Should You Buy a Sound Card?

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The crew over at TechSpot tackle the age old question: Should you buy a sound card?

The equation for buying most desktop parts is pretty straightforward: a video card can handle your games or it can't, a hard drive has enough storage for your data or it doesn't, memory is compatible with your platform or it isn't, and a chassis can accommodate your hardware or it can't. Audio gear is trickier.
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Friends don't let friends run with onboard soundcards. It's a night and day difference if you have the proper amplification and speaker/headphone setups.
 
If you run digital out to a receiver, it makes no difference what you use as the receiver is doing the audio processing. And even a cheap receiver will sound better than a sound card.
 
Some people dont care or cant tell the difference and thats fair enough.
But if you do care, its a shame to waste your talent.
Problem is, its hard to know what you can appreciate until you hear it.

My recommendation is to either check out someone elses kit or work your way up slowly to decent stuff to see where you stop being bothered. Or just wait it out until you can eventually hear someone elses gear.
Be aware/research what they have and how it is set up though, even fantastic kit can be made to sound crap, some people buy good gear just to look the part but dont know the first thing about using it.
Always research to hell and back what you are buying.
And dont listen to those people who cant tell the difference, seek guidance from those who can tell the difference.
Ultimately, this is all about you, dont let others make the decisions for you unless they know their stuff and you trust they know what you would like.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
If you run digital out to a receiver, it makes no difference what you use as the receiver is doing the audio processing. And even a cheap receiver will sound better than a sound card.
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Wrong way round I'm afraid.
 
How do you figure? A $200 Onkyo will poop all over any sound card on the market. You also don't have to deal with Creative's horrible drivers when you use a receiver.
 
Whenever I upgrade my home av setup with a new receiver to take advantage of new tech, I just use the old one for the computer. So my computer currently is running digital out from the onboard audio to a Denon AVR (with component video switching! yay!) and it sounds great on my paradigm bookshelf speakers and sub. The even older receiver I was using before that is now powering my patio.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
How do you figure? A $200 Onkyo will poop all over any sound card on the market. You also don't have to deal with Creative's horrible drivers when you use a receiver.
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That isnt remotely true.
The DACs and analogue circuits in AV amps are low key until you spend a lot of money.
Even the Onkyo 875 (was £1000 new) doesnt have as good an analogue stage as the Auzentech Prelude.
If you want sound quality, a cheap AV amp is not going to give you it.

You dont have to buy a Creative soundcard, I use 2 external DACs, one for 5.1, the other for stereo.
 
Is there a comparison between products with built in sound cards (Like higher end USB headsets/speakers) vs 3.5mm ones plugged into an actual sound card?
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
How do you figure? A $200 Onkyo will poop all over any sound card on the market. You also don't have to deal with Creative's horrible drivers when you use a receiver.
Click to expand...

Nah, the DAC in my Titanium HD is better than the DAC in an entry level Onkyo.
 
Honestly, it's a give/take situation. Back in the day, I think most people used to appreciate a good soundcard. Then onboard sound became the norm and people just began to think it was good enough. It probably still is for some but when I got my first soundcard since my Terratec Aureon Universe 7.1, the Titanium HD, I was blown away by the sound quality difference, especially in games and music. I've had headphones all around too, Grados, Sennheisers, Panasonics and now AT.

The downfall is drivers, I find. With every soundcard along the way, I've always had some issues with discrete soundcards and their drivers. As long as you have the patience to wait for the fix or are able to do it yourself, then discrete soundcards are a superior experience.
 
when Creative Labs started to jack with sound drivers, I gave up on sound cards. i use onboard sound now.
 
Last time i used a sound card was for doing audio work needed it for the input jacks. Else i rather spend money elsewhere. Hell my gpu outputs he audio over hdmi to my tv and my normal speakers use digital output pretty sure makes a sound card pointless for me.
 
I cant stand people on vent that sound like shit cause they're using onboard sound.
 
If headphones are your game, i think you are much better served by a standalone dac/amp. Something like the Schiit Modi/Magni combo will walk all over current crop of soundcards, with plenty of power to spare.
 
I have never used on board audio except for on Servers. However I have never used a discrete sound card either. I have used HDMI audio through my video card to my receiver and then from the receiver to the TV. It has sounded fine to me whether it is movies or gaming.
 
ndehmer said:
I have never used on board audio except for on Servers. However I have never used a discrete sound card either. I have used HDMI audio through my video card to my receiver and then from the receiver to the TV. It has sounded fine to me whether it is movies or gaming.
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pretty sure your video card is just passing audio through from the motherboard's onboard audio.
 
I bought into the whole audiophile thing once, using some $700 Denon reference headphones with a top of the line Xonar card and headphone amp. The sound was very good, with some presets it would sound like I was right there in the stadium. The downside was that it only took me about 3 weeks to develop tinnitus (permanent ringing in ears). I used to have super-sensitive hearing, up to 24+ khz, now my hearing is down to about 18 khz with permanent ringing. I've never been one to ramp up the volume, either. Since then I went back to some midrange speakers and onboard sound. Sometimes I admit I would like the better quality back, but it wasn't as drastic as you might be thinking.

So if you plan on going this route and wearing headphones for extended periods, just be careful bros. The super expensive headphones have powerful bass drivers and can fuck you up even at low levels because everything is channeled directly into the ear canal.

[edit]
These are what I was using:

http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AHD5000...&ie=UTF8&qid=1386630047&sr=1-1&keywords=denon
 
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colinstu said:
pretty sure your video card is just passing audio through from the motherboard's onboard audio.
Click to expand...

You would be correct on older video cards but on newer video cards its treated as a separate device and passes a pure digital to the receiver.
 
I will never again buy a dedicated soundcard. My onboard sound works just fine and I dont have to deal with Creative's worthless drivers.
 
I used to care about obroad vs descrete sound, but lately the quality has become more than sufficient for my needs. I'm guessing most people are not audiophiles so as long as the integrated stuff is a solid model then I'd recommend against descrete audio, they can always add that later if needed for some reason.
 
I have used creative sound cards since the old SB 16 AWE 32. I currently own the Sound Blaster Z PCI-E. Ya creative drivers can be a hassle but I find they work fine as long as you just use the driver not the software with them. Also you can use the KX drivers that take full advantage of the sound card. Currently I run the SBZ running fiber optic tos link to my 8,000 Receiver which has THX Ultra 2 Certified and full DTS with auto switching. It's quite a nice setup all 10 Speakers 2 fronts 6 rears 2 centers Cerwin Vega's all around. Watching movies in VLC with ac3 encoding switches mode on the receiver perfectly. Onboard sound is fine if you have 2 speakers and just want something in stereo. Personly I was a audiophile before I got into computers.
 
onboard digital out > outboard dac

gave up with sound card drivers... have a pile of old creative cards somewhere
 
I use creative stuff. using my 2D high end headphones with the 3D positional sound creative has for 5.1 simulation (FPS online gaming) really is a treat and helps me in game.
 
I think sound cards are a waste of money for anyone who enjoys the sound of muffled asshole.
 
I have what seems to be a decent 2.0 setup, and honestly I don't notice much of a difference between today's onboard sound and the sound cards at my disposal. Could be my less than stellar hearing, could be my cards aren't that great, could be the mixer or speakers I use. There was a much bigger difference to me between onboard sound and an add in sound card in the AC 97 days. Of course, I was also younger/poorer and probably had better hearing as well.

Current setup:
* workstation uses an M-Audio 2496 (for the infrequent recording task) and a Xonar DGX for everyday sounds
* gamebox is mini-itx and uses the onboard ALC 892

Everything runs via (unbalanced) analog outputs to a Mackie 802-VLZ3 mixer connected to Mackie MR5s.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
I think sound cards are a waste of money for anyone who enjoys the sound of muffled asshole.
Click to expand...

I'd rather not hear the clear resonance of the brrrrrapppptfizzzzplorp.

Some people have a ear for sound, and that's great. I don't, so the cheapy Creative 2.1 speakers with the onboard sound is good enough for me.
 
Nenu said:
That isnt remotely true.
The DACs and analogue circuits in AV amps are low key until you spend a lot of money.
Even the Onkyo 875 (was £1000 new) doesnt have as good an analogue stage as the Auzentech Prelude.
If you want sound quality, a cheap AV amp is not going to give you it.

You dont have to buy a Creative soundcard, I use 2 external DACs, one for 5.1, the other for stereo.
Click to expand...

I've compared Benchmark DAC1 USB vs various Onkyo Receivers from the NR901 to the mid range SR703. In my opinion, use the cheap AV amp if you got it. You'll get more mileage spending that extra money on better headphones or speakers. The sound quality difference between different DACs is minor, and will be masked by poor quality headphones. The same can be said for amplification, unless your equipment is particularly hard to drive.
 
Main reason to avoid onboard/internal is interference.
 
FordFanboy said:
I bought into the whole audiophile thing once, using some $700 Denon reference headphones with a top of the line Xonar card and headphone amp. The sound was very good, with some presets it would sound like I was right there in the stadium. The downside was that it only took me about 3 weeks to develop tinnitus (permanent ringing in ears). I used to have super-sensitive hearing, up to 24+ khz, now my hearing is down to about 18 khz with permanent ringing. I've never been one to ramp up the volume, either. Since then I went back to some midrange speakers and onboard sound. Sometimes I admit I would like the better quality back, but it wasn't as drastic as you might be thinking.

So if you plan on going this route and wearing headphones for extended periods, just be careful bros. The super expensive headphones have powerful bass drivers and can fuck you up even at low levels because everything is channeled directly into the ear canal.

[edit]
These are what I was using:

http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AHD5000...&ie=UTF8&qid=1386630047&sr=1-1&keywords=denon
Click to expand...
Yea, I wasn't a fan of wearing headphones. I have a real 5.1 audio setup in my home, but rarely ever push the volume.

As far as sound cards, it really depends if you actually have Realtek audio in your PC or not. If yes, then buy a sound card. If no, then don't. A lot of good motherboards now come with Via sound which is actually really good. The only exception is if the HDMI from your video card can do 5.1 or higher sound. Not a lot can do that.

Also consider hardware sound acceleration. Most sound cards will use your PC CPU to process the sound, which is usually done with algorithms that take shortcuts. I think only Creative sound cards do this, and only with OpenAL. For whatever reason Vista/Windows 7 disabled this feature in Direct Sound.

Also, never forget Nvidia Sound Storm, which arguable has the best digital sound ever.
mcpt.jpg
 
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Digital out to a cheap (or not so cheap) receiver will often win simply because you're getting the analog audio away from the electrically noisy PC innards. Some audio cards have external units just for this reason.

Most people who sound like crap on Vent have a crap headset (or mic), utterly fail to run any form of calibration, or have a ton of loud crap around them. I've had a TON of instances where someone replaces their POS headset and suddenly sounds totally different and comes through loud and clear.
 
Like asking the question: Why drive a Porsche if a Corolla is perfectly capable from getting me from A to B?

Some will care, some won't. I'm on the boat with using onboard audio because a) I don't use the desktop as much as I used to to appreciate it, b) the decrease in interference is not worth the money I pay to get rid of it as I don't even notice it to begin with, c) hardware depreciates faster than my wallet would be happy to allow.

I must be getting old and I'm going by the saying that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
Back in the day I would only look at Creative brand cards. I had cards from the Sound Blaster AEW64 (I think that is right, you can correct me on that), Sound Blaster Live Value, Audigy, and the XFi. I did not even consider anything else until Window Vista rolled out. I was going to reuse my Audigy card from my previous build. I could not get the surround sound to work correctly in games playing on Vista. I checked Creatives website and they said that it was a hardware limitation with how Vista handled audio. So I upgraded to an XFi card. It still did not work right. Then in my searching I found a young man(Daniel K) who had modified the current Creative drivers and they made the cards work perfectly with Vista. Then Creative threatened to sue the gentleman, so he stopped modifying the drivers. They wanted to force us to buy new cards. So I wrote them off completely and went to an Asus Xonar. It was a good card and served me well until I built my next system that used Windows 7. The sound card is one of the last components that I install when building a system. I had installed the onboard audio drivers to just test the motherboard. They worked right out the door and sounded just fine to me. So since then I have not bothered with a sound card. I just see it as just another device in my case blocking air flow.
 
Chillywilly said:
I've compared Benchmark DAC1 USB vs various Onkyo Receivers from the NR901 to the mid range SR703. In my opinion, use the cheap AV amp if you got it. You'll get more mileage spending that extra money on better headphones or speakers. The sound quality difference between different DACs is minor, and will be masked by poor quality headphones. The same can be said for amplification, unless your equipment is particularly hard to drive.
Click to expand...

If you didnt appreciate the difference of a good DAC to even a midrange AV amps DAC, your kit either wasnt good enough to show the difference or its not your thing.

All components matter, if you dont have the detail entering the system, you wont be able to put it through the rest of the kit.
The sound quality between different DACs can be major, but price is a large factor as you point out.
However, most decent soundcards arent that expensive, they are pretty good value for money if you appreciate the difference.

Your sound system is one of the better investments, its not like a computer system that becomes too slow and you have to upgrade, you can upgrade when finances permit or if you find a decent bit of kit going cheap.
Your hifi will last you a long time, why not have a good one.
After all you paid a lot for your music. With a good sound system you can get more from it.
 
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