Are sound cards completely unneccessary now for enhancing audio...

are sound cards completely unneccessary now for enhancing audio? i dont know anyone that ever includes them in their builds

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yes

but one review said

"Pros: - I can hear things I've never heard before", and they are still being sold, so something has to be up.

Is the Asus Xonar Essence STX still worth it? I remember even the audiophile mags promoted it, which I never seen them do with a soundcard or anything that isn't Mac related actually.

And audiophiles claim they can "hear things I've never heard before" when they install their own electricity pole for more "pure" electricity.

i have an asus xonar xense. its nice.

I have that same one, horribly disappointed. Better audio than onboard, but there's a relay on the card that just randomly clicks on and off at irregular intervals that is loud as hell, and causes the audio to cut out for a split second.

im not an audiophile at all.

i just wonder how much of a boost it would give on my shitty $40 headphones.

>$269
It better be worth it for that fucking price. I know I sure as hell am not spending that much on a sound card

Someone post that one pci audiophool audio enhancer (not even a sound card) that is just some caps on a pcb.

Ouch, I've heard Asus Xonar's suffer from Windows (assuming that is what you are using) drivers issues.

You might be right, probably best running a digital output to a DAC. Still, I'd rather have everything in my desktop, I don't need clutter on my desk/

If you got really fucking good headphones it might be worth it to get a external(!) sound solution.
>might be

Another reason could be having mainboard with shit layout/shielding creating noise.

That's about it.

Depends

They won't “improve” sound quality unless you have magical superhuman hearing, but they can get rid of stuff like background noise and interference caused by other components on your mainboard.

Even with a high quality PSU, mainboard manufacturers love to fuck up audio circuit isolation, which means background interference is a real thing on onboard DAC chips.

Of course, a sound card that you plug into your PC will not necessarily fare any better - usually the best way to escape noise is by using an external DAC, which is why internal sound cards have almost all died out.

The only use case in which an internal sound card could very well be justified is for low-latency recording with loopback, or device interface purposes - which is why you'll quite commonly find musicians using discrete sound cards.

So unless you're a musician that needs ultra-low latency recording or needs to interface with special devices, I would not bother with an internal sound card ever - if you want the peace of mind to use software volume controls freely without noise levels ever being a thing, then get an external DAC instead.

If you are running analogue out of your PC then possibly, if you have a decent speaker setup, but who is doing that anymore? It's all HDMI digital to a dedicated AV unit with a good DAC now right.

Driver issue or you're card is broken.

That click is for changing between outputs i.e headphones instead of speakers. Its meant to click once at startup and every time you change the output, it shouldn't be clicking at other times.

If its not the drivers sell it to some fag on ebay.

Just get a fucking amplifier, jesus

It's a comple waste of money. You'll get 10x the performance out of cheaper DAC units like the ODAC or Modi

>i just wonder how much of a boost it would give on my shitty $40 headphones.
None at all unless you're hearing interference (e.g. small noises when you move your mouse).

Your headphone will hit its limits FAR, FAR before your onboard audio chip will

>It's all HDMI digital to a dedicated AV unit with a good DAC now right.
HDMI and AV receivers are more of a home theater / TV thing. In the music/desktop computer world it's more common to use a USB connection a dedicated DAC plugging into a dedicated amplifier, rather than an all-in-one receiver.

(And of course, by far the majority is just using the analog outputs on your PC)

The fact that my phone has better sound quality than my computer using the same headphones means probably no

They are a luxury item. They do have their uses mostly for gaming. I use my phone and tablet via aux cable plugged in to pic related while coding and gaming. I have independent audio output between aux in and the system sounds. And I use it to power a pair AT-M50s. I went external because I have an ITX system and the mic is pretty great.

Ever since everyone went into software mixing and software effects - pretty much, there's a few good reasons to get one

* You get it refurbished or at a low cost

* You're doing surround sound, but your Reciever doesn't support HDMI or multiple input
The creative's do Dolby and DTS Encoding. so you set your system to 7.1 or 5.1 and enable one of those encoders on the card configuration and now your games will be in full surround over Digital by way of Dolby or DTS!

* If you want a cleaner sound from non digital output
Sheilding + being seperate from the MB + using slightly to marginally better components than onboard audio allows for a better SNR

>inb4 what's SNR

Ever hear a little whirring noise with every mouse movement or can hear your hard drive being accessed somehow and any other sorts of weird noise? That's noise that can be better eliminated by a shielded card

If this is your only concern and will only use stereo, consider an external DAC, it's even better by design
if you want all the sound features *and* better SNR - consider an external DAC or a DAC\Amp or Reciever connecting the optical from the card to the sound system.

* If you want Hardware Accelerated Mixing\EAX on older titles
Creative card + ALchemy + System Shock 2 = >>>>>>>

* If you want some sort of audio EQ features they have (i think the newer creatives have one for Voice, but idk i don't give a shit)

* If you need a really nice ASIO setup for even lower latency in music production software

i have the Creative X-Fi Titanium - and the headphone boost is really great. relieves the need for external shit you commonly see on Sup Forums , and i think i got it for like $50 a few years back

>The creative's do Dolby and DTS Encoding. so you set your system to 7.1 or 5.1 and enable one of those encoders on the card configuration and now your games will be in full surround over Digital by way of Dolby or DTS!
You can do Dolby/DTS encoding via software too, no need to waste your money. (mpv for example can do it for surround sound movies)

Frankly, they seem more likely to introduce driver issues or otherwise fuck things up than actually improve any audio quality.

I wouldn't tell anyone getting a new build to buy a sound card, no.

I'm still using a Xonar DX from way back in the day, I'm very happy with it. I only ever use headphones with it when I'm playing games with friends, but Dolby Headphone is actually really useful. I can actually tell when sounds are coming from behind me with it enabled and using regular stereo headphones. It's a great feature and I wouldn't want to give it up, though there are some 3rd party software solutions that do the same thing on any sound card.

I have an external DAC for my (stereo) amp and speakers, connected via S/PDIF coax.

Also if anyone is still using older Xonars on modern versions of Windows, try the custom drivers (UNi Xonar), they actually work properly and have a functional control panel.

I use a soundcard just for headphone surround sound, dont know if its a placebo but I love the way it sounds

the odac and modi actually have about 4x worse distortion performance (.002% thd) than a xonar essence stx (.0005%)

The thing you have to watch out for with internal sound cards is dynamic range. But that's gonna be far superior to motherboard audio, though generally not as good as a good dac due to the noisy nature of the inside of a computer.

Enjoy your shit signal-to-noise ratio and constant clicks and pops lol

>via software
Yeah, but that hurts performance in games
>MPV can do it

Are you sure you're not talking about Decoding? Or Passthrough, cause that's totally different.

Decoding converts the Encoded signal to something your system likes

Passthrough sends the raw encoded data through to your Reciever to decode it as untouched exclusive DTS\Dolby

>Yeah, but that hurts performance in games
I thought I was on Sup Forums and not Sup Forums

>Are you sure you're not talking about Decoding? Or Passthrough, cause that's totally different.
See e.g. mpv.io/manual/master/#audio-filters-lavcac3enc[

I own one. Put it into my HTPC. It's bretty good. Especially if you are into 7.1 setups.

Why many people find it not good enough is because windows forces the sound output through it's software amps and decoders. You have to switch the whole thing to ASIO for it to give the real sound.

you are on Sup Forums...

I use HDMI to my Dell Ultrasharp, which goes out through the monitor's audio out. How screwed am I?

The only reason you should get an audio card is if you're a musician who needs real instruments to hook up to a PC for recording.

well i bought a super cheap B85 board for my Xeon that totally fits my build except that the onboard audio is quite shitty. got a Xonar DG for 10€ and now everything is perfect. so i guess it depends on the board you are using...

all current sound cards (even the old stuff like x-fi) do DD live and dts connect in software anyways

Wait, is your monitor's audio out also HDMI or does your monitor do the D/A conversion?

Monitor has an analog out on it that goes directly to the speakers, so I'm assuming the monitor does the conversion.

the quality from the line out is really good. the headphone amp is a little meh so the headphone out is just okay.

Then it's most likely a piece of shit

>"Pros: - I can hear things I've never heard before"

That's honestly just the equalizer on them.

The only thing soundcards can give you nowadays is more I/O including digital input (useful for recording), slightly better SNR (imperceptible unless you run extremely big systems), and better noise filtering due to bigger caps.

But if you use digital out and connect to an external amp then SNR and noise filtering will not be an issue. In fact a decent amp can give you way better sound quality and power than a soundcard ever can.

>If you want Hardware Accelerated Mixing\EAX on older titles

Just use a software EAX emulator. There was one for old gigabyte motherboards, though I don't remember if it is around anymore.

It's an expensive Dell Ultrasharp though, oh well.

>he thinks monitor price affects the DAC quality
I bet you also think apple products are better because they cost more, faggot

There's actually a use for them: Passing them through a virtual machine to get well working audio in GNU/Linux host and Windows guest.

Thanks, Pulseaudio for making audio a mess.

just use alsa, faggot

>Thanks, Pulseaudio for making audio a mess.
>he still uses pulseaudio
you have yourself to blame

I solely use headphones for PC audio, so I'll won't bother with a €200 sound card for that.

I use the headphone output of a Gigabyte H61, probably shit, but the thing is, I never hear noise from the PC through the output, like I have with previous PCs via the motherboard's headphone output.

What is the best way to upgrade from my H61 headphone output? A less expensive Xonar (their mid range stuff)?

thanks for the laugh user

>constant clicks and pops

Are you talking about the pop when you plug Headphones or something in? Who the fuck cares/is bothered by this? Are you constantly ramming your audio ports with audio devices plugging/unplugging them repeatedly?

>enhancing audio
The only way of physically enhancing audio is by lowering the noise floor which is already virtually inaudible on integrated chips now. Beyond that, any other "enhancement" is done with DSP either by your vendors software or third party.

Lol I read the WSJ too

i just use a good speaker and thats all i really need