Advise on purchasing Soundcard for PC please

[danbeatles78]

 

[cheeseboy]

Is it just for music playback you are interested, or is it other things?

 

[danbeatles78]

haha sorry mate for some reason didn't post my question up

just bought a creative soundblaster Z soundcard for my pc, will connect this to my Yamaha RXV673 av receiver via optical cable

before I open it up and plug it in i'm having doubt as to whether this would be a decent enough upgrade over what I have at the moment

my pc is roughly year old, it was a custom made one for gaming

sound is currently coming from the hdmi cable i have running from the graphics card through to my av receiver

do you think it's worth adding the dedicated soundblaster card? will i see a significant return?

 

[cheeseboy]

if you connect the soundblaster up via optical to your amp, you're effectively bypassing the dac in the soundcard and pretty much running it how you have it now - using the dac in tha amp, so you probably won't notice any difference.

If you want to try the soundcard dac, you'll have to take the analogue out from the soundcard in to the amp. Do that, then you can compare the two and see which one you prefer.

If neither are floating your boat, you can either look at getting one of the pro soundcards such as the m-audio, presonus and the like, or go down the hifi dac route.

 

[danbeatles78]

cool mate that's what i thought

can you suggest a cable i can use to connect the soundcard to the yamaha rxv673?

 

[cheeseboy]

to be honest, as you're just testing at the moment to see if you prefer the dac in the soundcard to the amp, I'd just use any old 3.5mm to 2xphono cable. Then if you do prefer it, look at getting a better quality one. If that's the case am sure some more knowledgeable types in this area will be along to help.