Hi there.
Let me begin by saying forgive me, for I have sinned. It's taken me a long time to get to this point, but I think I'm ready to admit I've made some terrible decisions. About my PC audio.
I've always been rather picky about my sound, but I'm not really well informed. So when that government stimulus windfall fell into my lap a few years ago with encouragement to spend it irresponsibly, I seized upon the opportunity to buy myself a nice set of speakers. I wandered over to the Best Buy and bought a set of Bose Companion 5's. Given I'd never dropped more than $100 on a set of speakers, I never really had a baseline to judge these from. I thought things were pretty fine, though from what I'm told most people are shaking their heads at this point. In my defense I had a laptop at the time and the USB connection was actually rather handy. I also didn't (and still don't) have the space around my computer for a full-blown surround sound/home theater setup.
Then I decided recently to buy a new desktop PC but to try the on-board sound before I picked up a sound card (Off an Asus P8Z77-V Pro if anyone's curious). It didn't take me long not to be happy at all with it. I could hear noise in my music that I could swear I hadn't before and it wasn't as clear. It obviously had to be the inferior on-board audio!
So I bought an Asus Xonar DX out of my limited options since I only have a PCI-E x1 port free (and even still it's rather crowded in there) and the new Creative Recon line didn't get great reviews. I disabled the on-board audio and installed the new drivers. Everything was functional...except I found that I couldn't tell if there was a difference. The quality was still not there. It took a few hours of suffering but I think I know why.
I don't think I actually know what I'm doing. So, kind soul, I don't suppose you came here to help?
I don't think I can actually use these speakers with this sound card or otherwise improve the sound quality, because there isn't an alternative to the USB connection. So, uh, it's a matter of damage control now. What do I have to do to actually get better sound? Assuming it's new speakers, what kind of gear would go with the sound card I have?
Let me begin by saying forgive me, for I have sinned. It's taken me a long time to get to this point, but I think I'm ready to admit I've made some terrible decisions. About my PC audio.
I've always been rather picky about my sound, but I'm not really well informed. So when that government stimulus windfall fell into my lap a few years ago with encouragement to spend it irresponsibly, I seized upon the opportunity to buy myself a nice set of speakers. I wandered over to the Best Buy and bought a set of Bose Companion 5's. Given I'd never dropped more than $100 on a set of speakers, I never really had a baseline to judge these from. I thought things were pretty fine, though from what I'm told most people are shaking their heads at this point. In my defense I had a laptop at the time and the USB connection was actually rather handy. I also didn't (and still don't) have the space around my computer for a full-blown surround sound/home theater setup.
Then I decided recently to buy a new desktop PC but to try the on-board sound before I picked up a sound card (Off an Asus P8Z77-V Pro if anyone's curious). It didn't take me long not to be happy at all with it. I could hear noise in my music that I could swear I hadn't before and it wasn't as clear. It obviously had to be the inferior on-board audio!
So I bought an Asus Xonar DX out of my limited options since I only have a PCI-E x1 port free (and even still it's rather crowded in there) and the new Creative Recon line didn't get great reviews. I disabled the on-board audio and installed the new drivers. Everything was functional...except I found that I couldn't tell if there was a difference. The quality was still not there. It took a few hours of suffering but I think I know why.
I don't think I actually know what I'm doing. So, kind soul, I don't suppose you came here to help?
I don't think I can actually use these speakers with this sound card or otherwise improve the sound quality, because there isn't an alternative to the USB connection. So, uh, it's a matter of damage control now. What do I have to do to actually get better sound? Assuming it's new speakers, what kind of gear would go with the sound card I have?