Better than Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD

[wirednuts]

the xonar cards are awesome. they make me mad that i spent anything on any creative cards ever.

 

[QuantumPion]

I wish the X-fi HD had an HDMI out so I wouldn't have to use DTS connect (which adds a slight delay to all sounds and reduces the quality somewhat).

 

[Minerva]

The fix for that is simple. Don't use their software. Just use the default windows drivers with no processing enabled and it will output the sound bit perfect.

You can't do this simply because the "Windows" driver is actually produced and released by Realtek.

I find much better results using a dedicated recording interface on 1394. I'm pretty sure you won't too many small bands recording using onboard audio!

It's also annoying just hooked to a receiver. It usually is OK playing back 16/44.1 PCM stuff. Flash embedded sounds that often use different bit rates and especially 8 bit stuff really screw things up. The entire time the SPDIF link is 44kHz.

Using a professional recording interface (Mark Of The Unicorn) has no issues like this whatsoever and its sound is bit perfect. Of course for $1700 it should be!

 

[Continuity28]

Asus Essence STX is the best pretty much, but it's only worth it if you're driving high-end cans.

For gaming, x-fi is the way to go.

While the headphone amp in the Essence STX is good, it's still not ideal if you're truly driving high end cans. And again, if you had the money to buy high end headphones, and a great headphone amp, then you may as well get an external DAC and forget the sound card altogether... unless you want true EAX support, which leads us right back to the Titanium HD. The STX costs more than the Titanium HD, SNR and components are a tad worse, and the only real thing special about it is the headphone amp, which, again, an audiophile will probably pass over in favor of their higher end amp. I just can't see a great spot for the STX currently, ever since the Titanium HD was released. Want EAX for gaming and great quality? Titanium HD. Want the best quality and couldn't care less for EAX? External DAC. Want anything below? Onboard or even the cheaper Xonars.

Don't get me wrong, the STX was the best when it came out, but that was before the Titanium HD was released.