Does the [H] Still Review Sound Products?

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Oreoscrumbs

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It's been a long time since a product review came out. I was wondering if that has gone away. Having experienced a few of the products already reviewed, I found that my preferences and ears line up with Earl's fairly well, so he is a reviewer I trust.

I'd like to see some of the Monoprice offerings reviewed to see if they are worth the money compared to the other, mostly more expensive, products.
 
Problem is the computer industry is in such stagnation the only the best selling products get refreshed regualrly. SSDs, video card and processors. Sound cards, hard drives and memory you'll see fewer and fewer of these products get reviewed because the industry doesn't care. :(
 
Well products have to be interesting and worth it to review. What's the point of sound cards nowadays? They don't give better sound than say, direct HDMI, and reviewing cables for sound quality is naff. Hard drives all work, and who really wants a review that says exactly that - if people care about storage performance, it's about SSD's. And let's not even talk about memory. Now powerful GPU's that let us have proper 4k wide screen gaming immersion (and HDMI sound since this is an audio forum)? That's interesting.
 
Concerning games no. That market is on life support. USB external sound cards/headphones are now king and there are hundreds. Once in a while this site does something but really its not worth the time , its a minefield of choices and almost all are not gaming centered.
 
Most people in here can't tell the difference between the two. The other half isn't going to put that much money in a sound card to begin with. They are 100% happy with the realtek onboard sound card. People that are in audio is a very small group and it seems to be shrinking daily.
 
There haven't been any really good sound cards released since the Sound Blaster X-Fi PCI-e cards.

Past that everything went pretty much software based.

Other than SNR, there really isn't much to test on newer "sound cards".
 
For people who care about audio and have the funds, I'm curious why you'd get a sound card?
 
echn111 said:
For people who care about audio and have the funds, I'm curious why you'd get a sound card?
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Onboard is only capable of so much. I picked up a set of Beyerdynamic DT880 headphones because I wanted the most balanced audio possible regardless of what I was listening to, but most onboard solutions generally leave the whole sound stage sounding flat and "low rez". Picked up a ZxR and changed out the OPAMPS to something better, and now it's perfect.

Everyone is different. Everyone responds to sounds in unique ways. If you're plugging the computer into external speakers or an external amp, having a sound card isn't too important. If you want the sound card to do all the work for you, then you'll want something better than what the engineers at whatever mobo company you've purchased settled on for cost purposes.
 
still going strong with my Auzentech X-Fi Prelude...might be my last dedicated sound card though as it's a dying breed
 
Thanks for the responses. I was more interested in the headphone reviews as far as finding a well-performing set at a bargain price. I'm ok with using an outboard amp to drive them. I really like the sound of the AT m50s for music, but their gaming performance, based on the review, isn't worth the cost to me.
 
shuttleluv has a pair of senn 558s on the fs now for $77 shipped. That is a really nice headphone for gaming and music. Especially for that price.
 
I would like to see a headphones shootout. Have some popular brands rated for gaming, music, and mixture of both. Actually I bet that some of the guys here could handle it just by digging through their personal collection. Wonder if Kyle could get Amazon to donate a sample of some of their more popular headphones to the review? Less than $50. $50 - $100. $100 - $300. $300 and above.

Would be interesting to me as everyone here has been my best friend when looking for better sound gear. :)
 
Most of the audio product development moved from PCs to mobile devices a about 6-7 years ago. The last time a major multinational audio manufacturer released a flagship pair of multimedia speakers was like 2002 or 2003 (Klipsch iFi). The traditional PC audio scene is pretty dead. Now it's headphones and DACs or fancy speakers to hook up to your iphone with.
 
I'm still using my AV-710 lol
 
I gave up on dealing with stuff from Creative or anybody else. I just have a bunch of stuff from Schiit now and haven't looked back. It's been gloriously simple and the setup sounds awesome. PC specific audio gear, especially the stuff targeted toward gamers, just doesn't have anything to offer me anymore really.
 
I always used a dedicated audio system and hooked my computer up to it. I have never had "computer speakers". Even at my work I run a receiver with bookshelves; and some sennheiser buds when people are around (be polite!). I absolutely hate headphones; and it's not for quality but rather I don't like crap on my head and for some reason headphones make me overproduce earwax.

I think a lot of the audiophiles are on avsforum and headfi for this stuff. You build a nice speaker / headphone setup and then just attach your PC to it in as optimal an input as you can.
 
Didn't vista kill the sound card?

Me personally, I use a Logitech g35 headset. Being a usb headset it has its own sound card on it. So there is no point of a dedicated sound card if you're using a usb headset.
 
trick0502 said:
Didn't vista kill the sound card?
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It killed DirectSound 3D with games that used it but that was fixed via Creative ALchemy. It's still supported on the Sound Blaster Z line of cards if someone needs their EAX fix.
 
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