Help ruin fragger's eardrums

[fragger]

 :) Hey all,

I'm looking for a superior sound card for my PC. I like to play music through headphones when I'm doing non-game related stuff on my computer and the on-board sound is OK for games, but not quite up to par for music. It doesn't do too badly, but I'm after the kind of brainstem-rattling depth of sound quality that I've had in the past on earlier machines with Sound Blaster Live and the like. I've been out of the loop for a while in this area of tech (and to think I used to be a sound engineer back in the olden days ::) ) and I've been looking at the Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD card as a contender. I'm titillated by the prospect of the THX TruStudio capability, swappable OP-amp sockets (for possible tinkering further down the track) and especially by the 115dB, 24-bit/96kHz headphone support. It's dear, but I'm willing to fork out for cut-above sound and for the lessened risk of harmonically resonating the house to ground level in order to get my aural rocks off.

Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated, and I promise I won't hold it against you for contributing to my future hardness of hearing. Heck, what am I saying - Deep Purple clagged out my eardrums years ago...

[RedRaven]

but I'm after the kind of brainstem-rattling depth of sound quality

Nice turn of phrase Mr. fragger :)


Not sure on soundcards, the only ones I know much of anything about are for studio / mixing desk interfaces which is a bit excessive for your needs. My own solution is having my PC on one side of the room and behind me at the other end sits an amp and 2 very large home-made speakers connected to a netbook full of tunes. The amp is an old Toshiba from the 70's and works better than most new ones! The volume goes from 1 to 10 as it doe sin most things yet if I have it any higher than 2 or 3 what ever I am listening to can be heard at the other end of my street :)


Perfect for drowning out barking dogs and ignorant car drivers.

[fragger]

Cheers mate :) Sometimes I think you can't beat the old hardware for pure grunt, must be something to do with the heftier circuitry in them or something. I used to have a 150w Yamaha sound system back in the day that could have induced a mummy to boogie.

But I'm really looking for something that I can run out of the computer. I have a pair of studio-quality Sennheiser headphones and I'm after a PC card that will fully utilize their potential. Well, maybe not fully - I do want to still be able to hear something afterwards :-()

[Dweller_Benthos]

I have an Xfi titanium something or other in the new rig and like it a lot. I got it for the front panel which has a dedicated headphone & microphone jack, plus volume control. Though I kinda liked my old Xfi Fatality a little better, the front panel had more options like a dedicated headphone volume, and microphone input volume.

Plus it looks cool in the rig:

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and the front panel can be seen here:

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sorta anyway

[Art Blade]

Nice :)

I'm thinking about something like purchasing some new gear and maybe streaming blue ray vids from my PC to a big TV Screen and a 5.1 or 7.1 receiver/amplifier.

So far, this here looks interesting: Asus' Xonar HDAV and Xonar Xense.  :)

[deadman1]

I recently bought an Asus Sonar D1 soundcard and it really sounds (pun intended) great. Since I mostly play games on my machine I´ve had to turn off some of the more advanced features, but I tested it with music first and it really gave me that brainstem rattling, blow out your earwax sound quality.  ;D

[Binnatics]

I had an external Soundblaster with USB connection in my last system. Bought thatone because of the optical connections. I used Minidisc backthen a lot, and it made it possible to compile md's on my computer and get it to MD in good quality. But I don't know about the quality of the audio. I've never had a class A soundsystem, so I'm not quite a connoiseur in that matter.
I'm using a SoundBlaster Arena surround headset now, which imho has a very good audio quality both for gaming and listening to music. I can almost feel the basslines in my stomic when the heat goes on  ;)
I'm only using my on-board soundcard which is a Realtek ALC889A codec thingy. It provides up to 7.1 setup.
My headset is connected through USB. That doesn't matter at all; all is working very nice. But if you go for the real deal in audio it's not enough I guess. I've read somewhere that for the real lovers it was recommended to buy an additional soundcard.
I've tried to find some recommendations on my favourite Dutch sites but it's a little complicated. I don't know enough of it to be sure, but maybe this is something: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD.
It can convert analog input to digital sound files and it has connection for both mic and headphones with 6,3 mm plugs. It does look solid, and is external. So quite usefull if you want to convert old cassete- or maybe even grammophone music to digital files on the PC.
I'll post the link to a good looking review on this soundcard. Check it out: http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/creative_sound_blaster_x_fi_hd_review,2.html

[fragger]

Thanks for the help and suggestions chaps, you've given me some very good options to mull over and look into :)

I love how one can ask for help on anything on this site, and help is what one gets :-X Cheers to you all :)