# Sound cards and adapters



## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 17, 2011)

Im looking to replace my VIA HD 1818 onboard POS sound card with a good card for gaming and listening to Dubstep. I am also looking to find out what kind of port is on the AVAYA 4610SW IP Phone and the IASUS-CONCEPTS NT3. I think the NT3 uses a Serial Port but dont know which one, and I think the AVAYA uses RJ11 but find conflicting info and of course AVAYA wont say what type of port it is.

The NT3 is here:
http://www.iasus-concepts.com/nt/nt-3.htm

The AVAYA is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Avaya-4610SW-VoIP-phone-H-323/dp/B001L14FTE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1305664872&sr=1-1


The Other part of the sound is the headphones. Which one is the better?

http://www.amazon.com/SR850-Professional-Studio-Reference-Headphones/dp/B002LBSEQS/ref=pd_cp_MI_1

or

http://www.amazon.com/JVC-HARX700-High-Grade-Full-Size-Headphone/dp/B0013OWPV4/ref=pd_cp_MI_2

Here are the sound cards:

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-XtremeGamer-70SB073A00000/dp/B000J1F1BI/ref=tag_stp_s2f_edpp_sound_card

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-SB0886-Titanium-Fatal1ty-Professional/dp/B0018EFGTM/ref=tag_stp_s2f_edpp_sound_card

Can you recommend a better one?


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## FreedomEclipse (May 18, 2011)

If youre going to be using headphones, try getting a card with a built in headphones amp like a Xonar DX (and use the drivers in my sig because Asus's own suck elephant cock)

if you want something more premium then a DX, then theres the ST and the STX and creatives Xense


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 18, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> If youre going to be using headphones, try getting a card with a built in headphones amp like a Xonar DX (and use the drivers in my sig because Asus's own suck elephant cock)
> 
> if you want something more premium then a DX, then theres the ST and the STX and creatives Xense



Ok, so how does the Asus DX compare to the X-fi Titantium?


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## FreedomEclipse (May 18, 2011)

Well for starters. its a lot cheaper. games these days are also less reliant on EAX so there's another reason why the dx is king. it is also general consensus that the dx does indeed sound better then what creative offers. lastly. the titanium doesn't have a headphones amp.


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## FreedomEclipse (May 18, 2011)

my bad. it Is the Xonar DG that has the headphone amp not the dx


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 18, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> my bad. it Is the Xonar DG that has the headphone amp not the dx



So, the Xonar DG is the one to go after? what about those headphones?


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## FreedomEclipse (May 18, 2011)

I don't use headphones so i can't really comment. there's an ongoing topic somewhere on the forum about headsets. probably best to have a look there first for advice before starting up a new thread about it


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 18, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> I don't use headphones so i can't really comment. there's an ongoing topic somewhere on the forum about headsets. probably best to have a look there first for advice before starting up a new thread about it



how about this? Im not too much on headphone audio. Im more for improving my 5.1 surround.

http://www.amazon.com/Essence-STX-Channels-Interface-Headphone/dp/B001OV789U/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1305754739&sr=1-3


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## FreedomEclipse (May 18, 2011)

The stx is an amazing Soundcard. what speakers will you be using?


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 19, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> The stx is an amazing Soundcard. what speakers will you be using?



http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Surround-Speaker-System-Subwoofer/dp/B000JJM8XE/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1305762810&sr=1-1


Ive been using them with my onboard POS VT1818 High Definition Audio 8-Channel CODEC which sucks.
I'm getting an IASUS-CONCEPTS NT3

http://www.iasus-concepts.com/nt/nt-3.htm


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## Thatguy (May 19, 2011)

Most all modern sound cards in PC's have 20-20 deviations below 1db. Thats below what a human can percieve, and this include bottom of the line onboard sound, 20 years ago you might have ad a point. BTW in hearing studys, most people preffered jittery clocks in blind listening tests.


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## FreedomEclipse (May 19, 2011)

you could use that speakers. but remember. if you want 5.1 surround sound. the only way to do that on an stx is via digital out


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 19, 2011)

TheLaughingMan told me that essentially, the X-fi is the defacto gamer card.


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## FreedomEclipse (May 19, 2011)

personal preference really. But i wont sit here and lie to you and say that Xonar doesnt have issues when it comes to playing some EAX titles. Asus wont fix bugs with their EAX emulation for unknown reasons (my guess is just out of blatant ignorance & lazyness) the custom/modded drivers in my sig have fixed a lot of problems that have plagued Xonars since day one when it comes to EAX games. there are still some small niggles here n there but theres hardly any difference at all with games that dont need or have EAX.

I can only speak from personal experience.

I went from a 

Soundblaster 16>Genius Audio 5.1>Audigy 2 ZS>M-Audio Revolution 7.1>Xtreme Music>Titanium Fata1ity Pro>Xonar D2X>Xonar STX

and I have been more then happy with my STX. XF-i might be the 'defacto' gamer card but thats all old tech and EAX support is more or less dead, If you play lots of old games that require EAX then by all means go for the XF-i, if not then the Xonar DG, DX, D2X or ST/STX will be a great upgrade.

a XF-i Titanium Fata1ity pro or Xtreme gamer will never come close to sounding as good for music and video as a Xonar ST/STX unless you fork out to have the op amps and some caps upgraded. the Creative Titanium HD card is a pretty cool card but many reviews have stated that they liked the 'out-of-the-box' sound of the ST/STX's better then the titanium HD's. other then small niggles with EAX, both the creative cards and Xonar cards game exactly the same

Balls in your court.


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## majestic12 (May 19, 2011)

^^The Essence ST (not STX unfortunately) has the option of adding another board for analog surround out.  Sending out a digital stream from a nice card like that seems like a waste, as its Burr-Brown (Texas Instruments) 1792A DAC wouldn't be used.  For headphone use, the ST/STX are amazing cards though.

On the headphone front, I'm not familiar with the SR850, but the JVC HARX700s are well regarded cans.  For their price, they're hard to beat.

For gaming, the X-fi series IS the standard.  While I have an X-fi Elite Pro, I'd prefer an Essence ST/STX.  I'm not much of a gamer though, unless it's Battlefield.


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 19, 2011)

majestic12 said:


> ^^The Essence ST (not STX unfortunately) has the option of adding another board for analog surround out.  Sending out a digital stream from a nice card like that seems like a waste, as its Burr-Brown (Texas Instruments) 1792A DAC wouldn't be used.  For headphone use, the ST/STX are amazing cards though.
> 
> On the headphone front, I'm not familiar with the SR850, but the JVC HARX700s are well regarded cans.  For their price, they're hard to beat.
> 
> For gaming, the X-fi series IS the standard.  While I have an X-fi Elite Pro, I'd prefer an Essence ST/STX.  I'm not much of a gamer though, unless it's Battlefield.



BF3 right on!! In play alot of BC2 and that is what was concerning me about wether to go XFI or XONAR, LaughinMan said the DS would be a good fit. what do you all think? If I want to cap at 100 Dollars tops. I love my Dubstep and Jazz but love gaming too. Im prob going to snag the samsons for 39 on ebay. i liked the JVCs but the reviews all stated that the ear cups get pretty hot and can be uncomfortable. 

I plan on snagging an Iasus NT3 for my mic unless you have better ideas for Teamspeak working well with a 5.1 speaker set playing BC2. I want to use my headphones for TS Chat and my speakers for game audio. I dont want to have game audio picked up on the mic.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (May 19, 2011)

How come this hasn't been moved? It's been days...


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 19, 2011)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> How come this hasn't been moved? It's been days...



why would it be moved prey tell?

It is about sound cards and adapters. 

It also covers areas surrounding  sound too.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (May 19, 2011)

You're telling me the audio forum doesn't cover soundcards? That was like one of the leading arguments for it for eons.


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 19, 2011)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> You're telling me the audio forum doesn't cover soundcards? That was like one of the leading arguments for it for eons.



I looked and did not find the AUDIO FORUM. I found it under general hardware but not when I made the post as all I did was look under general hardware posts not the sub directory so,  by all means move it.


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## erocker (May 19, 2011)

Thread moved to the correct forum.


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## imperialreign (May 19, 2011)

Regarding the debate between X-Fi vs Xonar . . . unless you're purchasing the top-end X-Fi cards, the Xonar's do have better output sound quality . . . unless you're talking multi-channel setups, in which case it's only a _slight_ difference.  For all the other multi-channel outputs, the OPAMPs and DACs that ASUS uses are on-par in terms of output quality to those found on the X-Fi cards.  This has been what's lead to the somewhat skewed notion that the Xonar's overall sound better than the X-FIs.  They do . . . but at the same time, they don't.

The actual PCB components, though, do have an impact on how things sounds.  Some feel the Xonars have a warmer sound to them; some feel the X-Fi has a broader range . . . it's subjective.  The capacitors, OPAMPs, DAC(s), can all affect the tone of the output.

In terms of performance, though - the X-Fis rule the roost.  Even though the advantage at this point (with multi-core CPUs) is neglibile, the amount of audio stream processing latency is still much lower with the X-Fi Titanium series (and by extension, the newer Auzentech X-Fi cards).  The Titanium series are sporting the only native PCI-E APU in the industry, so there's no additional latency added to the processing stream as information is passed from the PCIE BUS to the card - with the ASUS (and anyone else using C-Media or other manufacturers DSPs), the stream must pass through a "translation" chip before it moves onto the DSPs.  I've done some testing of the CPU utilization of the Titanium cards, and across the board it's less than 0.5% - which is fast, even compared to the early non-PCIE X-Fis which were nestled into the 1%-2% range (depending on SYS specs).  

Again, CPU utilization isn't much of a concern anymore - it's the latency of information moving back and forth across the SYS BUS between DRAM and the card that has more of an affect on things both in-game, and in your media player.

At the same time, for titles that support the advanced extention calls of OAL and/or EAX, the X-Fi APU can handle an insane workload without experiencing audio clipping or degredation.  The processors are in league with early Pentium4's in terms of MIPS, and the amount of software voices the APU is capable of rendering is within the 50000+ range (unlike most DSPs which have a hard time struggling to render 10000 software voices).  Down side to all this?  Not many game titles really support EAX anymore; although many do support OAL, not many of these actually make use of the EAX 3/4/4.0HD/5/5.0HD extensions that are found within the OAL library. Blame it on lazy game developers who tend to consider in-game audio as a last minute afterthought as compared to something that should recieve the same amount of attention as the visuals do.

Anyhow, just thought I'd give a broader comparison between the cards.  Both will sound good, hands down, but if multi-media tends to be more of your thing (compared to gaming), I'd highly recommend a Xonar first.  If gaming is your main focus, I'd recommend one of the X-Fi Titanium lineup.  

If you want the *de-facto* perfect blending of the two realms, go for one of the newer Auzentech X-Fi cards.  They're a bit more pricey, but they're faster than the Xonars - although not as fast as the Creative Titaniums due to their selection of PCB components - and sound better than the Xonars as well.


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## theJesus (May 19, 2011)

Get something from HT Omega.  Go for the CLARO halo XT.  That has to be the best consumer sound-card available.


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 19, 2011)

Ok so, here is a little something different, 

Throat mic vs clip on mic for Teamspeak while gaming on the 5.1 setup?

Throat Mic:
http://www.iasus-concepts.com/nt/nt-3.htm 

Clip on:
http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-Microphone-Zm-Mic1-Sensitivity-Headphone/dp/B00029MTMQ/ref=pd_bxgy_e_text_b


I play my game audio through my speakers and my teamspeak through my cans.

I dont want my buddies to hear my game when i speak or when I dont speak. I use VOX.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (May 19, 2011)

theJesus said:


> Get something from HT Omega.  Go for the CLARO halo XT.  That has to be the best consumer sound-card available.



Bad for opengl and or gaming in general. I'd get either a Titanium HD or a Forte with this http://store.auzentech.com/lme49710ha--adaptor-p94.aspx


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## Ra97oR (May 19, 2011)

Seeing that you are going muti channel, were the Essence might be excellent, but it is only specialized in 2 channel output. As suggested a Titanium HD or a Forte, with upgrading opamps on it you will get sound close to very expensive outboard DACs, although you might need top notch speakers or headphones to notice the differences, most mass consumer product just do not have the clarity.


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 20, 2011)

Ra97oR said:


> Seeing that you are going muti channel, were the Essence might be excellent, but it is only specialized in 2 channel output. As suggested a Titanium HD or a Forte, with upgrading opamps on it you will get sound close to very expensive outboard DACs, although you might need top notch speakers or headphones to notice the differences, most mass consumer product just do not have the clarity.



can i go titanium not HD? Im trying to stay under 100 on the card


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## Ra97oR (May 20, 2011)

The standard Titanium is a very different card, I can't say they are on the same level as the Ti HD, Forte, Essences.


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 20, 2011)

Ra97oR said:


> The standard Titanium is a very different card, I can't say they are on the same level as the Ti HD, Forte, Essences.



well, if someone was selling one for 110, i would snag it. But yeah, I like to play games alot so I desire the good audio.


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## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (May 20, 2011)

I snagged these this morning ^_^

http://www.amazon.com/JVC-HARX700-High-Grade-Full-Size-Headphone/dp/B0013OWPV4/ref=pd_cp_MI_2

http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-Microphone-Zm-Mic1-Sensitivity-Headphone/dp/B00029MTMQ/ref=pd_bxgy_e_img_b


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