- May 4, 2000
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So I'll preface this with a disclaimer. I'm not an audio expert, and I simply a person who enjoys listening to music on an every day basis. I do not consider myself an audiophile, I just like my music sounding really good when I listen to it. What I am going to talk about is simply my personal opinion based on my experience. You might disagree, and that's fine. Audio is extremely subjective.
Cliff note version: It would be noticeable for anyone using onboard audio earlier than the Realtek ALC1150 codec, or budget boards where they don't put a whole lot of effort into good implementation (like isolation, capacitors, and shielding).
OK, now to explain the answer to the question in the title. There is still a difference in audio quality with sound cards compared to onboard audio. After testing my various music today with the Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 I recently bought, I could notice slight differences in overall quality compared to my Realtek ALC1220 codec on my Asrock Z270 Taichi. However, I will admit it is very, very close, and the majority of people would be perfectly happy with it. On the other hand, if someone uses onboard audio based on a Realtek codec older than ALC1150 (or not properly implemented like on a budget motherboard), the difference would be definitely be noticeable.
Whenever it is time for me to buy new headphones, speakers, or even audio upgrades in my vehicles, I always take a sampling of music I listen to and see how it sounds. If it's not obvious by my username or avatar, I am a huge Pink Floyd fan. I generally listen to 2-3 of their full albums (or the individual member solo albums) every week. Since I probably have listened to them hundreds, if not thousands of times since I was a teenager, I recognize many different layers of their songs that the casual listener would never really notice. Things like Richard Wright singing background along with David Gilmour, Roger Waters' bass and other background ramblings, and many things on the album Dark Side Of The Moon, which I consider the best mastered album of all-time.
So after installing the card, I fired up songs like Echoes, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, and Money, along with live versions from David Gilmour's 'Live At Pompeii' and Roger Waters' songs like 'Sexual Revolution' and D'eja Vu' They all passed with flying colors. Then throughout the day, I also listened to many different artists like David Bowie, Bob Marley, Tool, Phil Collins, Alanis Morissette's Unplugged, Eric Clapton, Talking Heads, NIN, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains. They all sounded great, and many of the songs are rather demanding with audio quality because they tend to sound muddy on bad equipment. Things were just a little clearer and dynamic, and I was able to easily hear all the things I was looking for.
Now while the audio quality was impressive, the Creative software suit is much less so. First of all, they have made it where if you plug in headphones, the card won't automatically switch to them. You have to go into the utility and change it there. And as I found out, the headphone amplifier is much more powerful than my onboard audio, and the default the sound level goes to 100, which was so loud I literally ripped my headphones off when it happened because it hurt my ears. Now I know when I first switch it over to my headphones, I leave them off and turn down the volume level to 17%, and that's about as high as I can go without it being too loud and uncomfortable uncomfortable. Both of my headphones are easy to drive, so maybe if someone had hard to drive high-end headphones like some Sennheiser models, maybe the headphone audio wouldn't be so piercing. I didn't hook up a molex connector, so the RGB doesn't work and I can't comment on how well that feature works.
Wrapping this up, I had kind of watched this sound card since it was released last summer, debating if I would try it out. I waited to see how many driver updates Creative provided, and how well they worked for all the early adapters. What finally got me to pull the trigger was the Ebay 15% off coupon code, so I ended up paying around $120 for it. Absolutely necessary? Nope. Asrock really did a good job with the audio on the Taichi, and I honestly believe most casual music fans/gamers would be better off saving the money, or buying something else that would make a difference like a NVMe drive or a better GPU. *However, I believe people who like and listen to music like I do will notice an appreciable difference in sound quality.
Cliff note version: It would be noticeable for anyone using onboard audio earlier than the Realtek ALC1150 codec, or budget boards where they don't put a whole lot of effort into good implementation (like isolation, capacitors, and shielding).
OK, now to explain the answer to the question in the title. There is still a difference in audio quality with sound cards compared to onboard audio. After testing my various music today with the Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 I recently bought, I could notice slight differences in overall quality compared to my Realtek ALC1220 codec on my Asrock Z270 Taichi. However, I will admit it is very, very close, and the majority of people would be perfectly happy with it. On the other hand, if someone uses onboard audio based on a Realtek codec older than ALC1150 (or not properly implemented like on a budget motherboard), the difference would be definitely be noticeable.
Whenever it is time for me to buy new headphones, speakers, or even audio upgrades in my vehicles, I always take a sampling of music I listen to and see how it sounds. If it's not obvious by my username or avatar, I am a huge Pink Floyd fan. I generally listen to 2-3 of their full albums (or the individual member solo albums) every week. Since I probably have listened to them hundreds, if not thousands of times since I was a teenager, I recognize many different layers of their songs that the casual listener would never really notice. Things like Richard Wright singing background along with David Gilmour, Roger Waters' bass and other background ramblings, and many things on the album Dark Side Of The Moon, which I consider the best mastered album of all-time.
So after installing the card, I fired up songs like Echoes, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, and Money, along with live versions from David Gilmour's 'Live At Pompeii' and Roger Waters' songs like 'Sexual Revolution' and D'eja Vu' They all passed with flying colors. Then throughout the day, I also listened to many different artists like David Bowie, Bob Marley, Tool, Phil Collins, Alanis Morissette's Unplugged, Eric Clapton, Talking Heads, NIN, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains. They all sounded great, and many of the songs are rather demanding with audio quality because they tend to sound muddy on bad equipment. Things were just a little clearer and dynamic, and I was able to easily hear all the things I was looking for.
Now while the audio quality was impressive, the Creative software suit is much less so. First of all, they have made it where if you plug in headphones, the card won't automatically switch to them. You have to go into the utility and change it there. And as I found out, the headphone amplifier is much more powerful than my onboard audio, and the default the sound level goes to 100, which was so loud I literally ripped my headphones off when it happened because it hurt my ears. Now I know when I first switch it over to my headphones, I leave them off and turn down the volume level to 17%, and that's about as high as I can go without it being too loud and uncomfortable uncomfortable. Both of my headphones are easy to drive, so maybe if someone had hard to drive high-end headphones like some Sennheiser models, maybe the headphone audio wouldn't be so piercing. I didn't hook up a molex connector, so the RGB doesn't work and I can't comment on how well that feature works.
Wrapping this up, I had kind of watched this sound card since it was released last summer, debating if I would try it out. I waited to see how many driver updates Creative provided, and how well they worked for all the early adapters. What finally got me to pull the trigger was the Ebay 15% off coupon code, so I ended up paying around $120 for it. Absolutely necessary? Nope. Asrock really did a good job with the audio on the Taichi, and I honestly believe most casual music fans/gamers would be better off saving the money, or buying something else that would make a difference like a NVMe drive or a better GPU. *However, I believe people who like and listen to music like I do will notice an appreciable difference in sound quality.
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