# Will buying a sound card greatly improve sound quality via my headphones?



## Rusuran (Mar 11, 2021)

Hello.

I have an old Gigabyte H77-DS3H mobo with Realtek ALC887 on it, and the headset I use is HyperX Cloud Alpha. The use case is gaming, listening to music and watching Youtube. I have been thinking of getting Creative Sound Blaster AE-7 to increase the sound quality. It's not that I have any problems with the current quality, barring not being able to distinguish FLAC and 320kbp/s MP3 files, but I wonder if purchasing it would improve the sound to a somewhat justifiable (pricewise) extent.

So, please, let me hear your opinions on whether I should buy the sound card or not.


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## oldwalltree (Mar 11, 2021)

Depends on what headphones you have?



oldwalltree said:


> Depends on what headphones you have?


Short answer yes. Always nice to have a DAC/AMP for headphones.


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## delshay (Mar 11, 2021)

Hard so say if you will hear any change with those headphones.  Here I have High End DACS & earphones, & there is a clear cut difference in sound. Horror games are truly frightening with headphone/earphone. Some games are too scary, I can't play them with earphones.


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## GerKNG (Mar 11, 2021)

i recently bought a soundblaster x g6 and i am very happy with it.
Soundquality has drastically improved over my 1220 codec (onboard)


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## Rusuran (Mar 11, 2021)

GerKNG said:


> i recently bought a soundblaster x g6 and i am very happy with it.
> Soundquality has drastically improved over my 1220 codec (onboard)


What headphones do you use it with?

Edit: Sorry, forgot to check the system specs.


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 11, 2021)

If you want an actual sound card that you will use for more than just headphone use and money is no object;





						Sound Blaster AE-9
					

Achieve the best possible audio quality with the Sound Blaster AE-9, the best PCI-e Sound Card and DAC Amp for Music, Movies, and Games



					us.creative.com
				




If you want an external DAC that you will use mostly, but not exclusively, for headphone use;





						Sound Blaster X3
					

Redefine your desktop movie experience with the world’s first Super X-Fi External USB DAC and Amp sound card. Enjoy cinematic audio regardless of your preference for headphones or speakers with 7.1 discrete surround and 7.1 virtual surround. The Sound Blaster X3 also delivers high-fidelity audio...



					us.creative.com
				




If you want a sound card that has a lot of bells and whistles, including an amplified dedicated headphone jack;





						Sound Blaster Z SE
					

Our latest Sound Blaster Z SE comes with updated features designed for effortless audio enjoyment, including a myriad of pre-tuned presets like Mic EQs, Headphones EQs, as well as Gaming Profiles, all aimed to enhance your gaming and entertainment audio needs.



					us.creative.com
				




If money is tight and you are looking for just a sound card that still kicks onboard sound in the stones that you can run an 3.5mm extension cable to;





						Sound Blaster Audigy Rx
					

Experience the wonders of multi-channel surround sound and create high-quality podcasts! Hardware-accelerated EAX effects let you incorporate many types of sound effects with ease! Sound Blaster Audigy Rx features an SNR of 106dB, a 600-ohm headphone amp for studio monitoring, and a software...



					us.creative.com
				




If you're outside the USA, you'll have to find the page for your region.


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## EsaT (Mar 11, 2021)

Rusuran said:


> I have an old Gigabyte H77-DS3H mobo with Realtek ALC887 on it, and the headset I use is HyperX Cloud Alpha. The use case is gaming, listening to music and watching Youtube. I have been thinking of getting Creative Sound Blaster AE-7 to increase the sound quality. It's not that I have any problems with the current quality, barring not being able to distinguish FLAC and 320kbp/s MP3 files, but I wonder if purchasing it would improve the sound to a somewhat justifiable (pricewise) extent.


With the headphones, board and likely rest of harware you have AE-7 definitely isn't pricewise justified just for headphone use with no use for rest of outputs etc.
(also that ACM dongle is cheap production dumb device)
But Sound BlasterX G6 (at least) Creative Europe sells for 75€ in B-stock would be definite bang per buck choise for headphone use.
It has also good re-usability by working with any optical DD5.1 output device.




lexluthermiester said:


> If you want an external DAC that you will use mostly, but not exclusively, for headphone use;
> 
> 
> 
> ...


SB X3 has somewhat salty price for mid level hardware with SB Z level D/A conversion and not that much better headphone amplifier far behind that of AE-5 and G6.
It's basically paying notable extra for that customizable Super X-Fi HRTF.
Though B-stock price starts to be reasonable.

SB Z's current price is just too much as it doesn't really have headphone amplifier, but that standard old fashion pre-2010 sound card level headphone output using generic audio opamp designed primarily to drive high impedance/basically no current line level inputs.

And Audigy Rx isn't much better in bang per buck.
Without need for extra connectors might as well get Audigy Fx for actually better bang per buck.


Yeah, I'm nasty consumer... I tend to demand actually getting something back for spending my money...


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## claes (Mar 11, 2021)

Doesn’t everyone just use SPDIF to an external DAC these days?


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## TheLostSwede (Mar 11, 2021)

claes said:


> Doesn’t everyone just use SPDIF to an external DAC these days?


USB you mean?


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## claes (Mar 11, 2021)

I was gonna post “USB/SPDIF” but didn’t want to offend the purists


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## John Naylor (Mar 11, 2021)

Depends... you can buy sound cards that are of lower quality the on board sound.  If you have ALC 1220 on board, a "better" sound card is gonna cost you from $75 to $90 and up.  Asus equates their on board "Gaming" solution to the Xonar AE series


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## Rusuran (Mar 11, 2021)

EsaT said:


> With the headphones, board and likely rest of harware you have AE-7 definitely isn't pricewise justified just for headphone use with no use for rest of outputs etc.
> (also that ACM dongle is cheap production dumb device)
> But Sound BlasterX G6 (at least) Creative Europe sells for 75€ in B-stock would be definite bang per buck choise for headphone use.
> It has also good re-usability by working with any optical DD5.1 output device.
> ...


In my area prices are the following:
SB Z is €94
SB G6 is €158
SB AE-7 is €221.
I'm not really looking for best bang for buck depending on features. It's more like "My budget is AE-7 and everything below, and I want the best audio quality with my headphones." By justifiable a meant the increase in sound quality compared to other alternatives or even my current setup. For example, if SB Z gives me far better sound quality than the current onboard audio, then maybe I should buy it. Then if G6 is even better than SB Z in that only regard, then maybe I should buy G6. And if AE-7 is greatly superior to G6, then maybe buy the former.

But, if I understand correctly, none of the options will currently give me experience greater than that of a placebo.


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 12, 2021)

EsaT said:


> SB Z's current price is just too much as it doesn't really have headphone amplifier, but that standard old fashion pre-2010 sound card level headphone output using generic audio opamp designed primarily to drive high impedance/basically no current line level inputs.


Not true, the latest incarnation of the SBZ-SE(not the SBZ, visit the link I provided) does indeed have a headphone amp on the board, as advertised, and it is a quality offering for the price. That card was designed with gamers and streamers in mind while not leaving out features PC users have come to expect while at the same time being affordable.


Rusuran said:


> Then if G6 is even better than SB Z in that only regard, then maybe I should buy G6. And if AE-7 is greatly superior to G6, then maybe buy the former.


The AE-7 is a solid offering and will meet your stated needs with quality output. It too has a dedicated headphone amp and output jack, with external controls break-out unit. It's an excellent choice.


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## Rusuran (Mar 12, 2021)

Thank you everyone who shared their opinions!

Based on those, I decided that I won't be buying any kind of sound card right now, as my headphones won't benefit much from it.


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## EsaT (Mar 12, 2021)

Rusuran said:


> In my area prices are the following:
> SB Z is €94
> SB G6 is €158
> SB AE-7 is €221.
> ...


Placebo is indeed the strongest kind of "Hifi" when it comes to getting digital signal into analog and out...
But that ALC887 is among the lowest Realteks and below entry/budget level sound cards like Audigy Fx.
So genuinely hearable differences are far from excluded.

And for gaming with headphones other things than plain audio components come into play.
We hear in 3D with two ears, because shape of the head causes direction dependant changes to signal received by both ears from sound source.
Modeling that sound wave behaviour mathematically (or using dummy head for recording) can be used to create two channel audio signal, which contains those binaural cues.
And if listener's head shape is close enough to average and headphones are good enough that can give even sense of distance besides directionality.
Unless game itself has HRTF algorithm, you need separate software set or sound card with it for that.

While your headphones probably aren't the greatest, instead of usual gaming trinket production HyperXes are made by honestly trying Takstar.
With sounds sources at different directions and distances first minute/two of this is excellent quick test are headphones any good.
Besides directionality there's also feel of sounds coming from different distances with good headphones. (assuming your head shape is close to average)
While with bad headphones immersion is at "head in bucket under water" level...

Here's Creative's European shop page for B-stock G6:





						Sound BlasterX G6 (B-Stock)
					

Upgrade your game audio with the Sound BlasterX G6, the best 7.1 gaming DAC and headphone amp for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.



					en.creative.com
				



Now that's proper price level per features/performance...
Myself bought one in last spring (from Creative Nordic shop) as first external sound card after ~25 years with internal ones and except for sticker on box couldn't have told they weren't factory new.




lexluthermiester said:


> Not true, the latest incarnation of the SBZ-SE(not the SBZ, visit the link I provided) does indeed have a headphone amp on the board, as advertised, and it is a quality offering for the price. That card was designed with gamers and streamers in mind while not leaving out features PC users have come to expect while at the same time being affordable.


SE is same old Z with differences only in software feature set. (and lack of accessory mic)
Even card in pic has same old SB1500 product code.
And that max 2 Vrms output is completely mediocre and no different from most sound cards over the years.
Including those not advertising any special headphone outputs...
Because also combined line/headphone outs typically max around that into higher impedances.

For comparison SB AE-line and SBX G5/6 go up to 5 Vrms.
SB X3 again has max 2.8 Vrms output according to product page and pretty sure bet that's the best case result.


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## Chomiq (Mar 12, 2021)

The options you guys provided are ok for someone that:
- has a good hifi headphones
- plans to upgrade to one in near future

That being said, @EsaT thx for the b-stock tip, looks like you saved me about €80.

Edit.
G6 not in stock.


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## Batou1986 (Mar 12, 2021)

If your not driving high impedance headphones or an audiophile the SoundBlaster Z is a substantial upgrade over onboard no reason to spend $$$ on a dedicated DAC or high end soundcard.
Just leave all the audio enhancement stuff off, also another thing people overlook is the microphone input quality is vastly superior to onboard.


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## EsaT (Mar 14, 2021)

Chomiq said:


> Edit.
> G6 not in stock.


Once in a while they run out of stock, but most of the time it's been available.
Maybe in couple weeks they'll have enough B-stock to put it available.
My guess is that they wait for having certain number of them before doing that.
Now if only new graphics cards were as easily available...


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## delshay (Mar 14, 2021)

Understanding S/PDIF - Wikipedia


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## ogharaei (Mar 18, 2021)

My suggestion would be an external DAC/amp instead of an internal sound card. The Fulla or Hel from Schiit Audio are both great bang for the buck. Both use the AKM AK4490 for the DAC portion. If you only use dynamic headphones, the Fulla is sufficient. If planar magnetic headphones are something you are interested in, the Hel has the more powerful amp section.


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## Jetster (Mar 18, 2021)

Get a asus xonar dg or dgx. You can pick them up cheap and they sound great $30, that is if you don't want to spend $150 for DAC


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## sepheronx (Mar 18, 2021)

@lexluthermiester good suggestions bro.

I am curious if you have any other recommendations for external DAC's as I want to get one and unsure what to get.  The one you posted is a bit pricy so I am looking for something cheaper.  Any suggestions?


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## lexluthermiester (Mar 19, 2021)

sepheronx said:


> @lexluthermiester good suggestions bro.
> 
> I am curious if you have any other recommendations for external DAC's as I want to get one and unsure what to get.  The one you posted is a bit pricy so I am looking for something cheaper.  Any suggestions?


That's it for my suggestions I'm afraid. I have only used external DACs in passing as I have no need for them personally. I have seen(heard) the Creative models and think they sound very good with a good set of headphones.


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## oobymach (Mar 19, 2021)

I know you said you don't think you'll benefit from one but what does a cheap ifi cost in your area? I use the ifi nano idsd le and it's solid. The zen dac is the newer replacement for that model. Here's a link to their European distributors.








						Europe - iFi audio
					






					ifi-audio.com
				



With your headset being 13hz and up you'll very likely notice a difference from your onboard.

The zen and nano are entry level audiophile dac's and make every audio source bit perfect. I can hear the difference between it and for example the crummy Playstation4 onboard audio, it sounds all tinny and contained compared with sound from the nano which is superb. It wasn't very expensive when I bought mine but with the market being what it is they may cost more now.


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