When it comes to PC audio there is a lot of
surface scratching information &
misinformation circulating. IMO PC audio is the most complex topic in the PC tech out there. It's hard to get useful information out of press release material, influencer salesman talk & nonsense posters.
Here's my personal take on it, trying to keep it short:
Firstly, the most useful information I found on "
Mad Lust Envy's Headphone Gaming Guide" over at the
Head-Fi forums. This guy does very deep reviews of headphones, AMP/DAC's & surround software. There is no BEST out there for every use case, you need to evaluate
your priorities & go from there. What's more important for you? Sound quality for music/video, best positional surround audio for competitive & imersive gaming? Do you use a mic? A high end device is useless if it doesn't work together with the other devices in the chain.
Internal Sound Cards: are nowadays inferrior compared to external AMP/DAC's. Due to their weaker OpAmp's they can't deliver the sound quality of external devices & often lack the power to drive high impedance headphones, and due to beeing internal can suffer from interferences. The only reason to get a internal sound card is IMO if you wanna experience EAX sound from older games. One of the reasons the
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD is still traded on eBay for crazy prices. Problem is those older sound cards work only properly on Win7 after Microsoft changed it's sound processing with Win8 & Creative can't or won't put out updated compatible drivers.
USB "Gaming" DAC/AMP's: are nowadays the gold standard, if gaming is priority.
Creative's Super X-Fi delivers the best surround virtualization right now. The
Sennheiser GSX 1000 has better OpAmps, but it's virtualization can't touch Creative's. Another big selling point is the integration & customization of the microphone over non gaming external DAC/AMP's. They also got enough juice to drive most higher impedance headphones.
USB "non Gaming" DAC/AMP's: have mostly better OpAmp's, resulting in better sound quality (if paired with high quality headphones). Lacks of virtualization, so it's less suited for competitive & immersive gaming. However, with some software like "Redscape" or
other software solutions like
"Waves NX", "Boom 3D", "Razer Surround", "SBX Pro Studio", "Equalizer APO" or
"Dolby Atmos" you can get virtualization on a non gaming DAC/AMP. But they are inferrior to
Creative's Super X-Fi. And there is no guarantee it will work flawlessly.
Gaming Headsets: mostly overpriced G4M3R crap with garbage audio speakers & trash sound quality (with some exeptions from headphone manufacturers like
Beyerdynamic or
Sennheiser). Overall you're better off with heaphones & a external
ModMic or a mounted microphone.
Headphones: there are 3 types of headphones,
closed, open & semi open. Each has it's own Pro's & Con's. For gaming where a big soundstage (for better positional cues) matters, open or semi open is the better choice. For listening music, closed or semi open might be better. However, closed can be a better pick if you got some noise pollution around you or don't want to bother roommates. Headphones have also very different characteristics, some are more suited for gaming & some more for music/movies. Again, check "
Mad Lust Envy's Headphone Gaming Guide", he tested & rated a lot of headphones. "
Z Reviews" does also some good reviews.
Lastly, you need to research or ask in forums if the sound card or DAC/AMP has
enough juice to drive your headphones. Tech specs do very often not translate into reality & you end up with a bad match. A lot to process, but like I said, it's a very complex topic.
I get that joke a lot
