes Asus cards, for instance, and virtually all external DACs.
 
It seems you're a bit confused about DACs and amps. Think of DACs as soundcards of sorts (all soundcards contain a DAC within, but for the sake of a simplified explanation), while amplifiers can't work on their own since they require an audio stream to work with, which is the DAC's job.
 
About your friend, what kind of music does he listen to and through what kind of gear?

 
I have never used an external soundcard before, so I have one question. Will I be able to leave my Realtek drivers on my computer, but only use the creative drivers? A few of my friends have said that they had to uninstall Realtek in order to use their ASUS cards correctly.
 
And sorry, I'm a bit new to audiophilia. Since you suggested a new sound card, I'll consider that, but if I were to upgrade in the future, what would be the next thing to add? An amp or a DAC that is "better" than the one in the soundcard (sorry if that sounds like giberish, I haven't found too many good tutorials online. I'm still trying to figure out how to make foobar play an album continuously).
 
As for my friend, he listens to symphonic metal (Kamelot), heavy metal (Tenacious D), indie (Modest Mouse), and some electronic music like trance (tyDi). Because he's going off to the navy, they would need to be durable, and not too sensitive to humidity. They'll probably stay in his room, but just to be safe... The reviews seem to praise it for the bass, which would work well with the electronic music, but they generally don't talk about the other aspects.
 
As for the gear, he doesn't own an amp or anything. He just has an iPod video.

 

[Roller]

 
Quote:

 
 
I have never used an external soundcard before, so I have one question. Will I be able to leave my Realtek drivers on my computer, but only use the creative drivers? A few of my friends have said that they had to uninstall Realtek in order to use their ASUS cards correctly.
 
And sorry, I'm a bit new to audiophilia. Since you suggested a new video card, I'll consider that, but if I were to upgrade in the future, what would be the next thing to add? An amp or a DAC that is "better" than the one in the soundcard (sorry if that sounds like giberish, I haven't found too many good tutorials online. I'm still trying to figure out how to make foobar play an album continuously).
 
As for my friend, he listens to symphonic metal (Kamelot), heavy metal (Tenacious D), indie (Modest Mouse), and some electronic music like trance (tyDi). Because he's going off to the navy, they would need to be durable, and not too sensitive to humidity. They'll probably stay in his room, but just to be safe... The reviews seem to praise it for the bass, which would work well with the electronic music, but they generally don't talk about the other aspects.
 
As for the gear, he doesn't own an amp or anything. He just has an iPod video.

 
 
Wait, the Creative X-Fi Titanium HD is an internal oundcard. You must be thinking of the Creative X-Fi HD USB, similarly named but an external product.
 
You can leave the Realtek drivers in your system, unless your board's chipset is picky about multiple audio devices, and for which you must uninstall the Realtek drivers and optionally (although recommended) disable the onboard audio chip through BIOS. Some motherboards work just fine with multiple audio devices, while others don't handle that nicely and require a single audio device in use.
 
Err, I suggested a soundcard and you wrote video card, but I assume that was a typo With you having a Titanium HD installed, I'd most certainly recommend you getting an amp, a desktop amp if you don't require the mobility of a portable amp, or a portable amp if you want to take the amp with you on the go for use with devices like portable media players. No need to think of changing DACs anytime soon since the one available on the Titanium HD is of very high quality. For you to bring out more out of the Titanium HD (other than adding an amp for harder to drive headphones), you would have to consider doing hardware mods to the card.
 
Unfortunately I don't have experience with the V-Moda M-80, so I can't say much about those. For your friend's budget and needs, I can suggest the Ultrasone HFI-580, which handle metal nicely as well as EDM and most genres with an emphasized bass presence. It is moderately rugged, but then again, I find that just about all headphones, rugged or otherwise, are rather frail devices.

 

[Acknown3]

 
Quote:

 
 
 
Wait, the Creative X-Fi Titanium HD is an internal oundcard. You must be thinking of the Creative X-Fi HD USB, similarly named but an external product.
 
You can leave the Realtek drivers in your system, unless your board's chipset is picky about multiple audio devices, and for which you must uninstall the Realtek drivers and optionally (although recommended) disable the onboard audio chip through BIOS. Some motherboards work just fine with multiple audio devices, while others don't handle that nicely and require a single audio device in use.
 
Err, I suggested a soundcard and you wrote video card, but I assume that was a typo With you having a Titanium HD installed, I'd most certainly recommend you getting an amp, a desktop amp if you don't require the mobility of a portable amp, or a portable amp if you want to take the amp with you on the go for use with devices like portable media players. No need to think of changing DACs anytime soon since the one available on the Titanium HD is of very high quality. For you to bring out more out of the Titanium HD (other than adding an amp for harder to drive headphones), you would have to consider doing hardware mods to the card.
 
Unfortunately I don't have experience with the V-Moda M-80, so I can't say much about those. For your friend's budget and needs, I can suggest the Ultrasone HFI-580, which handle metal nicely as well as EDM and most genres with an emphasized bass presence. It is moderately rugged, but then again, I find that just about all headphones, rugged or otherwise, are rather frail devices.

 
For the motherboard, I have an ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Gen3, so I don't think I'll have to worry about audio problems. I'd assume that leaving it on would not affect performance much, but I'll test it out just to be sure.
 
What sort of amp would you recommend for the headphones? I would also use it with my speakers. As for the Ultrasones, I'll look into them.
 
And sorry about the typos and constant questions. I'm running on three hours of sleep over the past three days xD

 

[Roller]

 
Quote:

 
 
For the motherboard, I have an ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Gen3, so I don't think I'll have to worry about audio problems. I'd assume that leaving it on would not affect performance much, but I'll test it out just to be sure.
 
What sort of amp would you recommend for the headphones? I would also use it with my speakers. As for the Ultrasones, I'll look into them.
 
And sorry about the typos and constant questions. I'm running on three hours of sleep over the past three days xD

 
 
Well, I no longer have higher end motherboards in high regard when it comes to audio, since I've yet to see a single motherboard that had sound quality as one of its priorities. Do you need the onboard audio chip to be enabled for a specific purpose?
 
Those headphones aren't particularly hard to drive and should sound perfectly fine by running straight from the Titanium HD, but adding an Objective2 or a FiiO E9 would make sure there's no power lacking to the headphones, handling speakers as well. But it depends on your budget as well, since the options I suggested have a very good price/performance ratio, and are the ones I consider to be the minimum acceptable quality to get.
 
No worries, I just stopped and went back to see what the heck I had wrote

 

[Acknown3]

Sorry for the belated reply, but would you recommend the Sound Blaster over the Xonar Essence STX?
 
http://www.amazon.com/PCI-Express-XONAR-ESSENCE-STX-90-YAA0C0-0UAN00Z/dp/B001OV789U/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1336163828&sr=1-1
 
They're only about $30 apart, so I wouldn't mind the small jump, and the Xonar seems to get a lot of good reviews around here, except for the crackles and outdated drivers, but most cards seem to have that.
 
And I think I'll skip on the amp / external DAC for now until I get better headphones. Do you think my Audioengine A2's would benefit from upgrading that part? I recall reading somewhere that they're self-driven or something.

 

[proton007]

A soundcard is DAC plus a lot more. Quality wise, its going to be same, if not better, than a DAC/Amp.
If you use low impedance headphones, there's no need for an amp.
If your Audioengine's have their own internal amp (they should if they're PC speakers), you can use the soundcard line out into them. And there'll be no benefit of using external amp because you cannot bypass the Audioengine internal amp. So just use the line out from the sound card.
About Xonar vs Sound Blaster, creative doesn't specify which DAC they use, but Xonar Essence STX is pretty good in specs, and a decent headphone amp included, so I guess a pretty good deal.

 

[Acknown3]

Quote:

A soundcard is DAC plus a lot more. Quality wise, its going to be same, if not better, than a DAC/Amp.
If you use low impedance headphones, there's no need for an amp.
If your Audioengine's have their own internal amp (they should if they're PC speakers), you can use the soundcard line out into them. And there'll be no benefit of using external amp because you cannot bypass the Audioengine internal amp. So just use the line out from the sound card.
About Xonar vs Sound Blaster, creative doesn't specify which DAC they use, but Xonar Essence STX is pretty good in specs, and a decent headphone amp included, so I guess a pretty good deal.

Alright, thanks for clearing everything up. Now I just need to look up some reviews on the soundcards and see which one is the better choice. The Xonar is looking pretty good, but the Sound Blaster is pretty alluring for the price.

 

[proton007]

I think the Essence STX competes with the SB Titanium HD, both labelled as 'audiophile' sound cards. The SB is $150 on amazon if I'm not wrong.
Personally, I think audio wise they're both pretty good, and it would be hard to distinguish between the two. So I'll suggest take a look at other features relevant to your needs, like the ADC if you want to record/produce music.