Aelius
Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 12, 2007
- Posts
- 59
- Likes
- 10
I'm building a new PC and I'm figuring out which sound card to choose.
I don't intend to use the sound card's DAC at all. I basically just need a sound card with good DSP for movies and games as well as 3D positioning (to the extent that modern games haven't butchered it,) and that's all that I'll be using it for since I'll just be feeding the DSP'd audio digitally through S/PDIF into my DAC/amp.
My equipment:
I've done hours of research, including pouring through pages of comments on Nameless's guide to PC audio, but I've heard so many conflicting opinions about the merits of the X-Fi Titanium vs. the newer Z-series with its Sound Core3D. Some people revile what they claim are buggy software/drivers for the Titaniums. Others criticize the Sound Core3D-based chipset of the Z-series for being more or less a software codec and swear by the Titaniums. I heard one gentleman deride the Z-series as "too bassy and tries to appeal to the crowd that thinks Dr Dre beats headphones are high quality for their price." Still, others praise the Z-series. It's especially hard to research this because not everyone has my set up; some people have speakers or use the card's headphone jack.
By the way, I hope I'm not being unfair by excluding the ASUS cards from consideration, but I'm under the impression that Creative has an exclusive license on things like CMSS-3D and EAX3-5, and thus that the ASUS cards wouldn't really make much sense for me, unless I'm mistaken.
Any advice?
I don't intend to use the sound card's DAC at all. I basically just need a sound card with good DSP for movies and games as well as 3D positioning (to the extent that modern games haven't butchered it,) and that's all that I'll be using it for since I'll just be feeding the DSP'd audio digitally through S/PDIF into my DAC/amp.
My equipment:
- Audio-DG NFB 12.1 DAC/amp
- Sennheiser HD-600
- S/PDIF optical connection
- Windows 7 (could be relevant for driver bug/compatibility concerns)
I've done hours of research, including pouring through pages of comments on Nameless's guide to PC audio, but I've heard so many conflicting opinions about the merits of the X-Fi Titanium vs. the newer Z-series with its Sound Core3D. Some people revile what they claim are buggy software/drivers for the Titaniums. Others criticize the Sound Core3D-based chipset of the Z-series for being more or less a software codec and swear by the Titaniums. I heard one gentleman deride the Z-series as "too bassy and tries to appeal to the crowd that thinks Dr Dre beats headphones are high quality for their price." Still, others praise the Z-series. It's especially hard to research this because not everyone has my set up; some people have speakers or use the card's headphone jack.
By the way, I hope I'm not being unfair by excluding the ASUS cards from consideration, but I'm under the impression that Creative has an exclusive license on things like CMSS-3D and EAX3-5, and thus that the ASUS cards wouldn't really make much sense for me, unless I'm mistaken.
Any advice?
