Best soundcard for stereo audio

[SBB]

Im buying a nice amp and set of speakers (about £500/$800 worth) and I want a good sound card to go with it. Gaming performance/features etc arent really an issue for me, even though I game a lot i've never really seen the attraction of EAX etc. The main focus for me is the best audio quality for stereo music (through an analogue connection)

I've got an x-fi titanium PCI-E but i just cant get it working properly on Win 7, after so often the sound just turns to static, ive tried several drivers but the only thing I can put it down to is creative being hopeless at making drivers as it was fine on Vista with the same hardware.

I was looking at the Xonar D2X, seems good, any other suggestions?

 

[Rossi~]

Yep pretty good i'd say or stretch further for an Asus Xonar Essence STX.
You could go down the external DAC route from your current digital source be it your XFi or onboard. e.g. Cambridge DACMagic
How much are you willing to dish out?

 

[CyberJunk]

I would get either the Xonar STX or Auzentech Forte X-fi

 

[ashmedai]

EMU 0404 USB

Win7 has some retarded issue where sometimes when initiating an audio process it will be corrupt. I have no clue yet what the solution is other than to restart the process in question. I haven't seen one where it starts fine and turns to static after a while, but shitty drivers could be the cause, sure. It sounds a little far-fetched though, Win7 and Vista basically use the same drivers.

 

[keenan]

ESI Juli@

The Xonars are also pretty good.

 

[obobski]

You could go down the external DAC route from your current digital source be it your XFi or onboard. e.g. Cambridge DACMagic

this wont solve the driver issues that he's having with Windows 7/X-Fi

OP:
I've not yet read of a single vendor that has problem free software under Windows 7, but Asus seems to be taking an even worse rap than Creative

I'm not sure if Auzen has improved their driver packages for Windows 7, if not, the X-Fi Forte won't change a thing, so I would be weary there as well

honestly I'd probably wait if you can, to see if something improves, try 3rd party/mod drivers for your X-Fi in the interim

as far as a replacement, absolute "best" is likely going to be something off the following list (probably forgetting a few):

E-MU 1820/1820m *
E-MU 1616m *
Onkyo Wavvio SE-200PCI LTD +
Asus Xonar HDAV Deluxe 1.3 &
Asus Xonar Essence STX &
Auzen X-Meridian &
Auzen X-Fi Prelude *
RME Hammerfall 9632
ESI Juli@ +
LynxTWO
HT Omega Claro Halo &
Creative X-Fi Elite Pro *
Creative Audigy 4 Pro *

all with * use Creative chipset/drivers
all with + use VIA chipset/drivers
all with & use C-Media/Asus chipset/drivers
else uses proprietary

and I've honestly not heard of any of the above being "flawless" under Windows 7, although I wouldn't be surprised if all issues are fixed within a year

 

[phr0m]

a DAC will be your best bet for for good sounding music. Most external DAC's use much better chips for analog sound output than the mainstream sound cards that most people buy and you dont have to worry about computer interference with an external DAC.
HotAduio makes some good external DAC's and if you are a do-it-yourself kind of guy, you could go the gamma1/2 route for a good price and get much better analog sound for music than the mainstream sound cards offer. If you get a usb DAC you dont have to worry about drivers either (for most usb DAC's anyway) windows will install on its own and you'll be set

 

[obobski]

a DAC will be your best bet for for good sounding music. Most external DAC's use much better chips for analog sound output than the mainstream sound cards that most people buy and you dont have to worry about computer interference with an external DAC.
HotAduio makes some good external DAC's and if you are a do-it-yourself kind of guy, you could go the gamma1/2 route for a good price and get much better analog sound for music than the mainstream sound cards offer. If you get a usb DAC you dont have to worry about drivers either (for most usb DAC's anyway) windows will install on its own and you'll be set

nonsense

most external DACs use the same chips or cheaper chips than any of the soundcards I listed, yet cost two to ten times as much, it isn't a matter of some "secret sauce" for the external solutions

interference is usually a non-issue, so we don't need to be hiding under our beds waiting for the RFI gremlins to come eat us, in some cases theres problems, but this is usually onboard due to issues with traces being in bad places, a discrete card should have no problems (and a decent number of the ones listed have shields, for the paranoid)

 

[ashmedai]

nonsense

most external DACs use the same chips or cheaper chips than any of the soundcards I listed, yet cost two to ten times as much, it isn't a matter of some "secret sauce" for the external solutions

interference is usually a non-issue, so we don't need to be hiding under our beds waiting for the RFI gremlins to come eat us, in some cases theres problems, but this is usually onboard due to issues with traces being in bad places, a discrete card should have no problems (and a decent number of the ones listed have shields, for the paranoid)

This is just wrong, and overlooks a number of significant factors besides.

What is it with you and posting all this misinformation lately?

 

[fullvietFX]

Is Xonar 2 the best Xonar?

 

[obobski]

This is just wrong, and overlooks a number of significant factors besides.

What is it with you and posting all this misinformation lately?

whats wrong? the "vastly superior" external solutions use the same tech as the discrete prosumer/high end MM hardware, will generally post equal or better numbers, while providing more inputs and outputs, the only thing you're not getting is the audiophile branding and audiophile pricing, basically if something measures or specs the same or better as something else, how is the less-spec'd or worse measured device still better?

Is Xonar 2 the best Xonar?

Xonar 2?

do you mean Xonar D2 / Xonar D2X?

generally thats the "flagship multimedia card" from Asus, yes, the HDAV Deluxe 1.3 has considerably better components

 

[Christobevii3]

Ht omega striker works fine in windows 7.

 

[obobski]

Ht omega striker works fine in windows 7.

well, you're the first person to comment on HT Omega, and its positive, so I'm going to say that 100% of users I've encountered have had success with HT Omega under Windows 7, in a sample of one user

 

[phr0m]

whats wrong? the "vastly superior" external solutions use the same tech as the discrete prosumer/high end MM hardware, will generally post equal or better numbers, while providing more inputs and outputs, the only thing you're not getting is the audiophile branding and audiophile pricing, basically if something measures or specs the same or better as something else, how is the less-spec'd or worse measured device still better?

I would say that most high end consumer sound cards use DAC chips that are found in the low to middle end of the external dac's that can be purchased. A Asus Xonar Essence STX uses a burr-brown pcm 1792, which is a pretty good chip, but the Xonar is an expensive card to buy and if you are only going to be using it for stereo audio and not utilizing all of the other features offered by the sound card why should you get it? Building your own DAC (following some of the DIY at head-fi) allows you to choose the best DAC chips available and is much cheaper to buy and build than any sound card and it will give you the best stereo audio. If you do want to use the other features of a sound card, on some of the modules you can upgrade the DAC and the opamp to get better analog output, but a lot of sound cards (on board and out board) use a chip that has DAC and DSP functionality integrated. This can alter the analog signal and degrade the sound of the music and make Bitperfect play back impossible (depending on the quality of equipment you have and if the source file is lossless or not this degradation can be very noticeable).
Back to the main point though, If all your looking for is the best sounding stereo output for music, you cant beat an external DAC (especially if you build your own).

 

[obobski]

I would say that most high end consumer sound cards use DAC chips that are found in the low to middle end of the external dac's that can be purchased. A Asus Xonar Essence STX uses a burr-brown pcm 1792, which is a pretty good chip, but the Xonar is an expensive card to buy and if you are only going to be using it for stereo audio and not utilizing all of the other features offered by the sound card why should you get it? Building your own DAC (following some of the DIY at head-fi) allows you to choose the best DAC chips available and is much cheaper to buy and build than any sound card and it will give you the best stereo audio. If you do want to use the other features of a sound card, on some of the modules you can upgrade the DAC and the opamp to get better analog output, but a lot of sound cards (on board and out board) use a chip that has DAC and DSP functionality integrated. This can alter the analog signal and degrade the sound of the music and make Bitperfect play back impossible (depending on the quality of equipment you have and if the source file is lossless or not this degradation can be very noticeable).
Back to the main point though, If all your looking for is the best sounding stereo output for music, you cant beat an external DAC (especially if you build your own).

name a chip that specs higher in all regards than the PCM1792 by a respectable margin (that isn't the PCM1794)

also, "DAC and DSP functionality integrated", what?
what ancient hardware are we even talking about? (you realize its nearly 2010, not 1993, right?) I can't honestly think of a single soundcard in the last decade that has an all-in-one codec/DSP (I can't even think of an all-in-one codec/DSP on the mass market)


as far as "why buy it if you aren't using it", thats the most illogical red herring I've yet seen in response to why we should hate soundcards, so instead of spending $150-$250 for a soundcard (which is "so expensive"), and having a mountain of inputs and outputs, we should spend that same $150-$250 for a 16-bit, stereo only, output only, USB solution, with no customization or extra features (like Dolby Headphone, an EQ, h/w acceleration, etc), because its somehow going to save us money and be "considerably better" (even though, spec wise, we're talking about less than or equal), purely because "its got less features that we may not use so its less wasteful", seriously if I need to explain the logical problems presented there....

most of your arguments seem to follow the trend of the "soundcards are bad, external is the only option forever" crowd, and basically I can condense it into this:

A) soundcards are bad because they offer more features for the money
B) soundcards are bad because over a decade ago they were fairly primitive devices and we should refuse to give "them" another chance because obviously technological innovation hasn't happened
C) soundcards are bad because somehow all external solutions have access to a "secret sauce" of components that aren't available to any end users or hardware designers except special audiophile types who "care" (care enough to charge you $1000 without batting an eye )
D) soundcards are bad because soundcards are bad

I'm sorry, but I don't see any fruit in any of those
if I've missed something, feel free to say so, but if its really "lets just not buy this because it has extra functionality" and "20 years ago this generalization was reality so all technology is dead to me", please don't waste my time with this "audiophile enlightenment you just aren't genetically optimized" dribble

 

[phr0m]

@obobski

I do agree with you that some pre-built DACs can be way over priced and there would be no noticeable difference between an external DAC and sound card in certain situations (like gaming or streaming videos or listening to music on some shitty walmart speakers), but when all you want/need is stereo audio (and you have decent speakers), an external DAC can be superior to a sound card not only by an improved DAC chip but also the opamp used and other components used inside an external DAC on top of the fact that most usb external DAC's are meant for the sole purpose of improving stereo audio quality. I would say that if you an average user of both games and music, the Realtek ALC889a, which is on most new motherboards, is pretty damn decent, but if you game and listen to music in equal amounts, a sound card would probably work just as well for you if not better than an external dac.
I use my old audigy 2 zs for gaming because of the good 3d stage positioning and then when I listen to music, I switch to my external DAC and fire up foobar2000 with the wasapi plugin for bitperfect audio playback.

 

[obobski]

I do agree with you that some pre-built DACs can be way over priced and there would be no noticeable difference between an external DAC and sound card in certain situations (like gaming or streaming videos or listening to music on some shitty walmart speakers), but when all you want/need is stereo audio (and you have decent speakers), an external DAC can be superior to a sound card not only by an improved DAC chip but also the opamp used and other components used inside an external DAC on top of the fact that most usb external DAC's are meant for the sole purpose of improving stereo audio quality. I would say that if you an average user of both games and music, the Realtek ALC889a, which is on most new motherboards, is pretty damn decent, but if you game and listen to music in equal amounts, a sound card would probably work just as well for you if not better than an external dac.
I use my old audigy 2 zs for gaming because of the good 3d stage positioning and then when I listen to music, I switch to my external DAC and fire up foobar2000 with the wasapi plugin for bitperfect audio playback.

sorry, switch to: "subjective opinions are a factual basis for the superiority of a lesser spec'd device purely because it cost me more money" is not going to net you any ground with me....

most of these USB devices are using commodity chips with specs lower than the I2S/PCM/DSD decoding stuff that "big boys" use, so if you'd like to explain how something that measures/performs worse is a "better" choice for the same money (I'm really gonna regret asking for this subjective gem)....

as far as "my experience tells me that a soundcard is only good for "walmart speakers"", sorry, because not only do I know thats an outrageous claim based on numbers and facts, I know its an outrageous claim based on experience (and since apparently subjective opinions are more factually relevant here than objective facts...), I've owned and used a wide gamut of professional and personal electronics, and can say that even if we're talking about a $10,000 D/A with all sorts of fancy power regulation and "perfect accuracy", we're talking about no audible differences from a $200 soundcard, or my CD player (which is some 22 years old and still kicking around), and if you break out some numbers its pretty easy to see why

 

[ashmedai]

whats wrong? the "vastly superior" external solutions use the same tech as the discrete prosumer/high end MM hardware, will generally post equal or better numbers, while providing more inputs and outputs, the only thing you're not getting is the audiophile branding and audiophile pricing, basically if something measures or specs the same or better as something else, how is the less-spec'd or worse measured device still better?

Extremely short version, no diagrams.

Your statement that "most external DACs use the same chips or cheaper chips" came out of your ass and is flat-out false, except when it's just irrelevant and misleading. It is obviously possible to choose a single card and a single external device such that the card has a more expensive DAC chip - well, duh. But in general this is just something you made up to support an untenable position. And even the most expensive chips are in the range of $5 to $20. There is no dark conspiracy to put bad parts into a $200 external DAC but good parts in a $200 sound card. Your knowledge of the pricing of available sound cards and DACs is also seriously lacking - and there are examples of each which are quite costly due to intent for professional use, but eventually almost everything moves external because it is simply not practical to put them inside a PC case. So yes, there are external devices which cost ten times or a hundred times as much as that $20 bargain-basement POS sound card, or more - well, duh. But somehow I don't think the op needs a $2000 professional DAC.

Even when the same chip is used, a good DAC design is far more involved than only the chip used. If it was that easy, I could buy $5 DAC chips in bulk off Digikey, attach them to a PCB, and turn around and sell them for $1000+. You need a very well-designed circuit in order to provide stable power that isn't disrupted by the audio signal, to pass the signal around without degrading it against a wide range of frequencies, etc etc ad nauseum. Most people with an EE degree don't have the knowledge to make a good one, and it's a challenging problem even for people who regularly design audio electronics. If it was easy, we would all have incredibly awesome ones for $5 that fit in our pockets, and there would be no need to figure out which one to buy.

RF interference is a part of this. A good sound card will defend against it to some extent, but it's hard to do well without effectively wrapping the card in tin foil. But ideally that's only a small part. Much more significant is the fact that the power and data rails in a computer are really, really fucking noisy from the perspective of an analog device. Digital devices are extremely insensitive to bias noise, but it will degrade the tar out of an analog sound signal. And what is an analog audio signal? Voltage fluctuations. So just by being there, the sound signal degrades itself by creating time-domain effects on the ground and power rails going into the audio circuit. Oh, and you usually want at least two channels, so those both access the ground and you get crosstalk or god knows what else.

And guess what? It's getting amplified significantly before it gets turned into actual sound, meaning that a fairly small noise or distortion will get - you guessed it - amplified right along with everything else. Everything analog adds distortion of some sort, and if you're tossing a lot of it right up front with a bad DAC, you might as well accept that you're getting crap out the other end because it's only going downhill from there no matter how good the rest of your gear is.

Oh yeah. All that stuff about interference? You can ignore most of it for an external device. You still have to worry about self-interference which partially distinguishes crappy DACs from mediocre ones from great ones. And you have to worry about the noise on the initial power source, i.e. the power supply needs to be pretty good. But any respectable external device will be able to use a purpose-specific supply, AC-DC converter + filter, whatever...that beats the living shit out of the results you'll get from a switching ATX supply, particularly after it's been run through a computer's other electronics. Free isolation, and all for taking almost exactly the same circuit used on a sound card and putting it into a little plastic box then attaching it to a wall-wart. But that's not all, folks! Sound cards have severe engineering limitations due to the available space. If an external device wants to put big caps or inductors or a transformer or whatever - guess what, we can use a wider PCB and make the plastic box a little bigger.

Oh, one more thing. All the crap that a sound card has to deal with which an external device doesn't? Well, say you have a $100 sound card and a $100 external DAC. Some percentage is profit, some percentage is overhead, some percent went to middlemen, etc...okay, you finally get down to $x which we'll assume is still roughly equal. Okay. Here's the thing - $x got spent on parts and fabrication to make a DAC that works as well as they could design for $x. On the sound card, $x is spent on a laundry list of features to give you 7.1 audio, low-grade amplification, DAP functions, etc etc...plus some for shielding and power filtering to deal with having to be inside a computer...and then more to deal with miniaturization. Which one do you think is going to work better if we pick two that are the same price and which were both designed by reasonably competent engineers?

If all you need is a stereo DAC, don't buy a sound card, buy a stereo DAC. Why buy a bunch of things you don't need to go with the one you do?

 

[phr0m]

man obobski you take this shit personally, but here are some chips:
CS4398, PCM1792, PCM1704, TDA1541A, ES9008, ES9018, WM8741, WM8742, AD1955.

 

[phr0m]

off-subject for the op

 

[obobski]

where is it an opinion that most USB audio chips are low price commodity hardware? most of them are designed for streaming applications, like ipod docks or HTIBs, and most of them aren't like the 1792, 1704, etc in terms of specification or quality

sorry if the paraphrase was a bit dramatic, but thats more or less how I read that statement, honestly in the situation you've described, theres probably not gonna be a difference between tying a can to a rope and yelling into it, and having a $70,000 digital processor....

as far as the opinions being provided, the point is, the rather expensive DA's I've used/heard (total price on the setup in question was easily into six figures, no I don't own it, but yes, everything was "matched") provided no sonic benefit over less expensive solutions (in terms of the D/A component, yeah, the speakers were nice, the amps did their job well, etc), and if you were to compare the specs on the DA in question, its roughly in-line with the X-Fi Prelude or HDAV Deluxe (at something like 50x the price), as I've said before, theres a point where "good enough" really is "good enough" and "overbuilt" becomes "overpriced"

and I'd like to believe that my ears are "worthy", but who really knows

 

[Rossi~]

this wont solve the driver issues that he's having with Windows 7/X-Fi

Yep pretty good i'd say or stretch further for an Asus Xonar Essence STX.
You could go down the external DAC route from your current digital source be it your XFi or onboard. e.g. Cambridge DACMagic
How much are you willing to dish out?

and maybe he'll have more luck with the digital output from it.

Also i regards to xfi drivers and W7, i have found it's better than XP and Vista with XFi drivers? Can't understand why you'd have problems

 

[Rossi~]

where is it an opinion that most USB audio chips are low price commodity hardware? most of them are designed for streaming applications, like ipod docks or HTIBs, and most of them aren't like the 1792, 1704, etc in terms of specification or quality

sorry if the paraphrase was a bit dramatic, but thats more or less how I read that statement, honestly in the situation you've described, theres probably not gonna be a difference between tying a can to a rope and yelling into it, and having a $70,000 digital processor....

as far as the opinions being provided, the point is, the rather expensive DA's I've used/heard (total price on the setup in question was easily into six figures, no I don't own it, but yes, everything was "matched") provided no sonic benefit over less expensive solutions (in terms of the D/A component, yeah, the speakers were nice, the amps did their job well, etc), and if you were to compare the specs on the DA in question, its roughly in-line with the X-Fi Prelude or HDAV Deluxe (at something like 50x the price), as I've said before, theres a point where "good enough" really is "good enough" and "overbuilt" becomes "overpriced"

and I'd like to believe that my ears are "worthy", but who really knows

+1 Well said.

I'd like to add that not every human has the same hearing capabilities. No im not talking about being able to hear and other being deaf. In fact not everybody has perfectly clear hearing, even though they may think so, some people can hear different ranges than others, size+shape of the ear itself can mould the sound differently also.
So in fact for someone like myself who has been having problems with their ears since the age of 4 would be pointless spending £500 on a DAC and £1000 on a 'high quality super amazing overbuilt and overpriced german made amp'. My father has worked in music studios as an engineer for years and i've listened to some expensive setups, only a few i have noticed better than a £500~£600 setup i have now.

I still say go for broke and get a half decent DAC (Cambridge DACMagic) hooked up to your XFi (if it works) or onboard digital out if you have it and hook it all up to what you bought. You'll get a very good sound quality, maybe not the best, but you may never know.

 

[ashmedai]

I'd like to add that not every human has the same hearing capabilities.

I used to think that Logitech made great speakers and that generic $5 supra headphones from the drug store were fine other than being uncomfortable. It's a combination of exposure to better quality, learning to listen, and physical characteristics.

And "well said" my ass. He has no clue about electronics and is just repeating the same bad information from earlier. The only useful information in there is that his hearing is not good enough or analytical enough to distinguish between lower-grade and higher-grade equipment. Okay, great, he should buy the cheap stuff then and save the difference. Spreading bad info isn't the correct answer.

 

[Rossi~]

I used to think that Logitech made great speakers and that generic $5 supra headphones from the drug store were fine other than being uncomfortable. It's a combination of exposure to better quality, learning to listen, and physical characteristics.

And "well said" my ass. He has no clue about electronics and is just repeating the same bad information from earlier. The only useful information in there is that his hearing is not good enough or analytical enough to distinguish between lower-grade and higher-grade equipment. Okay, great, he should buy the cheap stuff then and save the difference. Spreading bad info isn't the correct answer.

Maybe he does? It's a pretty good opinion he's expressed, i'll go with it. Take it with a pinch of salt maybe each to their own and all that.

 

[obobski]

and maybe he'll have more luck with the digital output from it.

Also i regards to xfi drivers and W7, i have found it's better than XP and Vista with XFi drivers? Can't understand why you'd have problems

oh. (to the huge bolded part)

honestly I've had best luck with XP with X-Fi and Audigy, best luck with Vista with onboard and non-Creative parts, haven't tried W7 yet, mostly just going off of user complaints with W7 + Creative or Asus (seems to be heavier into Asus having problems)


ash:
now you've not only taken my words out of context, you've out and out put words in my mouth and claimed I've said things which I didn't, in amongst making repeated personal attacks, really, grow up

 

[ashmedai]

Maybe he does? It's a pretty good opinion he's expressed, i'll go with it. Take it with a pinch of salt maybe each to their own and all that.

"It's an opinion" is relevant when the answer is qualitative / subjective. Not when someone is repeatedly (and at this point, apparently deliberately) feeding people false information.