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choosing the right sound card

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shant

Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2010
Location
Lebanon
hello guys, i never really understood how to compare sound cards, nor do i have the time to research, can someone recommend me a card for gaming needs? i will not be watching movies or listening music with this card, but i do want a very good gaming sound experience, im not sure how much is too little and how much is too much money for a sound card, so please, any recommendation ? my budget is 100-150 ish (i don't feel like paying 150 is worth for a sound card) but oh well, you guys know better :p
thanks :)
 
I recently found that irrespective of what soundcard I used at low volumes when no sound was playing I could hear interfence/noise when using quality headphones. After some investigation I found that if I held the 3.5mm headphone jack against any exposed metal surface of my case I could hear the same noise which led me to believe that this is noise produced by the earth wires on the power supply.

My solution is that I've purchased a Turtle Beach Ear Force DSS 2 optical DAC for $60 which will plug into my mainboard Optical Toslink out. This should resolve the interference issues without my having to sacrifice directional audio in games. My understanding in Doby leaves EAX for dead with DSP effects anyway.

Anyway, I no longer believe in running an internal sound card due to this. This will be replacing my current Asus Xonar DX.
 
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Well, its fair to say that the Turtle Beach Ear Force P11's that I'm running are budget speakers based on their price, though they're easily the best I've come across in this price range by a long way. They cost me $50 shipped from the UK, very very happy with them. Far clearer than my old Plantronics Gamecon headset.
 
mjw21a,im looking for a sound card not speakers/headphones :p
tho, what do you think about the mad catz cod black ops edition headphone?
 
mjw21a,im looking for a sound card not speakers/headphones :p
tho, what do you think about the mad catz cod black ops edition headphone?

Yeah, I recommended the Turtle Beach Ear Force DSS 2 as the sound card replacement in my first post. It avoids electical noise from your power supply by interfacing with your computer via its fibre optic output. Likewise its converts Dolby Digital Surround sound into stereo surround effects which beats out those of the EAX emulation on the Asus Xonar series. It's cheaper than the Xonar DX too so its a win win situation :thup:

I've recently become a convert with Turtle Beach headsets. The sound quality has beat every other headset I've tried to this point in time, both at lower and higher price brackets. I scoff at people talking about th light build of the P11 headset. Don't drop it and you won't break it, its that simple. Sounds amazing though with its 5cm drivers and the noise cancellation on the microphone is superior to other headsets I've used. I like that I can control the game audio separately to that of the chat program I'm using too. ;)
 
Hmmmm, it's not a big unit you know. Maybe watch some YouTube reviews, that'll give you an idea of the size.
 
because my desk is very small and its gonna hang in the air, also i have a wild pet in my house thats gonna break it :p
edit:gets powered by a usb too, thats gonna add some ugly cables lying on my desk :/
 
Another option would be to mount the DSS2 inside your case using double sided tape and leaving 1x PCI cover off to pass the cables through.... Just a thought.
 
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