ESI JULI@ AUDIO card? Help My Build New Sound STAGE!

[Syric]

So, I recently bought the Audio Technica ATH A700 headphones recently, and needless to say they've changed my gaming/music listening-life!

I now find myself on a quest....*looks around & says quietly* I think I might be becoming a sound snob (I'm already a graphics whore, so image that..heh)! Not full blown audiophile, but definitely akin.

Anyhow, it was recommended that if I'm gonna get serious about refinancing my PC audio card + speakers that I give careful consideration to the ESI JULI@ AUDIO card. Naturally, before I do anything major I consult my fellow peers here @ the HardForum, and kindly ask for your experience, insight, and wisdom here.

Bottomline: I'm looking to upgrade my soundcard (dont even say Soundblaster, cause I'm liable to punch something; never again w/ those bastards!), and if it's not gonna be a ESI JULI@ AUDIO card, then what would you recommend? ((Price range $75-200))

2nd Bottomline: Any GREAT soundcard needs to have the speakers to compliment them. I'm looking for speakers (pref 5.1) w/ HDMI capabilities (optional, not necessary), but w/o exception must have S/PDIF capability. I'd also like them to support @ least Dolby Digital & DTS® 96kHz/24-bit support, or even better. ((Price range $75-$400; obviously I'd rather NOT dish out a full $400, so it better be damn good if it comes to that))

Now, when it comes to speakers...I've become lost over the years I've not needed to upgrade them because my old Logitech 5.1 have kicked ass...and still do, but if I'm gonna get the card then I might as well compliment it w/ a proper speaker system .....so everything comes together nicely , loudly, and most importantly : SOUNDLY.

HELPPPPPPP lead my not astray!!! ........please

 

[Hurdler]

If you're looking into a receiver based set up, anything with an optical/S/PDIF out will work for the sound card. You're going to let the receiver do the actual processing, so an expensive sound card really won't help. If you have a motherboard with a S/PDIF out, then just use that and put the rest of your budget towards a receiver and speakers.

As for receivers, Oknyo, Denon, and H/K have pretty decent lower priced stuff. On the speaker side, there are a lot of people that like Energy, (some) Polk, and Klipsch. I have a pair of cheap Polk towers, and for what I paid they're pretty good.

Biggest piece of advice: If at all possible, listen before you buy. Everyone has different preferences. I can tell you what I think has the "best" sound, but you may hate it, that's just the way it goes! (my personal preference is PSB, for what it's worth)

 

[obobski]

So, I recently bought the Audio Technica ATH A700 headphones recently, and needless to say they've changed my gaming/music listening-life!

I now find myself on a quest....*looks around & says quietly* I think I might be becoming a sound snob (I'm already a graphics whore, so image that..heh)! Not full blown audiophile, but definitely akin.

Anyhow, it was recommended that if I'm gonna get serious about refinancing my PC audio card + speakers that I give careful consideration to the ESI JULI@ AUDIO card. Naturally, before I do anything major I consult my fellow peers here @ the HardForum, and kindly ask for your experience, insight, and wisdom here.

Bottomline: I'm looking to upgrade my soundcard (dont even say Soundblaster, cause I'm liable to punch something; never again w/ those bastards!), and if it's not gonna be a ESI JULI@ AUDIO card, then what would you recommend? ((Price range $75-200))

2nd Bottomline: Any GREAT soundcard needs to have the speakers to compliment them. I'm looking for speakers (pref 5.1) w/ HDMI capabilities (optional, not necessary), but w/o exception must have S/PDIF capability. I'd also like them to support @ least Dolby Digital & DTS® 96kHz/24-bit support, or even better. ((Price range $75-$400; obviously I'd rather NOT dish out a full $400, so it better be damn good if it comes to that))

Now, when it comes to speakers...I've become lost over the years I've not needed to upgrade them because my old Logitech 5.1 have kicked ass...and still do, but if I'm gonna get the card then I might as well compliment it w/ a proper speaker system .....so everything comes together nicely , loudly, and most importantly : SOUNDLY.

HELPPPPPPP lead my not astray!!! ........please

1) nothing is actually wrong with Sound Blaster cards as a whole, but if you're gonna be a snob about it,so be it

2) you can't get snob-grade speakers for $400 or less, especially 5.1, especially with HDMI (and that would require a receiver, there are not "computer speakers" with 5.1 input (and "computer speakers" aren't snob grade))

3) ESI Juli@ isn't "best of the best" unless you ask some tweako audiophile, its an average 2 in 2 out project studio card, basically a glorified M-Audio A2496 (and/or a cut down A192), it can't do 5.1 either

4) your DD and DTS requests are irrational, neither of those containers can do 24/96 (thats True HD and Master Audio, respectively), and sample and bit rate isn't determined by your hardware, its determined by your source media, a DVD, for example, will be 16/48 or 24/48 in either AC-3 or DTS, its limited to whatever will fit into 1.536mbit/s (AC-3 won't even use that, mind you), however an HD-DVD can full well have 5.1 24/96 TrueHD stored on it, but, there are only TWO soundcards capable of actually processing this themselves, the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheatre HD and the Asus Xonar HDAV, neither of these can pass this via S/PDIF (has to be HDMI, as S/PDIF is what imposes that 1.536mbit/s limitation, you can't force a golf ball through a garden hose), furthermore, NONE of this matters for listening to music, which is going to be 16/44.1 the vast majority of time (unless you've got DVD-A's or SACDs), FURTHERMORE, bitrate and samplerate don't matter enough to get prissy about (unless you really want to be a snob (Are you noticing the issue with the audio snob mentality yet?)), speakers also do not support any form of digital encoding scheme, they're simply analog transducers

5) if you just want to spend some money and have fancy soundcard for your A700's, anything Auzentech makes would be a nice choice, as you've got a very easy load in the A700's and I doubt you want to be deaf for the 4th of July (this one), I really like the X-Raider for its feature-to-price ratio, and I really like the X-Plosion for the same (X-Plosion gives you DDL/DTS:C), X-Fi Forte is also a nice pick (but I really don't want to listen to you whine, so if it strikes some chord with you, ignore the suggestion)

6) the whole "source to match the speakers" audiophile "fidelity" nonsense is just that, there is no "bottleneck" logic as if it were processing data or moving water or something similar, your Logitech speakers will sound the same today as they will tomorrow, and a new soundcard will just add features (assuming whatever you have today doesn't bleed noise), that also goes the other way, you don't need "higher end equipment" to "hear the difference" between two components, thats just yet another myth that for some reason we (people) like to try and perpetrate on each other to waste another's money (and I'm sure I'll hear about this from all of those "genetically superior audiophiles" who were "Born different" with their "advanced" sensory perception)

in short, I'd probably just do what the guy below suggested, get a decent h/k, Onkyo, Denon, or Yamaha 5.1 receiver, on your ~$500 budget you're going to be dreadfully limited (a solid 5.1-7.1 receiver can run you over a grand, some can hit four to six times that before you're even out of the box), then you add speakers onto that, Klipsch, Polk, Mirage, and Yamaha are my normal suggestions (yes, I like Yamaha products (and no, not just home audio)), NHT, Kef, Infinity, and Definitive also make good products; sometimes BB's house brands have gem, but on average, I'd pick something else

that'll easily kill $500, if not $1000 right there (you can kill $20,000 into a setup if you really wanted to (with any of the speaker and receiver brands listed in this thread))

so I'd really think and consider if this is something you need/want, what kind of physical space you have for it, and what you're willing to buy

as a tangential aside, I saw this on SonyStyle about two days ago, I have not personally used the unit so I can't speak to reliability, functionality, etc, but it would actually meet (exceed most) all of your wants and fit within your budget:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665793616

If you're looking into a receiver based set up, anything with an optical/S/PDIF out will work for the sound card. You're going to let the receiver do the actual processing, so an expensive sound card really won't help. If you have a motherboard with a S/PDIF out, then just use that and put the rest of your budget towards a receiver and speakers.

this is accurate and inaccurate at the same time
the receiver isn't actually doing a bit of "processing", its simply decoding a PCM or AC-3 or DTS signal, all of the actual audio rendering, DtoD, etc is still being handled in the computer, and depending on usage scenario this can be a pretty substantial amount of math on the computer's side (like an X-Fi running EAX 5.0 and DS3D H/W, with all 128 voices), it really depends on what you're meaning by "processing" though, because at the same time, you can pass through an AC-3 or DTS signal from a DVD or something, and have the receiver handle that

then of course, the receiver may have features like YPAO, and adjust itself for your room, which most definitely *IS* processing, but not quite the same

I do agree with everything you said though

 

[Syric]

Well poster obobski: thank you and HMMM @ the same time.....

Thank you because you've given me a lot of information to consider, digest, and explore. Albeit, some of what you've said contradicts what I've read, previously knew (limited, I admit that w/o question), been taught, or goes against the grain of what some others have told me. So, essentially what I'm saying here is: pardon any ignorance on my part.

That said, some of ur statements almost seem...vindictive or assaulting w/ references to the "audiophile" or "snob" mentality. You took that comment/statement of mine far *TOOO* literal!

My understanding is this:

CPU SOUND CARD/ONBOARD SOUND >>> OUTPUTS TO RECEIVER >>> SPEAKERS/HEADPHONES

What brings confusion into my world is trying to make sense of the Analog/Digital conversion crap. Where it happens? What's processing what? It's becoming less and less clean cut. Anyhow....

Now, addressing some of what you said:

1. DD & DTS....I thought, was a features support item. A technology that is either supported by a audio card or isn't, and has to do w/ special processing/encoding. yes? no?

2. When looking at audio cards, they list features like:

- 24-bit/192kHz AD converter with 114dB(a) dynamic range
- 24-bit/192kHz DA converter with 112dB(a) dynamic range

So, this lead me to believe that if my SOURCE (CD/DVD/Blue-Ray/whatever the @#%$ I throw @ it) ...cannot achieve 24-bit/192kHz unless the AUDIO CARD supports it. Right or wrong? (Hence why I wanted support for these instances)

3. A lot of what I'm picking up, in regards to upgrading my sound, is being taken by another discussion @ http://www.claessonedwards.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=860&sid=e7441b11b371eff9dba0513a3a42906c (I'm "Sound Fidelity" there, & this would give anyone reading this thread a lot of background into what I'm being told on two different sides)

4. Assuming you didn't read #3, we move on to Creatuve SoundBlaster. You seemed to take offensive to my comment about their products. To clear the air, in general, I've nothing against them. But, when it comes to the $$$ I wasted on a X-FI card that produced nothing but shitty crackling/popping sounds, yeh - then I've a problem. I'm not going to go into some huge ass explanation on this either cause I could fill pages...suffice to say this much though:

- I troubleshooted the issue for over 2 weeks.
- I went across several message boards trying to iron out the issues
- I emailed Soundblaster tech support; no help in the end there
- I tried everything that just about anyone could recommend, save taking a hammer or water to it....
- The sound card worked fine ONLY if I turned off Hyper-threading on my Gigabyte MB (see signature). Odd, right? Yeh, I thought so too, and I ran several scenarios/configurations/drivers (all clean uninstall/install ...restart computer etc etc bullshit) only to get nowhere in the end.
- Bottomline: Why should I have to turn off Hyper-Threading, or waste more of my time, when ripping the damn thing out, switching to onboard MB sound, and writing the whole damn experience off finished the nightmare? Perhaps when they get their shitty drivers up-to-par w/ the latest Windows platform I'll reconsider them. Till then, I've no interest.

I rate my computer knowledge, technical background, and capabilities well above average. I build computers & have a thorough understanding about hardware installation, software setup, and driver conflicting issues vs. OS & other potential discrepancies that can occur.

That said, anything I don't know (which is a lot!) ...I come here, and ask for wisdom, input, and guidance. All so I get it right (hopefully the first time)! While I appreciate your feedback and recommendations, I didn't warmly welcome your underlying arrogant, pompous, harsh round-a-bout way you seemed to insert *FACESLAP U HERE* in between the lines. Some people are misinformed, as I was apparently (in some regards), and your information has helped bring a few things into focus. (Thanks!)

Hopefully my feedback, may in turn, help you w/ being a lil more tactful next time. Assuming you care. And, if you don't, well that's all fine n' good too. Smart asses are a dime a dozen in this world. What's one more? Then again, perhaps I've had a long day and took your tone wrong....if that's the case, then piss on me & let's all just go toast some pints of Guinness.

 

[phide]

1. DD & DTS....I thought, was a features support item. A technology that is either supported by a audio card or isn't, and has to do w/ special processing/encoding. yes? no?

That's a yes.

So, this lead me to believe that if my SOURCE (CD/DVD/Blue-Ray/whatever the @#%$ I throw @ it) ...cannot achieve 24-bit/192kHz unless the AUDIO CARD supports it. Right or wrong?

Sort of. Those specs address the capabilities of the A/D and D/A converters,which you won't use for S/PDIF or HDMI I/O. A sound card may support up to 24-bit/96 kHz output via S/PDIF (this is non-conformant, but many devices will accept it) or 24-bit/192 kHz via HDMI without necessarily having 24/96 or 24/192 converters. A quick glance at the card's spec sheet should tell you what the capabilities of those specific outputs are, but any HDMI-compliant device will support at least eight channels at 24/192.

While I appreciate your feedback and recommendations, I didn't warmly welcome your underlying arrogant, pompous, harsh round-a-bout way you seemed to insert *FACESLAP U HERE* in between the lines

Heh. That seems to be the way he acts toward everyone. I wouldn't worry about it. I will say it seems he's given you solid advice so far, though.

 

[obobski]

Well poster obobski: thank you and HMMM @ the same time.....

Thank you because you've given me a lot of information to consider, digest, and explore. Albeit, some of what you've said contradicts what I've read, previously knew (limited, I admit that w/o question), been taught, or goes against the grain of what some others have told me. So, essentially what I'm saying here is: pardon any ignorance on my part.

happy to help

My understanding is this:

CPU SOUND CARD/ONBOARD SOUND >>> OUTPUTS TO RECEIVER >>> SPEAKERS/HEADPHONES

yes, you can remove "receiver" and replace it with a lot of devices, but there isn't a better word (you could have nothing but a wire there, or a simple D/A, or a full blown A/V receiver or processor, or anything in between)

What brings confusion into my world is trying to make sense of the Analog/Digital conversion crap. Where it happens? What's processing what? It's becoming less and less clean cut.

easy.
what has the analog outputs?
if the analog output is from your PC, thats doing the DtoA, if the analog output is on your receiver, thats doing the DtoA, if you've got digital from your PC to receiver, DtoA is on the receiver, etc, just follow the signal chain

as far as "whats processing what", the computer is *always* processing the audio, its generating a signal, think about your video card, onboard or not, its ALWAYS going to be responsible for making your pixels, however it can either connect to a transducer (the monitor) via an analog connection of some sort (VGA, CVBS, S-Video, YPbPr, SCART, etc) or a digital connection of some sort (HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, ADC, etc), theres of course a few differences here, but as a general example I think it serves

Now, addressing some of what you said

ok.

1. DD & DTS....I thought, was a features support item. A technology that is either supported by a audio card or isn't, and has to do w/ special processing/encoding. yes? no?

in short, what phide said
however, in a longer sense, doesn't matter if the soundcard supports it, software does, and your CPU has more than enough extra cycles to pop an AC-3 track apart every now and then

DD and DTS are used to encode movies, and not much else (At least that you'll get on a computer), any solution available today will be able to take it apart in some form or another, don't worry about the specifics so much (it doesn't really matter, aside from knowing that its being done correctly)

2. When looking at audio cards, they list features like:

- 24-bit/192kHz AD converter with 114dB(a) dynamic range
- 24-bit/192kHz DA converter with 112dB(a) dynamic range

So, this lead me to believe that if my SOURCE (CD/DVD/Blue-Ray/whatever the @#%$ I throw @ it) ...cannot achieve 24-bit/192kHz unless the AUDIO CARD supports it. Right or wrong? (Hence why I wanted support for these instances)

ok, so your output/rendering abilities need to match your input media, true, but basically nothing on this earth uses 24/192, especially in a multi-ch configuration, its a marketing fluff-up to move units

24/96 is slowly starting to creep into the high end, thanks to containers like Dolby TrueHD, which can store a 5.1 24/96 signal, but as I said, only two soundcards officially support it, and they require HDMI connections, the actual source media, and a few other things to actually do so (You'll need a media player that supports AACS discs, I know of only two, Corel WinDVD and Intervideo's product)

I wouldn't worry too much about it, CD, DVD, music, etc will not bother sample rates that high (isn't in spec), so unless you've got a Blu-ray drive, it isn't a big deal, speaking of which, I do know for a fact that WinDVD just transcodes/processes everything internally so the soundcard doesn't even see the TrueHD/MasterAudio bitstream, it just sees six tracks of audio (and if you've got a fancy new graphics card, it uses that GPU to get this work done) and can drive it out via analog (or, for grins, AC-3 real-time over s/PDIF (aka: Dolby Digital Live)), not sure how Intervideo's software holds up, but I like Corel

as far as what those numbers actually mean, AD stands for analog to digital, on a multimedia soundcard or a prosumer card (you've been looking at the later, I say prosumer, because working professionals generally use equipment thats remotely classifiable as a "sound card", but quite a bit different, and you wouldn't want to use it at home for listening to music, gaming, watching a movie, etc (just isn't practical, let alone the price)) that basically means the mic or line input, most of them are 24/96 or 24/192 (again, spec fluff), usually in these situations the mic is for online gaming or similar, probably won't exceed 22khz sampling (bandwidth limitations and whatnot), and you don't really need anything higher (consider that at 22khz the folding freq is around 11k, human voice is (liberally) somewhere around 80-1100 hz, it'll get it all and then some)) , if you're doing any sort of project recording, I'd look at different equipment than you've mentioned thus far, you'll want preamps and the like for your instruments/legit mics (legit meaning something you'd record an album with)

as far as the DA, thats the digital to analog converter spec, basically anything you get your hands on will be more than sufficient quality

3. A lot of what I'm picking up, in regards to upgrading my sound, is being taken by another discussion @ http://www.claessonedwards.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=860&sid=e7441b11b371eff9dba0513a3a42906c (I'm "Sound Fidelity" there, & this would give anyone reading this thread a lot of background into what I'm being told on two different sides)

honestly a lot of that looks like conjecture, not to be short, but its just audiophiles crying about ghosts come to rob them, few things that got me in the first reply to you:

A) the tired, old, EMI/RFI myth, I'll say this: if it was really the life-altering problem that audiophiles insist it to be, the computer would have other issues aside from distorted audio outputs
B) then he goes ahead and suggests an internal card that draws bus power, meaning that all of those ghosts he was scared of will be present
C) he then goes on to ask not what hardware you have, but specifically, how much it costs, price is not a determining factor of quality in a great many things, audio equipment included

no offense to someone else (as I have no quarrel or even knowledge of this person), but this seems to epitomize most "audiophile advice", it falls all over itself

you asked in this thread for 5.1 support, yet all of the devices mentioned here, or in that other thread, are stereo only devices (ok, 0404 can technically drive a pair of stereo outputs, but it isn't a quadraphonic out, and it isn't anything approaching 5.1), it doesn't line up, if you want 5.1 you gotta pay the piper and get a multimedia card, or a VERY expensive prosumer board (E-MU 1616m does 5.1, for example, costs about $500)

4. Assuming you didn't read #3, we move on to Creatuve SoundBlaster. You seemed to take offensive to my comment about their products. To clear the air, in general, I've nothing against them. But, when it comes to the $$$ I wasted on a X-FI card that produced nothing but shitty crackling/popping sounds, yeh - then I've a problem. I'm not going to go into some huge ass explanation on this either cause I could fill pages...suffice to say this much though:

the "offense" is mostly that in "audiophile" circles, a lot of nonsense is thrown around about SoundBlaster/Creative cards, most of it is pure myth invented on the spot, it annoys me

sorry to hear you got a bad card, it happens, it seems to be especially prevalent in a few older series from Creative, Auzen (an AIB partner with Creative, sort of like Sapphire with ATi) produces a few very nice boards based on Creative chipsets, I've heard far less complaints regarding hardware failure from owners of them, and their support is a bit more...friendly

as far as the driver thing, Microsoft shafted a lot of people with WDM, Creative was probably at the top of that list (at least in terms of major developers), Windows 7 hasn't seemed to offer the improvements that MS promised us (what else is new), and has also seemed to bring issues with just about every other audio chipset vendor as well (I've heard scattered complaints about Realtek (onboard), C-Media (HT Omega, Auzen, Asus, bgears, Razer), and Creative, not sure what the common thread is)

Hopefully my feedback, may in turn, help you w/ being a lil more tactful next time. Assuming you care. And, if you don't, well that's all fine n' good too. Smart asses are a dime a dozen in this world. What's one more? Then again, perhaps I've had a long day and took your tone wrong....if that's the case, then piss on me & let's all just go toast some pints of Guinness.

if I'm a bit cold, I apologize, the goal isn't to be a jackass though

Sort of. Those specs address the capabilities of the A/D and D/A converters,which you won't use for S/PDIF or HDMI I/O. A sound card may support up to 24-bit/96 kHz output via S/PDIF (this is non-conformant, but many devices will accept it) or 24-bit/192 kHz via HDMI without necessarily having 24/96 or 24/192 converters. A quick glance at the card's spec sheet should tell you what the capabilities of those specific outputs are, but any HDMI-compliant device will support at least eight channels at 24/192.

they could just slap an AES logo on there and 24/96 via coax becomes "spec"
as far as HDMI, I'm not sure if it has to be 8-ch 24/192, nothing is going to decode/encode at that (at least today), I know both HDMI soundcards are 8-ch 24/192, but I'm reminded of a great line from these forums:
"the hdmi standard is a cluster----"

 

[phide]

To clarify, by "at least" I meant that it will support between 1 and 8 channels or greater.

 

[obobski]

To clarify, by "at least" I meant that it will support between 1 and 8 channels or greater.

lol can you imagine using an HDMI cable for mono 8-bit

and I'm really waiting for this "or greater" to finally mature, DTS has been going on about it for the better part of two years now, and we've still only got proprietary DSP resampling solutions to give us 9.1 (or whatever else)

 

[Syric]

HAHA! Now ****THAT!!!**** was an awesome reply post Obobski!

A very sincere THANK YOU for one hell of an awesome followup reply Obobski, and I really appreciate you taking the time to tear apart my post and explain!

....and now I totally, definitely...definitively ...feel like I understand where ur coming from & why my original comments about "audiophile" or "snob" or "soundblaster" pricked ur side wrong!

Finally, I feel a bit more enlightened on this whole damn AD / DA bullcrap. Knowing that a lot of what's out there is just corp fluff to move units (I should of realized; they're always good for that) helps me pick apart what's what and ignore the rest. (Again, ty )

As for MS ...Windows 7...yeh, some thing never change. Does anyone else get this amused feeling tingling in them when thinking 64-bit and imagining MS engineers/corp sitting at a "meeting desk" together? I do...think about it a lil bit longer

Anyhow, thank you again for a awesome indepth followup Obobski, and I hope I've left no bad feelings anywhere. Furthermore, phide tossing it out there that its nothing personal & that's just how ya come across @ times...well, makes me feel like I just initiated. Such as: I iz now certified to dealz w/ Obobski, and got miz "I survived Obobski" sticker? *says 100% joshin/jokingly*

So.....should you rip a cd @ 320kbps, VBR, or FLAC it for ultimate oozing ear/listening experience? *Says very sarcastically, knowing full well this discussion already took place in a seperate thread recently* Yeh, 2nd thought, let's not go there & turn this thread THAT way. Hahaha.....

 

[Rossi~]

I think FLAC is popular here, i love it, rip cd's and vinyl into flac mainly for high quality and space saving.

 

[450]

HDD space is cheap, go lossless whenever possible.