Sound cards?

>>56657225
integrated audio is fine for 99% of the time, anything made by creative labs is fine, the rest is shit.

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>>56657257
Ok. I got some 8" KRK monitors for half price. After you're done shitting on me for buying anything other than Yamaha or B&W would you indicate if you'd bother getting a sound card for them.

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>>56657225

You'd need to spend around 300 bucks more. yeah those are standard, I'm looking more at JBL though currently without goin full blown audiophilia nexus

You could always pick up the STX 2 which is currently 230 bucks

then you'd need an audio interface like focusrite or something like Lexicon Alpha 2 (baby face in the higher end)

with the stx 2, I've replaced the IV with a muses 2 opamp, and you can always upgrade to burson V5 opamps, the integrate headphone amp powers 600ohm although I wouldn't bet too much on its power.

>>56657362
Focusrite interface?
Treat me like a drooling retard please. Just don't tell me you've found my baseball.

by the way, don't mind the official drivers

UNI Xonar drivers, low latency

then hook up foobar2k, convolver with metal eq, kernel streaming output, ASIO, wasapi optional, then run the output in asio and you're set

card supports dolby, if ppl had glitches games and stuff, it's because of the driver but that one works well

>>56657404

I'd recommend you try the simple, direct RCA/XLR or RCA/TS unbalanced connection first

I'm appreciating all this advice but I'm at a loss in this area of PC tech development. This all started with a local pawn shop that unloaded their horde of CDs on me (1200 or so). I ripped my favorite 200 or so to FLAC and then scored the monitors new for half off.

I then bought an Asus Xonar xyz for $70 at the time and it has coil whine out the ass.

Not looking for a spoon feed either. I've been searching various forums for advice and it's mostly spergs saying you should either hook up some $2000 dac to your computer with crystals in it or don't bother.

There is precious little reasonable advice on this stuff. I could swing $200 or so on it np.

>>56657442
Ok pros/cons of those cables? Starting over with the cables. Ok.

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Doesn't have to be this card but a controller like this appeals to me so I can swap to headphones easily during a Skype call and I like e idea of a dedicated volume knob.

Maybe something that isn't gaymer red.

I've got a Xonar Essence.
There was significant difference before/after.
Well worth the money if you spend a decent amount of time listening to music via headphones, though I'm not sure how much better some DAC would be.

I know this is off topic, but I need an amp for my new headset. Headset is AKG k7xx.

Any suggestions?

>>56657620
Try the headfi forums for a good price/performance review.

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>>56657405
I'll be honest I have more money than brains when it comes to this stuff.
I have a Xonar Essence ST and my headphones are Beyerdynamic T90's.

Does any of that other stuff really make much difference?

>>56657699
They are only 250 ohms so probably don't need an external amp. Maybe you'd benefit from one? Not sure. I'd specifically research those settings to figure out how they affect sound.

>>56657225
If I were you I'd get a pro recording interface and use the monitor outputs which most offer balanced line outs. You'll have extra mic inputs to not use but you could maybe find a use for those. Audio recording units are what a lot of recordings that 'audiophiles' listen to are made on and are made to monitor accurately so you can trust what your listening to. You could probably get a not-so-expensive and it my guess is it would sound completely fucking awesome with lots of detail on nicely made recordings.

>>56657699
Even my old X-Fi Platinum managed fault-free 5ms 24-bit.