Conman
Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2004
- Messages
- 624
What do you recommend for $130 that meets or exceeds the AE-5?
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What do you recommend for $130 that meets or exceeds the AE-5?
The SNR of Creative cards is hard to beat with an external DAC for the price AND it's internal. They still make sense.
...and if you are using onboard and can't tell the difference in audio when you are listening to music then...
1. You have some really crappy speakers/headphones. Are they bluetooth?
2. Your music is all from YouTube/streaming
3. You aren't actually comparing and are in denial
Apparently the original AE-5 measures quite well:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...and-measurements-of-sound-blasterx-ae-5.9114/
Competes with many external Topping DACs and DAC/amp combo units, which is quite impressive. There are options that measure better, but the differences would be inaudible.
I'd still prefer external for flexibility, and some options are cheaper, but Creative did good on these cards and there is no arguing that.
They make a product that isn't necessary anymore and they want to hold on to the buyers still living in the past rather than compete in the present.
That was freaking 12 YEARS AGO...Dont you think its time to move on? but whatever, your loss.The only reason crap labs still exists because they're slimy scum like Microsoft, Nvidia and Intel. I've refused to touch crap labs products since 2008 when they threatened legal action against a community driver modder who fixed their broken drivers and re-enabled advertised features on some of their cards in Windows Vista. I can't remember which cards it was, but they had working XP drivers, and the subsequent Vista drivers had many important features intentionally disabled or removed from the driver that people paid money and expected to have irregardless of which OS they were running.
http://nargalzius.com/blog/archives/2008/03/30/call-to-boycott-creative-labs
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080330/133233697.shtml
I was there the day it happened, the news spread like wildfire on a weekend and the thread on the crap labs forum exploded to literally hundreds of pages in just a few hours. Literally thousands of people saying they'd never touch a crap labs product again. Crappy labtards handled it the worst way possible and had some karen in their office create a public thread telling the modder to stop. I don't know if anyone else from that time kept their convictions, but I have not touched another crap labs product from that day forward. With how good onboard audio has become, there's literally no reason to ever buy a discrete sound card again, unless you need some fancy inputs or something.
Who hurt you?The only reason crap labs still exists because they're slimy scum like Microsoft, Nvidia and Intel. I've refused to touch crap labs products since 2008 when they threatened legal action against a community driver modder who fixed their broken drivers and re-enabled advertised features on some of their cards in Windows Vista. I can't remember which cards it was, but they had working XP drivers, and the subsequent Vista drivers had many important features intentionally disabled or removed from the driver that people paid money and expected to have irregardless of which OS they were running.
http://nargalzius.com/blog/archives/2008/03/30/call-to-boycott-creative-labs
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080330/133233697.shtml
I was there the day it happened, the news spread like wildfire on a weekend and the thread on the crap labs forum exploded to literally hundreds of pages in just a few hours. Literally thousands of people saying they'd never touch a crap labs product again. Crappy labtards handled it the worst way possible and had some karen in their office create a public thread telling the modder to stop. I don't know if anyone else from that time kept their convictions, but I have not touched another crap labs product from that day forward. With how good onboard audio has become, there's literally no reason to ever buy a discrete sound card again, unless you need some fancy inputs or something.
Increase in FPS? I remember using hardware accelerated EAX and what it did is tank frames. I was also on pentium4 2GHz, so that didn't help at all..
This isn't entirely accurate.Digital is digital and optical is just overkill with added latency.
I have no experience with that, but am highly skeptical a $30 DAC would be any good at all... The DAC is literally the most important part.Something like a Fiio D03K ($22.95)+ a JDS Atom Amp($99) and a RCA cable ~$5. Would allow replacing the DAC in the future with something even better, but hits that price point.
That was freaking 12 YEARS AGO...Dont you think its time to move on? but whatever, your loss.
I have no experience with that, but am highly skeptical a $30 DAC would be any good at all... The DAC is literally the most important part.
In this scenario your $100 amp will be amplifying the trash signal it gets from the shitty DAC.
I would personally recommend a startech sound card over this recommendation.
judging by reviews, you would be wrong. apparently its a great bang for buck little DAC.but am highly skeptical a $30 DAC would be any good at all...
These comparisons are... mostly useless. One of the reasons for an external solution is that internal implementations vary literally from one build to the next. With respect to the onboard solutions... those vary significantly on their implementation as well as everything else that's plugged in around them. One Realtek setup can sound different (or better or worse) than another using the exact same components in a different configuration. Digital is fairly standardized, once stuff gets to the analog section, it's simply too low on the list for motherboard manufacturers.Comparing onboard audio to a soundcard. Both when idle and under load. The soundcard comes out ahead:
Sure LEDs don't generate a lot of noise... It's normally the circuit driving them with PWM that generates the noise. That and I don't care for LEDs in general . As mentioned, some sort of digital output to an external DAC is much better than the noise in the case, LEDs or not. I'm not an audiophile in any sense, so as long as my onboard is putting out sound, I'm happy enough.Good RGB LED's don't generate much noise at all its actually one of their nicer qualities so there is no real downside to placing them on a sound card for this sort of thing. The amount of noise they generate is completely insignificant compared to that of your CPU cooler or water pump or any number of other electronics within the computer case itself even after taking distance into account. So I am more curious about what kind of shielding they have on the card to protect it from those components instead. That said I highly doubt my ears still have the range required to actually hear any difference between using this card or the standard USB software stuff that Logitech & Corsair are using for their headphones.
What reviews exactly? The only one I read that appeared scientific called it garbage. The others are mostly Amazon reviews where they applaud the fact it only costs $30. Or plug it in and talk about sounds like colors.judging by reviews, you would be wrong. apparently its a great bang for buck little DAC.
lol stick to you bullshit audiophile science then. ignore the thousands of people that are happy with it.What reviews exactly? The only one I read that appeared scientific called it garbage. The others are mostly Amazon reviews where they applaud the fact it only costs $30. Or plug it in and talk about sounds like colors.
I might actually just buy one and an AE-5. I have two PC's that I would like to get off the onboard.
I expect more are happy with their AE 5s.lol stick to you bullshit audiophile science then. ignore the thousands of people that are happy with it.
I don't understand how they're still in business. The only people who would buy a soundcard today are enthusiast builders.People that know keeping a DAC/Amp outside of the computer is the way to go.
Same here. Went to Asus and use a 3rd party driver.Another one who wont touch them after the Daniel.K fiasco. They even hosted his files on their site as a very late damage control measure, but pretty much had them scrubbed from existence since. They were actually very nice cards with those drivers.
Something like a Fiio D03K ($22.95)+ a JDS Atom Amp($99) and a RCA cable ~$5. Would allow replacing the DAC in the future with something even better, but hits that price point.
Comparing onboard audio to a soundcard. Both when idle and under load. The soundcard comes out ahead:
I know you were trying to hit the Creative price point, but if you are going to get an Atom, you might as well pay more and buy a Topping D10 to go along with it. End result would be exceptional (edit: for the price. approx $189 US)
For sure the DAC I chose would be 'OK' and simply was chosen just to meet the price point, and I think the Atom and nearly any DAC to hit that price point would work great and few would complain.
Spending a bit more on a better DAC would make an improvement for sure, but I would say i've always noticed and felt like the amp used is always by far the most noticeable thing, and the Atom is pretty much king in this area right now at the price. I absolutely love mine.
Your Zx is a DAC, and a headphone amplifier, among other things. Really it's an audio interface, clothed as a gaming sound card and bundled with software geared for that purpose.TBH I don't know what a DAC is and I'm not sure if I want something outside my computer.
Just needs to be relatively quiet and distortion-free alongside the parts of the signal chain in the expected deployment environment. Assuming clean power and signal (potentially both from the USB source), this isn't really that hard to achieve. Pushing beyond that baseline largely revolves in accounting for uncontrollable variables like noise sources and to extend feature sets for stuff like high bitrate streams and Bluetooth and so on.For sure the DAC I chose would be 'OK' and simply was chosen just to meet the price point, and I think the Atom and nearly any DAC to hit that price point would work great and few would complain.
Spending a bit more on a better DAC would make an improvement for sure, but I would say i've always noticed and felt like the amp used is always by far the most noticeable thing, and the Atom is pretty much king in this area right now at the price. I absolutely love mine.
I agree in general, but the specific DAC you choose only outputs 1.5V. That would sound like it was stuck at 75% volume versus countless other DACs.
The last add-in card I used was back when Battlefield 1942 was still in full swing. I remember picking up ~10 FPS or so. It was a Platinum something from Creative. An Audigy perhaps
Dedicated sound hardware frees up cpu cycles. It at least it did back then. When the fastest cpu was single core at 1.5 GHzHow did a sound card add framerate???
How did a sound card add framerate???
Dedicated sound hardware frees up cpu cycles. It at least it did back then. When the fastest cpu was single core at 1.5 GHz