Question about sound...

I have an evga classified X58 mobo which has the realtech onboard sound. I also have a SB Audigy ZS. I know that the SB is a bit outdated, but is it still worth it to use in place of the onboard sound?

Onboard sound these days is really quite good. I can't see the old SB card doing any better...

Trust your ears

I personally think any discrete sound card sounds better than built in sound...simply because it's on it's own circuit, thus isolated from random electrical shenanigans on the motherboard. That said, you gotta have some pretty good ears to tell the difference these days.

If it was mine and I didn't have to sacrifice any other PCI devices or hamper video card cooling, I'd use it. Should be noted, I don't have one right now.

thanks guys.. yea i have no reason not to use it, was just curious.

What is the best sound card available these days?

"Best" is a loaded question that needs to be qualified My RME MADI sound card retailed at $1500 (128 channels of digital I/O) and the SSL AD/DA converter was $2200, but I do Audio Production and need lots of I/O...

For gaming - I'll let one of the gamers chime in as I'm about as far from a gamer as one can get

For sound quality - your best bet would be anything that spits out a solid SPDIF signal into a dedicated external SPDIF DAC - like a Benchmark or RME ADI2. But I'm not sure how that would relate to gaming...

Yea was referring to games and movies...

For Movies & surround sound, simply pipe your MoBo's SPDIF into a descent AVR or Preamp/Processor and let it do all of the decoding and D/A conversion.

As long as the games you play run their audio at 44.1k/48k they should also work via your MoBo's SPDIF into an AVR - but sometimes the System Sounds won't work properly if the sample rates change quickly (ends up chopping off audio as the AVR has to re-lock to the new samplerate). Sometimes this is an issue with SPDIF and external devices - other times it isn't...

Randyman... said:

Trust your ears

Click to expand...

^^ smart man

Randyman... said:

"Best" is a loaded question that needs to be qualified

Click to expand...

Again, the wisdom beats me to the punch.

All that aside, don't forget about your speakers. You can get a "$100" sound card and a "$5" set of speakers, and still have crappy sound.

Either way, enjoy!

TechtonicPC said:

I have an evga classified X58 mobo which has the realtech onboard sound. I also have a SB Audigy ZS. I know that the SB is a bit outdated, but is it still worth it to use in place of the onboard sound?

Click to expand...

What kind of equipment are you using? If it's a pair of headphones, I know I loved my Audigy 2 ZS for headphones. In fact I have some hardware that will eventually involve me putting together a dedicated listening rig centered around the Audigy 2 ZS. It has a rich warmth to it that most sound cards didn't have.

The Audigy 2 ZS has a noise floor. A noise floor is basically noise that's always there, if you plug in speakers you can hear the faint hum, if you plug in headphones it's even more apparent but it's almost immune to ground loops and other electrical noise that can be introduced by the system. It is still one of the best sound cards for the PC. Also, while the Audigy 2 ZS doesn't support some of the newest games (like grid etc) that require game mode it will still provide hardware 3D audio for several titles, whether by alchemy or if you're on XP, directly.

I could safely put money on your onboard having a noise floor, and being liable to accept interference from other components. In lay terms, you'll hear your mouse move, or your graphics card chug. Also, all sound processing occurs completely in software land.

hafa said:

Onboard sound these days is really quite good. I can't see the old SB card doing any better...

Click to expand...

I can. Were I to guess, the Audigy 2 ZS is better.

Randyman... said:

Trust your ears

Click to expand...

But this is what it really comes down to, isn't it? Test both and see. If you can't make out a difference, why use the Audigy? I bought an X-Fi because Creative neutered the Audigy 2 ZS in vista/7. They removed many useful features and it crashed often (bsod).

xokeman said:

I personally think any discrete sound card sounds better than built in sound...simply because it's on it's own circuit, thus isolated from random electrical shenanigans on the motherboard. That said, you gotta have some pretty good ears to tell the difference these days.

If it was mine and I didn't have to sacrifice any other PCI devices or hamper video card cooling, I'd use it. Should be noted, I don't have one right now.

Click to expand...

This isn't true, actually. The X-Fi is very susceptible to electrical interference, and no you don't. Well, I don't consider myself having good ears and the differences are plain as day. The thing is, it's not necessarily the attitude, but a combination of things. If I listed all the things I knew were there you'd have an easy time of spotting them yourself also, and possibly other differences.

Randyman... said:

"Best" is a loaded question that needs to be qualified My RME MADI sound card retailed at $1500 (128 channels of digital I/O) and the SSL AD/DA converter was $2200, but I do Audio Production and need lots of I/O...

For gaming - I'll let one of the gamers chime in as I'm about as far from a gamer as one can get

For sound quality - your best bet would be anything that spits out a solid SPDIF signal into a dedicated external SPDIF DAC - like a Benchmark or RME ADI2. But I'm not sure how that would relate to gaming...

Click to expand...

I don't have a high end DAC (I have an S.M.S.L. SD-793, basically an ebay dac with an OPA2107 in the op amp slot), but the benefit for me, believe it or not, was a ground loop isolator of all things. Optical output doesn't cause a ground loop. I output to a dedicated dac, which outputs to my tube amp and then to my array of headphones (SRH840, SR325i, ATH-AD700, MDR-V6, etc). This is only really useful with X-fi's as it still processes stereo the same as it does with analog out. There's a feature called "output stereo mix to spdif" that basically lets you set the stereo out as your default sound, and it still supports all the features of the card, the sound just exits through the spdif.

Jmtyra said:

^^ smart man


Again, the wisdom beats me to the punch.

All that aside, don't forget about your speakers. You can get a "$100" sound card and a "$5" set of speakers, and still have crappy sound.

Either way, enjoy!

Click to expand...

Too true. This is why headphones are best for the cost conscience. You get a lot more sound for your money, plus cans are just better for positional audio anyway.