I have a Soundblaster Z card, do I need a DAC?

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Astralogic

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Hi, after deciding on some new speakers to buy, I noticed in the comments someone says a DAC greatly improves the sound quality.

I have a Soundblaster Z soundcard so would I also need a DAC or would the SBZ make my sound quality better on it's own?
 
What speakers did you decide to buy? And how crazy are you? How attached to your wallet are you?

Most people, soundblaster Z will do the trick. If your looking for an upgrade, your going to end up buying a different sound card for $100+, and not notice near $100+ difference from your soundblaster Z, if any at all.
That $100 would be much better saved, used on crack, or spent elsewhere.

Stepping up to a nice Surround with Receiver, or Nice DAC with a decent pair of headphones is $$$. So that's thought before you spend too much time thinking in that realm.
 
Astralogic said:
Hi, after deciding on some new speakers to buy, I noticed in the comments someone says a DAC greatly improves the sound quality.

I have a Soundblaster Z soundcard so would I also need a DAC or would the SBZ make my sound quality better on it's own?
Click to expand...

I had a Soundblaster Z for a long time. Then I switched to a DAC, mainly to get the extra card out of the way. I think they're about the same with both headphones and speakers. I'm guessing you probably wouldn't really notice any difference unless you've spent >$500 on your speakers or headphones.
 
Astralogic said:
I have a Soundblaster Z soundcard so would I also need a DAC or would the SBZ make my sound quality better on it's own?
Click to expand...

The soundblaster Z already has a DAC in it. Anything that produces analog sound from a digital source has a DAC in it. An external DAC isn't automatically better - depends on the actual DAC used. There are internal soundcards like the Soundblaster ZxR and X-Fi Titanium HD that actually have built-in DACs better than many external DACs.

An external DAC can sometimes have less background noise or hiss due to not being inside a noisy computer environment, but while that happens sometimes, it's not a given. I'm running a 6-core processor and 3 videocards, about as electrically noisy as it gets, and I don't get any background noise with my soundcard.

The DAC in the Soundblaster Z is good, but not amazing. It should be good enough for most purposes. If you are just using computer speakers or cheap headphones, it's unlikely you would notice a difference from anything better.

Know that if you do eventually get an external DAC, it doesn't have to replace your soundcard. You can always run digital output from your Soundblaster to the digital input on an external DAC, using the best features of both.
 
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GotNoRice said:
The soundblaster Z already has a DAC in it. Anything that produces analog sound from a digital source has a DAC in it. An external DAC isn't automatically better - depends on the actual DAC used. There are internal soundcards like the Soundblaster ZxR and X-Fi Titanium HD that actually have built-in DACs better than many external DACs.

An external DAC can sometimes have less background noise or hiss due to not being inside a noisy computer environment, but while that happens sometimes, it's not a given. I'm running a 6-core processor and 3 videocards, about as electrically noisy as it gets, and I don't get any background noise with my soundcard.

The DAC in the Soundblaster Z is good, but not amazing. It should be good enough for most purposes. If you are just using computer speakers or cheap headphones, it's unlikely you would notice a difference from anything better.

Know that if you do eventually get an external DAC, it doesn't have to replace your soundcard. You can always run digital output from your Soundblaster to the digital input on an external DAC, using the best features of both.
Click to expand...

This guy had his coffee. +1
 
I'm gonna buy some Edifier R1280T's.

Thanks for the information guys I will not be buying a DAC but one day in the future I'll upgrade my soundcard to one of the top of the line asus cards (asus seem to be the only ones making top range soundcards).
 
I have Cambridge Audio external DAC, the Wolfson built into their 2ch amps, and compared to my X-Fi Xtrememusic soundcard I can't say I hear a benefit nor degradation. Maybe I just have lousy hearing and can't hear the difference. or maybe they are both equally good.
 
GotNoRice said:
The soundblaster Z already has a DAC in it. Anything that produces analog sound from a digital source has a DAC in it. An external DAC isn't automatically better - depends on the actual DAC used. There are internal soundcards like the Soundblaster ZxR and X-Fi Titanium HD that actually have built-in DACs better than many external DACs.

An external DAC can sometimes have less background noise or hiss due to not being inside a noisy computer environment, but while that happens sometimes, it's not a given. I'm running a 6-core processor and 3 videocards, about as electrically noisy as it gets, and I don't get any background noise with my soundcard.

The DAC in the Soundblaster Z is good, but not amazing. It should be good enough for most purposes. If you are just using computer speakers or cheap headphones, it's unlikely you would notice a difference from anything better.

Know that if you do eventually get an external DAC, it doesn't have to replace your soundcard. You can always run digital output from your Soundblaster to the digital input on an external DAC, using the best features of both.
Click to expand...

^^ Pretty much this. Unless you have really high quality speakers and shell out a couple hundred for a higher end DAC (the DAC in the Z is pretty good, all things considered), then you aren't going to see any real improvement.
 
If you want to best quality out of Z/Zx/ZxR then I really do recommend using the Stereo Direct mode. It will bypass SoundCore3D chip so all SBX features, equaliser included, will stop working. Exclusive mode will also blast at full volume regardless of Windows volume setting (so keep that in mind if you use WASAPI exclusive mode).
 
If your speakers are over $200, it would be worth investing in a better dac. I would not buy an internal soundcard. Get an external one, there are plenty of low cost "interfaces" as they're marketed, and they do not have any noise from the computer circuits.
 
Tup3x said:
If you want to best quality out of Z/Zx/ZxR then I really do recommend using the Stereo Direct mode. It will bypass SoundCore3D chip so all SBX features, equaliser included, will stop working. Exclusive mode will also blast at full volume regardless of Windows volume setting (so keep that in mind if you use WASAPI exclusive mode).
Click to expand...

How do I enable stereo direct mode and why bypass SBX Pro?
 
Astralogic said:
How do I enable stereo direct mode and why bypass SBX Pro?
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The point is to get as clean, pure stereo audio as possible without any processing. Certain things like speaker setup component (which I never install) used to really hurt the audio quality when using headphones through the line out.

It used to be so that in stereo direct mode default format was always 24 bit 192 kHz so one had to upsample everything in exclusive mode and shared mode used to blast at full volume (if I remember correctly). That has changed at some point with driver and Windows updates. Exclusive mode will blast at full volume though.
 
I've never been a sound card guy, but I've heard they can have some issues with drivers is this true?

With DACs you still sometimes have to run drivers if use use USB, but I've never had any problem with the Schiit audio ones I've been using. Thoughts from sound card owners?
 
Neapolitan6th said:
I've never been a sound card guy, but I've heard they can have some issues with drivers is this true?

With DACs you still sometimes have to run drivers if use use USB, but I've never had any problem with the Schiit audio ones I've been using. Thoughts from sound card owners?
Click to expand...

It's just like every other piece of hardware. Some have driver issues, most work fine.
 
Astralogic said:
I'm gonna buy some Edifier R1280T's.

Thanks for the information guys I will not be buying a DAC but one day in the future I'll upgrade my soundcard to one of the top of the line asus cards (asus seem to be the only ones making top range soundcards).
Click to expand...

I owned the SoundBlaster Z but eventually sold it. Don't know what it was but just really didn't like it. I eventually went Schiit, JBL, Cavalli, etc. but I do have an Asus Essence STX if you're interested. It's for sale, I just haven't had time to post it up. I think it's the best sound card I ever owned. If your not interested, no biggie. Good luck! It's addicting.
 
TypeO said:
I owned the SoundBlaster Z but eventually sold it. Don't know what it was but just really didn't like it. I eventually went Schiit, JBL, Cavalli, etc. but I do have an Asus Essence STX if you're interested. It's for sale, I just haven't had time to post it up. I think it's the best sound card I ever owned. If your not interested, no biggie. Good luck! It's addicting.
Click to expand...

Hmm, intersting, how much do you want for it? I do love how SBX Pro gives everything a sense of space, I decided to stick with it for that reason. But I will play with this stereo direct mode and see if I prefer unprocessed audio, if I do you may have a giddy little customer :)
 
Astralogic said:
Hmm, intersting, how much do you want for it? I do love how SBX Pro gives everything a sense of space, I decided to stick with it for that reason. But I will play with this stereo direct mode and see if I prefer unprocessed audio, if I do you may have a giddy little customer :)
Click to expand...

PM Sent.
 
sweets3450 said:
If your speakers are over $200, it would be worth investing in a better dac. I would not buy an internal soundcard. Get an external one, there are plenty of low cost "interfaces" as they're marketed, and they do not have any noise from the computer circuits.
Click to expand...

Add a couple of zeros to the speaker price, then the DAC is going to be your weak point :D
 
Also bear in mind that DACs are for stereo. 2 channels only. So not much use to those who like their sound in 5.1 surround. Yes, I know there are (very few, and expensive) multi-channel DACs like the OPPO-105. But this info does not seem to be of much interest to most PC audio buffs, as most seem to just care about headphones or regular 2 ch stereo speaker setups.
 
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