How important is a soundcard?

T

tel0004

Limp Gawd
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Jan 26, 2007
Messages
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Like the title says, I'm wondeirng how important a soundcard is to audio quality. I'm looking to spend around 200-250 on headphones, and a soundcard. Right now, Im planing to go with ATH-AD700's, and probably around 80-100 on a sound card.

I'm wondering if this is the best mix to spend money on, or would a 50.00 sound card and 150.00 headphones produce better quality.

I pretty much only use headphones, although I do plan on upgrading my speakers in the future.

I don't want to waste money on a 100.00 sound card when a 50.00 card will do the job, but I also don't want to spend 100.00 on one, only to find out a more expensive one will produce better quality audio.

Also, this will be used 50% for music, 50% for games, so if a soundcard gets me better positional audo, it is worth it to me.

Can somebody help me out?
 
How important is sound quality and how important are 'other features'? Do you want EAX support, hardware acceleration, Dolby Headphone, good analog inputs, etc., or would you rather sacrifice all features for output quality? What kind of features are important, and what aren't?

If you want a decent card with very acceptable output quality and a still-good feature set, you can snag an older refurbished Audigy 2 or Audigy 4 from Creative's eBay store for around $40-50. If you want better Vista support (and a slightly better feature set), you can grab a new X-Fi XtremeGamer for about $80. If you want something simple, you can go with a Chaintech AV-710 or other Envy24-based sound card or try to find a deal on a C-Media OxygenHD-based card like Sondigo's Inferno 7.1, which is a pretty excellently-equipped card component-wise.

The Sound Blasters and OxygenHD cards have different ways of portraying surround audio with headphones. One isn't particularly better than the other from what I can tell.
 
If you want to have your cake and eat it, save for an Auzentech Prelude.
It does everything you will need and extremely well.
Truly amazing quality, you wont be disappointed.

This way you will get the best out of whatever hifi and headphones you get.
 
Cool. Thanks for the responses. I was by no means suggesting onboard sound was good enough with decent headphones, I was just trying to figure out how much better a 80.00 sound card is than a 200.00 sound card. I'm spending this week researching it, so I'll let you guys know which one I decide on, and probably ask a few more questions.
 
You can also get a X-Fi Fatal1ty from Best Buy for $100.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8015079&type=product&id=1156606920134

It'll sound the exact same as the XtremeMusic but you do get the retail packaging, incredibly worthless X-RAM, and a red flashy light on it :D

Oh, and for the love of god, if you can in any way get a Prelude, DO IT. People who have compared modded X-Fi's to the Prelude say that they're about the same, which just shows how crazy the Prelude is. If you got the Fatal1ty like I did you have to go through the trouble of modding it to get the best sound :(
 
I have a Fatality as well that I am using with a pair of HD650's, I have an external amp but was shocked with the volume level I was able to get directly out of the card. I think an x-fi with your ad700's is a perfect match.

I have a Prelude on the way, I am curious to see the difference.


edit: As said above the Prelude is without a doubt a step above. I am extremely impressed with mine so far. It exceeded my expectations.
 
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