Looking for external amp/dac or soundcard for gaming, which provides surround sound.

X

xnikx

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
1,730
Hey guys, I hope you can give me some recommendations. So I currently have a creative ae9 sound card, which I love, but it’s having some issues and I think it’s time to replace it. Im using the philips fidelio x3 which I’m also very happy with. I also had the sound blasterx g6 years ago, which was ok but no where near as good as the ae9. I’m by no means an audio expert so please excuse me if my expectations are unrealistic or don’t make sense.

So I’m looking for an external amp/sac that would be able to give me an experience similar to the ae9, in the price range of around $300. I will accept recommendations over this though. What I felt the ae9 provided was a true surround sound experience. I was able to hear gun shots from across the map and pin point exactly where they were coming from.

I’ll try to make this example make sense. If there was a gun shot to the left of me, I would still be able to somewhat hear on the right ear, and I would be able to pinpoint if it was coming from the west, southwest, or northwest. I’m currently using the headphone plugged directly into the motherboard, and while the audio is still good there seems to be no surround sound. If someone shoots from my left, I only hear on my left side and I can’t tell which direction to my left it’s coming from.

The other thing I love about the ae9 is that it adds and amazing amount of bass, which I can control through the creative studio.

Sorry for the long text, and thanks in advance.
 
If you're wanting surround sound from headphones I would just get a set of surround sound headphones that connect through USB and have a built in DAC. You're never going to get great surround sound from headphones but some are perfectly happy with them. There's also a couple types of faked surround sound for stereo headphones but I haven't heard good things about them, on windows 10 I'm able to right click the the sound icon in my system tray to enable one of the spatial audio modes.

if you have powered speakers(like you'd use with a sound card) you want to use I would just get another sound card. If you have unpowered speakers you want to use I would get a home theater receiver and connect it through HDMI.
 
Out of curiosity, what issues are you having with the AE-9? I have an AE-7 hooked up to a 5.1 setup through the analog wiring and the sound has been spectacular with the sound positioning in games working perfectly.
 
On an AE-5 myself and love this thing. The virtual surround sound using SBX is pretty damn solid. Other solutions that rival it, are all software based. Allowing you to use any USB-DAC/Amp you like. Pesronally I find SBX to be one of the best and easiest solutions to use. But others have had great experience with Redscape.

Couple Alternatives to SBX
- Dolby Atmos for Headphones
- Redscape
- WaveNX
- Windows Sonic (built into Win10)

There is a decent thread over on the Guru3D forum where a person has broken down their experience with these AND others. You can read that here. Personally, I think unless your AE-9 is broken, you should stick with it. Creative Labs newer software called "Sound Blaster Command" is pretty great too.
 
Not sure that would be a great option.

1. Receivers rarely have visualized headphone modes (which in retro spec is kinda weird. Would think it would be a perfect place to put Dolby Atmos Headphone)
2. Modern receivers often don't have particularly great headphone output. Even in the $1000 range, unless it's a noted feature.
3. Getting the audio to the receiver can be awkward. Optical or Spdif would limit him to un-compressedd Stereo or compress Dolby/DTS 5.1. Using HDMi creates oddities of it's own as he just needs audio.

So it would just be a power hog for the application and not likely address his needs.
 
Last edited:
TrunksZero said:
Not sure that would be a great option.

1. Receivers rarely have visualized headphone modes (which in retro spec is kinda weird. Would think it would be a perfect place to put Dolby Atmos Headphone)
2. Modern receivers often don't have particularly great headphone output. Even in the $1000 range, unless it's a noted feature.
3. Getting the audio to the receiver can be awkward. Optical or Spdif would limit him to un-compressedd Stereo or compress Dolby/DTS 5.1. Using HDMi creates oddities of it's own as he just needs audio.

So it would just be a power hog for the application and not likely address his needs.
Click to expand...
If they want an external amp/dac for their current headphones they'd be best off with something like a Schiit usb headphone amp/dac but they might not be happy with the faked positional audio from stereo headphones. OP didn't really give enough specifics about the situation which is why I mentioned a few different possible directions depending on end use.

Outside of environmental factors speakers give the best surround sound experience but from what I've read if you want the best positional audio from headphones you're better off with one of the surround sound headsets with a built in DAC, the headphones they're using now aren't cheap though so they might want to stick with them.

Of course OP hasn't been back to respond so it's probably an academic discussion at this point.
 
TrunksZero said:
Not sure that would be a great option.

1. Receivers rarely have visualized headphone modes (which in retro spec is kinda weird. Would think it would be a perfect place to put Dolby Atmos Headphone)
2. Modern receivers often don't have particularly great headphone output. Even in the $1000 range, unless it's a noted feature.
3. Getting the audio to the receiver can be awkward. Optical or Spdif would limit him to un-compressedd Stereo or compress Dolby/DTS 5.1. Using HDMi creates oddities of it's own as he just needs audio.

So it would just be a power hog for the application and not likely address his needs.
Click to expand...
Fair comment.

tbh I didnt see headphone when I posted, he mentioned it once in a lot of text, near the end.
His title makes no mention either "Looking for external amp/dac or soundcard for gaming, which provides surround sound"


Op, try your soundcard in another machine.
The problem might not be the soundcard!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top