Upgrade from X-Fi Fatal1ty?

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Raxxath

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
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It's time for me to do some upgrading, and I'm wondering if there are any new sound cards that would be significantly better than my X-Fi Fatal1ty I got years ago.

-I would be using it for gaming and music on 2.0 AV-40 speakers and Sennheiser HD 555s
-Something with less driver issues than Creative would be nice, unless they've improved with more recent cards

I'm not exactly an audiophile, so I'm looking for something more than a minuscule difference. Any recommendations would be great.
 
It should be just fine with speakers. It includes an onboard headphone amp, this isn't done at the expense of anything else. As for the price, it's not a top end card by any means but everything I've read about it says it's a great buy, and I'd be surprised if it didn't sound at least as good as the Sound Blaster you have, and if it's the same driver package that my C-Media 8788 based card uses, it's a damn sight better than Creative software. Asus has a few other cards in the Xonar line as well, the DS for about 50 and the DX for about 75, each getting a little better in terms of the analog components but the DG is the only one that has a headphone amp till you get into the Essence series but they start at $200.

Dustin
 
Raxxath said:
Is a $30 sound card really that good?

And I see that it's primarily for headphones, how is it with speakers?
Click to expand...

let me tell you something

The more expensive soundcards use a DAC with a SNR of 120db
That card a SNR of 108db

Now most music is done in 16bit where
16*6 =96db
Now that's the dynamic range
So there will be no noise added to the signal.
Only time is when the noise gets added to the signal if the dynamic range goes over the snr value. That would 24bit with the expensive card and 18bit for the 30 dollar card. You will need a massive system to hear the difference between the two. That's just the Dacs of course. What makes it less of a factor more is your complete audio chain. The source quality, speakers and room acoustics and any other devices you connect to it.
With that said the Xonar STX can pull beefier headsets that needs a amp with its headphone amp but that's bout it.
 
I wouldn't bother upgrading the soundcard to anything other than an Xonar Essence ST/X or external decent 24/96 DAC to be honest, anything below that is a sidegrade. But then again, will you tell the difference with AV40's? They're good but not great.

If i were you i'd upgrade the monitors/speakers or add a sub.
 
Rossi~ said:
I wouldn't bother upgrading the soundcard to anything other than an Xonar Essence ST/X or external decent 24/96 DAC to be honest, anything below that is a sidegrade. But then again, will you tell the difference with AV40's? They're good but not great.

If i were you i'd upgrade the monitors/speakers or add a sub.
Click to expand...

I've kinda come to this conclusion myself, too. Is the only difference between the ST and STX the interface, or is there something more?
 
Raxxath said:
I've kinda come to this conclusion myself, too. Is the only difference between the ST and STX the interface, or is there something more?
Click to expand...

The only difference other than the interface is that the ST can have the H6 analogue 5/7.1 daughter card attached.

Like so:

imageview.php
 
I agree with Rossi~ - there haven't really been any significant advances in audio technology in quite a while, so the only real reason to upgrade would be to get something that has a better amp to drive the headphones.
 
An upgrade would be an external dac/amp like the nuforce udac-2. The amp on it will be an improvement for your headphones and you want to get the source outside of the pc to improve the noise floor.

Otherwise, another soundcard will sound pretty much the same.
 
Asus Xonar Essence STX paired with Corsair HS1A Headphones is absolutely amazing !!!!
 
Spooony said:
let me tell you something

The more expensive soundcards use a DAC with a SNR of 120db
That card a SNR of 108db

Now most music is done in 16bit where
16*6 =96db
Now that's the dynamic range
So there will be no noise added to the signal.
Only time is when the noise gets added to the signal if the dynamic range goes over the snr value. That would 24bit with the expensive card and 18bit for the 30 dollar card. You will need a massive system to hear the difference between the two. That's just the Dacs of course. What makes it less of a factor more is your complete audio chain. The source quality, speakers and room acoustics and any other devices you connect to it.
With that said the Xonar STX can pull beefier headsets that needs a amp with its headphone amp but that's bout it.
Click to expand...

This seems to assume that the only important factor in choosing a sound card is the rated SNR of it's DAC(s). The DAC is only the beginning of the analog chain, there are plenty of places for signal loss and noise introduction between the Vout pins on the DAC chip and the Line/Headphone level final outputs. This is like rating a digital camera purely on the resolution of it's sensor and not taking into account the optic quality of the lenses that get the image onto the sensor. Well it's kind of the reverse but the principle is similar. There is alot more to a sound card than a DAC chip, just like there is alot more to a camera than an image sensor.
 
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