Should You Buy A Sound Card?

I remember back in the 90's when I could hear a massive difference in audio between onboard and whatever old PCI card I was running at the time. Even in Counter Strike the sound effects were completely different sounding. I remember installing the sound card and it being very disorienting that all the sounds were different.

Nowadays I bitstream the sound from my GFX card into my audio receiver so I don't even think I could use a sound card and bitstream the HD audio.
 
I still use a Sound Blaster Z mainly for the Surround feature with headphones...huge difference over no extra processing. I also think the sound quality is better overall.
 
The last time I used on board sound was with a Gigabyte X58 board, and while it was okay it was not even in the same ballpark as a dedicated sound card. I have been using Creative cards since the days of my Packard Hell 486/66, and for the most part I haven't had many problems, except when a new OS comes along. For basic everyday tasks on board sound is just fine, but when it comes to gaming nothing but a dedicated sound card will do.
 
after we fucked over by Creative twice, i'll never get a sound card again.
 
MavericK96 said:
I still use a Sound Blaster Z mainly for the Surround feature with headphones...huge difference over no extra processing. I also think the sound quality is better overall.
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key word is think.

You have yourself programmed to believe that dedicated is much better than on board. So you "think" that there is a massive difference.
 
FrozenSteel said:
Not here to flaunt around what I have or convince anyone that a sound card "sounds better" but I have used a few motherboards with ALC1150 chipsets and compared to my ZxR, they sound too flat and hollow no matter what the motherboard manufacture says they added (Although I have not used a motherboard with onboard sound that uses a 3 party DAC like the ones from ESS, so they may make a difference.) Not a single driver issue with the ZxR (Unless I use linux, which I rarely do.) Its all up to personal preference and if the difference is enough to make you a believer, then of course you'll say a sound card or external DAC is better.

Also, not a big external DAC fan as I like everything inside the PC, nobody wants to worry about something that relates to the size of a power brick on their desktops. But if you don't mind it, all power to you.
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I replaced my ZxR with a X7 after switching to a Rampage V board and finding none of the PCIe x1 lanes were open in an SLI config. The other reason for the switch being that the ZxR and X7 share the exact same OPAMP configuration, so I was able to port over with relative ease. With all honesty, the two devices sound damn near identical. Only real gripe is that two of the OPAMPS are touching the plastic cover, but so far I haven't noticed any issues.

I now have a massive pyramid of power on my desk, but it sits comfortably under my monitor, so I'm not complaining too much.
 
Every USB sound device I've ever used has intolerable background hiss and noise bleeding over from the system. If you care about how your sound sounds, get a sound card.
 
I used to swear by sound cards, particularly soundblasters for gaming. But now, it really doesn't matter. Almost all sound cards are just a integrated sound IC on a separate board, and quite often they're actually worse than a decent onboard on a strict numbers-basis (signal to noise, dynamic range, etc.)

Every test I've read where they actually tested the sound output using testing equipment the onboard always wins. Unless you're buying a card with the best available DACs and hardware you're not going to get any better, and if you're doing that you've better off just connecting a receiver or DAC to remove the noise of the PC as much as possible. This article, the author hasn't done any actual testing so I'd totally disregard it, but I'm now totally convinced that current sound cards aren't worth buying.

Cheap sound cards like the ASUS Xonar series aren't worth buying at all, it's essentially just an onboard chip with the cheapest components available. Might as well just toss it, I have a Xonar DSX that was recommended to me just sitting in a box, nastiest piece of cheap junk I've ever bough.

P.S. Anyone saying they bough a sound card to have 2 sources, most recent Realtek chips actually supports using the front panel headset and mic ports as a totally separate second audio device, so you don't actually need a sound card to do that.
 
Look at this article I occurs to me that they where using a lot older equipment. Gigabyte and MSI have some great onboard sound options with thier gamer boards, as good as any sound card you can buy at a reasonable price.

A lot of the difference people hear in sound cards. onboard and DACs is due to two areas. First is power, as more power is applied headsets sound better as they are fully driven. This is why a lot of expensive headsets sound like crap on onboard sound. It is not so much bad sound as not enough power. DACs, Sound Cards and onboard headphone amps fix this.

Another area that makes a difference is the sound profiles. Most computer gaming sound cards will add extra base power. This is to make explosions and other sound effects pop. DACs will often have tone neutral sound, this means they amplify nothing beyond the base. So if you like a deeper bass a DAC can often sound flat.

My own personal choice over the years is to a bit more bass, so I pick headphones with good base return and then use a sound solution with a solid bass profile. Right now I am finding that a Gigabyte G1 motherboard gives me solid sound with my Sennheiser headphones. Also helpd with my Kingston Cloud headset as they have a higher than normal impedance and thus sound better with a decent amp behind them.

At the end of the day the truth is there is no one right answer. Sound, unlike frame rates is subjective and varies a great deal from person to person. My advice is find a sound solution that has decent power, ideally you want something capable of driving 600 ohms of impedance. Next buy a good set of headphones. Game headsets are typically not all that great for sound but if you want a gaming headset the Kingston HyperX Cloud is AMAZING and easily the best in the crowd right now.

Stay away from "surround" headsets, these are gimmicky and often do not do well. If you need a bigger sound stage and you game in a quiet room get a set of open back headphones, they really open the sound stage and do it naturally, without gimmicks and to most sound way better. Closed back sets are good if you in a noisy environment and need sound isolation and often have a deeper base.
 
I had on board sound on a x99 chipset (rampage v extreme) and the z97 chipset (gigabyte z97n gaming) along with a Soundblaster Z and a xonar x7. Amp power wise the sound cards sound world's better. Sound wise I can't tell much difference. . The xonar though being external has the cleanest sound of all the sound cards. I has terrible static on the gigabyte despite it saying it had isolated circuits.
 
bitbum said:
A decent quality DAC will not perform to its full potential without high resolution music files.
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Considering the human ear is incapable of hearing much beyond 22 khz (i.e. CD quality), I'm not sure what a higher resolution file will do.
 
nilepez said:
Considering the human ear is incapable of hearing much beyond 22 khz (i.e. CD quality), I'm not sure what a higher resolution file will do.
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Yes, there are limits to what the ear can hear but you are forgetting that almost all musical instruments and the rooms or studios they are played in are subject to harmonics. Yes, those harmonics go way beyond the ear's limits but being harmonics they bounce around and return as artifacts that are clearly audible to the human ear.

Cut off the harmonics you hurt the sound.

Hit middle "C" on a good piano and the entire instrument vibrates and resonates (the better the piano the more you get). If all you hear is the fundamental note without the artifacts it sounds dead and lifeless.

The audio gear you buy should not kill the harmonics or artifacts, but most sound cards and low priced DACs as well as many lower priced headphone AMPS do just that.

That is also the problem with MP-3, the very algorithms used to compress the file cut the harmonics and artifacts first leaving you with lower quality sound.

Games are games, all synth no studios just tracks laid down on a drive so games aren't really fair game (no pun intended) for testing the accuracy of much of anything...They fall under the personal taste category.
 
BillR said:
Yes, there are limits to what the ear can hear but you are forgetting that almost all musical instruments and the rooms or studios they are played in are subject to harmonics. Yes, those harmonics go way beyond the ear's limits but being harmonics they bounce around and return as artifacts that are clearly audible to the human ear.

Cut off the harmonics you hurt the sound.

Hit middle "C" on a good piano and the entire instrument vibrates and resonates (the better the piano the more you get). If all you hear is the fundamental note without the artifacts it sounds dead and lifeless.

The audio gear you buy should not kill the harmonics or artifacts, but most sound cards and low priced DACs as well as many lower priced headphone AMPS do just that.

That is also the problem with MP-3, the very algorithms used to compress the file cut the harmonics and artifacts first leaving you with lower quality sound.

Games are games, all synth no studios just tracks laid down on a drive so games aren't really fair game (no pun intended) for testing the accuracy of much of anything...They fall under the personal taste category.
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This post makes absolutely no sense. The harmonics are recorded and reproduced as well. You're not hearing any 44 kHz frequencies.

DACs do not "kill the harmonics." That doesn't even mean anything.
 
linuxdude9 said:
Hyperbole much? If you were tested in a double-blind audio test, it's extremely unlikely you'd be able to discern any difference between a decent onboard solution vs an external DAC/higher-end sound card.

There's almost as much snake oil in audio as there is with the weight-loss industry.
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I love hyperbole.

If you can listen to a song with your on-board and then a decent sound card, turned up, and not tell the difference, you probably need to get checked out. People get used to the pops, clicks, whine, and fuzz of on board. Just like people get used to 30fps.

Some on board is better than others, of course, but Realtek? No.
Just like some sound cards are horrible.
I won't even start on the quality of USB headsets.

Of course I know people who buy a sound card and then use a USB headset...
 
OMG, I remember buying my first sound card in 1992... I saved up for MONTHS and bought it at Radio Shack for $120. $120 in 1992 was a LOT of money.

ct1350b_a.jpg


I remember all those old Sierra games coming to life... I remember loading up Robin Hood for the first time - going from a PC speaker to the SB2... when that Sierra logo popped up on the screen and that little Sierra "ditty" played, it is what I would call nothing short of an EARgasm! :D

For those who never experienced this, I feel bad for them. It's something that if I live to be 90 I will never forget. It was a life altering experience. No lie. :)
 
4saken said:
x-fi titanium was my last sound card. Years ago now, happy with onboard.
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I'm still using mine.

I wouldn't buy a soubdcard today, but I keep using this one since I already have it.

If I were shopping today, I'd go for an external DAC connected via optical SPDIF.
 
I bought a Xonar DG purely as a curiosity thing, not as an actual need (I didn't need one on my P8P67, or at least I didn't consider it). Luckily, amidst all the driver issues, Unified Xonar Driver worked without a hitch for me.

After comparing the ALC1150 and the DG on the same pair of earphones (Cloud X Pro), with both on virtual surround, I can definitely notice the difference between the two, 1150 is not as deep as DG, and the 'positioning' of the surround on 1150 feels a bit off.

Was it worth the money? No regrets, but I wouldn't recommend it unless the person knows they don't like the 1150.
 
QwertyJuan said:
OMG, I remember buying my first sound card in 1992... I saved up for MONTHS and bought it at Radio Shack for $120. $120 in 1992 was a LOT of money.

ct1350b_a.jpg


I remember all those old Sierra games coming to life... I remember loading up Robin Hood for the first time - going from a PC speaker to the SB2... when that Sierra logo popped up on the screen and that little Sierra "ditty" played, it is what I would call nothing short of an EARgasm! :D

For those who never experienced this, I feel bad for them. It's something that if I live to be 90 I will never forget. It was a life altering experience. No lie. :)
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It's about $200 in 2015 dollars.

Felt like A LOT more back then though :p

I had a very similar experience when I got my first one, a Sound Blaster Pro at about the same time.

Loved that thing. So much better than the PC beep speaker :p

Eventually upgraded it to an AWE32 for some midi wavetable synthesis goodness.

When it got older I stuck some of my old system ram in it, and was able to load up some pretty awesome sample packs in it. :)
 
kumquat said:
This post makes absolutely no sense. The harmonics are recorded and reproduced as well. You're not hearing any 44 kHz frequencies.

DACs do not "kill the harmonics." That doesn't even mean anything.
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Well, not all DACs, not the good ones anyway. Why do you think there has been a huge resurgence in Vinyl recordings? Vinyl recordings have the ability to record up to and over 80khz...Some people want to hear all the music.

Sidney Harman was the first guy to develop the high current AMP but he insisted that his Harmon-Kardon products (Amps and receivers) had a frequency response out to 100khz?

He made sure that his dealers had a 50khz filter that could be switched in and out and it went between the source and the transducers (speakers and headphones). The demo for the customer would start with the filter switched in and the customer listened. All you had to do was flip the switch out of the circuit and almost everyone would suddenly look up and ask what happened...They were hearing all the music.

Back in the mid 80s CD sounded like crap because of poor recording technics and a total misunderstanding of digital in general. As time went on and the recordings got better more and more money was spent on developing DACs that could handle the harmonics.

You would do well to look up some history, especially the history of audio reproduction.:)
 
Weak.

If you wanted truly immersive sound, you wanted this chipset:
659961w.jpg
 
Doward said:
Weak.

If you wanted truly immersive sound, you wanted this chipset:
659961w.jpg
Click to expand...

You do realize the one I posted came out about 7 years before the one you posted. It would be like saying my brand new i7 system is SOOO much better than your old C2Duo system from 2008! :D
 
MavericK96 said:
I still use a Sound Blaster Z mainly for the Surround feature with headphones...huge difference over no extra processing. I also think the sound quality is better overall.
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I grabbed a SBZ for both my boards, x79 sabertooth and Hi-Fi H81S2. Difference in sound quality of the dedicated vs. onboard is night and day.
 
Dion said:
Sound card is a dac.
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Well, sort of. One of the parts of a sound card is the DAC.

What I think he means is an exrernal DAC.

Discrete soundcards generally have better DAC's than onboard realtec-type chipsets, but the differences these days are much smaller than they used to be.

Both discrete sound cards and onboard sound suffer from the same problem though, that they reside inside the electrically noisy computer. The most common solution to this is to go external USB DAC, which is better, but it is still not electrically isolated, and there are some timing issues involved in using USB for sound.

The best solution by far is to use an external DAC connected by optical SPDIF. Complete electrical isolation, and bit perfect timing.
 
BillR said:
Well, not all DACs, not the good ones anyway. Why do you think there has been a huge resurgence in Vinyl recordings? Vinyl recordings have the ability to record up to and over 80khz...Some people want to hear all the music.
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It's clear that you've abandoned anything approaching reason and reality so I won't even try anymore.
 
Doward said:
Weak.

If you wanted truly immersive sound, you wanted this chipset:
659961w.jpg
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Incredible cards in their time. First time with Half-Life, 8830, and a proper surround system was scary good. It is because of what Happened to Aureal that I haven't spent a penny on any Creative product since Aureal folded.

I ended up with an Asus Xonar a couple months ago for my HTPC and it is 7.1 happy. 95% of the time onboard works fine.....sometimes it doesn't. Except for that Xonar I had not bought a soundcard in over 10 years......a Turtle Beach Montego.
 
BillR said:
Well, not all DACs, not the good ones anyway. Why do you think there has been a huge resurgence in Vinyl recordings? Vinyl recordings have the ability to record up to and over 80khz...Some people want to hear all the music.
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Yeah, this us actually a pretty ridiculous statement.

Vinyl is an objectively measurably worse reproduction of the original recording. In some cases it is even so bad that you have to change the source material innorder to make it playable on vinyl, as certain bass frequencies cause the needle to pop in of its groove.

There are two types of people who prefer vinyl.

1.) The people who know what they are talking about. They concede that the sound quality reproduction is lower, but have a strong affinity to the warmer fuzzier sound that vinyl produces.

There is even a reasonable argument that vinyl is the best way to listen to older recordings as they were mastered with this warmer effect of vinyl in mind, and as such that's how the artists (or at least the sound engineers) intended the recording to sound.

2.). Then there are the people who have no idea what they are talking about, and like to make shit up like you did above with your 80hz statement in order to justify your purchases that you use as some silly image statement of some sort.
 
kumquat said:
It's clear that you've abandoned anything approaching reason and reality so I won't even try anymore.
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No need. Only one of us learned from guys like Harmon, David Hafler, Bob Carver, Henry Kloss, John Curl, Mark Levinson etc. and I'm pretty sure it wasn't you.

Only one of us had their own audio (and later audio/video) stores and actually sold the gear and got training from the guys who knew and again, I'm pretty sure it wasn't you.

I was in the business from the late 70's until I retired so I think I have just a bit more experience than you as well.<shrug>
 
Exavior said:
key word is think.

You have yourself programmed to believe that dedicated is much better than on board. So you "think" that there is a massive difference.
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Um...no, I think that because I've switched between the two and to me the sound card sounds better. Obviously sound is subjective so I'm not going to say that everyone will prefer a sound card over onboard. But I also highly doubt there is zero difference between the two. The SBZ also has the feature set that I want that onboard does not, so I prefer it.
 
MavericK96 said:
Um...no, I think that because I've switched between the two and to me the sound card sounds better. Obviously sound is subjective so I'm not going to say that everyone will prefer a sound card over onboard. But I also highly doubt there is zero difference between the two. The SBZ also has the feature set that I want that onboard does not, so I prefer it.
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Yeah, I believe you, but at the same time you have to be cognizant of placebo effect. No one is immune to it.

While I do appreciate better quality sound, I sometimes wonder if there is any value in sound that is better, but you can only tellnif you compare it side by side.

You're not going to be comparing it side by side when using it :p
 
BillR said:
No need. Only one of us learned from guys like Harmon, David Hafler, Bob Carver, Henry Kloss, John Curl, Mark Levinson etc. and I'm pretty sure it wasn't you.

Only one of us had their own audio (and later audio/video) stores and actually sold the gear and got training from the guys who knew and again, I'm pretty sure it wasn't you.

I was in the business from the late 70's until I retired so I think I have just a bit more experience than you as well.<shrug>
Click to expand...

Key word is apparently had... and you were pretty obviously brainwashed by snake oil audio company salesmen.

It's not "training" when a manufacturer comes to your little shop to "educate" you about the magic properties of their audio gear.

Thank god we have guys like Gene DellaSalla and Floyd Toole (and the Internet to make their expertise and knowledge available to the rest of us so easily) fighting the good fight against BS like magical 80 KHz vinyl audio capture.
 
I'm not a huge audiophile but I like to have what I consider good sound. Had onboard sound for a bit with my dell but I was betting a lot of noise when ambient temps went above 75F. Grabbed a Soundblaster Z cheap and it fixed the noise and gained a good bit of quality.

Only using Astro A40s right now but I'll get a nicer pair of headphones for just music later.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041945154 said:
Yeah, this us actually a pretty ridiculous statement.

Vinyl is an objectively measurably worse reproduction of the original recording. In some cases it is even so bad that you have to change the source material innorder to make it playable on vinyl, as certain bass frequencies cause the needle to pop in of its groove.

There are two types of people who prefer vinyl.

1.) The people who know what they are talking about. They concede that the sound quality reproduction is lower, but have a strong affinity to the warmer fuzzier sound that vinyl produces.

There is even a reasonable argument that vinyl is the best way to listen to older recordings as they were mastered with this warmer effect of vinyl in mind, and as such that's how the artists (or at least the sound engineers) intended the recording to sound.

2.). Then there are the people who have no idea what they are talking about, and like to make shit up like you did above with your 80hz statement in order to justify your purchases that you use as some silly image statement of some sort.
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The Telarc digital master converted to vinyl was the only album to not only cause the stylus to jump out of the groove it actually broke a few as well. A totally harsh recording but it had unbelievable dynamics for the time but the rest of the sound was a bit grungy.

Stan Ricker (Now passed on)got famous by inadvertently cutting a 122 kHz tape recorder bias frequency on a master lacquer. Typicaly most really good albums stopped somewhere around 45khz but companies like Sheffield Lab would go higher.

What set Sheffield apart was there was no studio work. The artist played, mistakes and all and the master lacquer was used to press the vinyl with no editing. The process was called "direct to disk" They did make 2 track back up takes some still available on CD, but you will pay for them. I highly recommend "Dave Grusin Discovered Again". The CD prices are somewhat reasonable but a true vinyl piece (it has to have the "Direct to Disk" on the label) has been out of print forever and will cost you.

Why would I take the time to make up information that exists and can be researched?
 
Zarathustra[H];1041945154 said:
Yeah, this us actually a pretty ridiculous statement.

Vinyl is an objectively measurably worse reproduction of the original recording. In some cases it is even so bad that you have to change the source material innorder to make it playable on vinyl, as certain bass frequencies cause the needle to pop in of its groove.

There are two types of people who prefer vinyl.

1.) The people who know what they are talking about. They concede that the sound quality reproduction is lower, but have a strong affinity to the warmer fuzzier sound that vinyl produces.

There is even a reasonable argument that vinyl is the best way to listen to older recordings as they were mastered with this warmer effect of vinyl in mind, and as such that's how the artists (or at least the sound engineers) intended the recording to sound.

2.). Then there are the people who have no idea what they are talking about, and like to make shit up like you did above with your 80hz statement in order to justify your purchases that you use as some silly image statement of some sort.
Click to expand...

This is why vinyl sounds better :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
 
kumquat said:
Key word is apparently had... and you were pretty obviously brainwashed by snake oil audio company salesmen.

It's not "training" when a manufacturer comes to your little shop to "educate" you about the magic properties of their audio gear.

Thank god we have guys like Gene DellaSalla and Floyd Toole (and the Internet to make their expertise and knowledge available to the rest of us so easily) fighting the good fight against BS like magical 80 KHz vinyl audio capture.
Click to expand...

You are more then welcome to read the opinions of Gene DellaSalla and Floyd Toole but can you sit down with them and actually do the listening?...I don't think so.

The difference is I allowed people to make buying decisions based on what they could hear and of course budget.

Why do you think B&M stores are all but dead...Well, not all of them

Drop into "Overture" if you are in the area, they will show you gear you might be familiar with and gear you never even knew existed, who knows, you might learn something.
 
Been using onboard sound for close to 10 years now. Im no audiophile so its met or exceeded all my expectations.

Especially today with USB headsets my onboard doesnt even get used that much.
 
I might as well toss this in the mix as part of the stuff you have never heard of:

Saskia Reference II Turntable. This product is designed and built by a now no longer active forum member and even at that price he can't keep up with demand all 253 pounds of it. Most are sold overseas where the MP-3 is far less popular. Yup that's the price $53 K with no tone arm.

Mosin used to use the Frank Schroder Tonearm with a limited choice of cartridge but Frank retired. Not sure what he's using now.
 
So much damn misinformation going on here.

A: Its impossible to tell the difference between a properly encoded 320kbit mp3 and a FLAC file. Literally. They've had expert audio engineers who can't even tell a 192kbit mp3 and a FLAC apart and it was using top top top end audio gear.

The only thing that can tell the two apart is a computer. Literally. So unless you are a computer you can't hear the difference and you are suffering from placebo effect.

B: Unless your motherboard supports 300/600 ohm output its going to sound like crap. And even then if it does you still have problems such as cross talk/fade/signal drive strength/static etc. Hell 99% of motherboard onboard sound doesn't even have Faraday cages around its parts to reduce/remove these issues.

An example of a missing Faraday cage is my Elgato HD60 where if you use analog sound input its a static sounding NIGHTMARE.

C: Some soundcards absolutely blow, looking at you creative RAGE3D. Some of them beat $15,000 in audio gear for clarity like Titanium HD, Sound Blaster Z series with gold capacitors, ASUS's new line of sound cards.

D: You can't get surround sound with a DAC. Sorry. All computer DAC's only output in stereo. Unless your game can do Surround over headphone, which I think only like 5 games exist that do so you are going to be listening to it in stereo.

E: A DAC's primary strength is driving power, there is headphones out there that even top end soundcards can't drive like monster 600ohm headphones, but there is very few pairs of headphones top end soundcards and good onboard sound can't drive properly.

Spoken as a long time user of overclock.net who knows a crapload more about this stuff than most people.

And let me repeat again, only a computer can tell a proper LAME encoded 192kbit mp3 and a FLAC apart.
 
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