Soundcard upgrade?

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Here's the deal. I've got a couple of Sennheiser hd595 and a Pro-Ject Head Box II. They are connected to an old Creative Soundblaster Live! soundcard, which is propably worse than many integrated soundcards manufactured today. Obviously, the headphones and the amp are much better than the soundcard.

Should I upgrade right away without hesitation or doesn't it matter much? How important is the source for the overall audio experience?

 

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know?

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Aewheros"]
Here's the deal. I've got a couple of Sennheiser hd595 and a Pro-Ject Head Box II. They are connected to an old Creative Soundblaster Live! soundcard, which is propably worse than many integrated soundcards manufactured today. Obviously, the headphones and the amp are much better than the soundcard.

Should I upgrade right away without hesitation or doesn't it matter much? How important is the source for the overall audio experience?

[/quote]Considering the quality of your headphones and seeing that you got some decent amplification, I'd say it's defenitely worth it to upgrade on the source side.There are quite a few options here, much of which has already been extensively discussed here on the forum. Best search for external dac or soundcard in the searchbar on this forum. Assuming that you've got a pc as a source, I would advice you to:
1-rip your music cds with Exact Audio Copy (takes a while to set up well, but certainly worth the effort)
2-use an EXTERNAL DAC (like the beresford) or soundcard/midi device (EMU, Tascam and the like). See http://www.stereo.de/index.php?id=197&L=0 www.thecomputeraudiophile.com or http://www.aqvox.de/Asio-USB-Audio-installation-e.htm for setup with Win XP. Action 2 will give you the quickest results without to much hassle. Using EAC and high quality files (lossless) is only an icing on the cake.

 

[Anonymous]

My Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro DAC/SOUNDCARD is very nice...but the software won't work on vista, and it uses a big external box as the headphone out and mic in...that said, I can use the remote for it 200yards down the road which is quite impressive don't you think!

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="fr0g"]Does it have a digital out?[/quote]

Not, it doesn't. So an external DAC would have to be a USB one.
I'm not too keen on getting both a new internal soundcard and an external DAC.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="fr0g"] I find the sound through my laptop -> Beresford DAC -> HD595 is extremely sweet.[/quote]

You mean the built in amp on the Beresford is good enough f”r the hd595 or do you use a standalone amp in between?

Regarding the M-Audio Audiophile 2496... is a studio purpose card really the best value for my money in that range or would I be paying extra for recording capabilities I won't be using? Are Creative and Asus cards of equivalent pricing worse in sound quality?

 

[Anonymous]

I'll propably go with the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 for now, I've had my eyes on it earlier. Thanks for your input.

 

[SpiceWeasel]

Have you thought about the Creative X-Fi sound cards ? I upgraded from an old 5.1 live sound card and the difference in sound quality is amazing. Also very good card if you listen to web radio , it can convert whatever you are listening to into 24bit sound in real time using the "24 bit crystaliser". On the bbc web radio it used to sound like the speakers where in another room, with the crystaliser turned on the sound is alot more detailed. Especially the mid and top end. Even cd's sound better with it turned on, but you can adjust the level or even turn it off in the options.

I found this card which has optical input and output http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-055-CL , it says for vista but im sure it will work on xp. There are other cards available like the top of the range one with a seperate input/output box but it is £200 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-031-CL ,looks like it has higher grade components though. I know a few people that use this card for composing music and they highly recomend it.

EDIT I found a review of my card, replaced by newer version now... http://www.custompc.co.uk/reviews/79312/creative-sound-blaster-x-fi-xtreme-music.html oh and btw custompc is the whathifi of pc's. For example when they did a mega test of psu's a while back they actually went to a research facility/test facility in Germany and tested them on their highly expensive test equipment.

 

[Anonymous]

Don't know if I'm too late to suggest an alternative, but I'd have a look at the Chaintech AV-710 and similar sound cards which are less than half the price of the M-audio 2496. All these sound cards are based on variants of VIA's Envy24 sound chip. They operate under Win XP /VISTA using standard VIA drivers and are auto recognised in LINUX which will load either the ice1712 or ice1724 ALSA sound module.

What's good about the Chaintech AV-710? It has the "secret" ingredient of a Wolfson DAC on its rear two channel output. This gives good quality stereo from a PC which can be feed directly to your amp. ( Just google on "Chaintech AV-710 + wolfson").

Maplin (not a supplier I would normally consider) sell what they call a 8 channel sound card for just £20. It's actually made by hipoint and is functionally equivalent to the Chaintech AV-710 and has both a S/PDIF input and output if you wanted to connect it to an AVI amp or to something like the Beresford DAC.

I'm using the rear 2 channel ouput of one of these Maplin sound cards connected directly to an old Rotel RA820BX3 and listen via senn 595 or Wharfedale Diamond 2 in a small room while using my PC.

Do doubt a better amp/speakers/DAC could improve things, but I'm happy with it as it is. I'd say the quality of sound reproduction is close to using the same amp/speakers with a half decent CDP.