Is a sound card worth it?

[artemicion]

Is it worth buying a soundcard to go along with my speakers? I do appreciate sound quality, but if my mobo's sound (Asus A8N-SLI) is good enough, I obviously don't want to shell out extra cash.

I could also steal an Audigy 2 ZS out of a different computer in the house if necessary. Is that pretty much the best sound card I could get to go with my speakers?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

If it's just a matter of taking it out of a different computer with a crappier speaker system, then I say go for it. The Audigy2 series are great gamer cards.

 

[Zap Brannigan]

A good sound card would be worth it for you with those speakers. They are amoung the finest speakers around. If you are a straight up gamer go with an Audigy 2. If you like to listen to music and play games I highly recommend the Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 sound card that resides in my PC.

 

[jamesch]

Or the M-Audio Revo series are rather good for music.

I personally haven't noticed any real differences between the Audigy 2ZS in my comp and the el-cheapo IBM laptop onboard sound card I have...outputting to a set of Axiom M22tis. (Other than lower pre-amplified volume).

(I also haven't really noticed the difference between 44.1 and 48khz resampling that the A2 does. Is there something specific I should be looking for? meh)

As for the Klipsch speakers, they are nice, but I always found the bass to destort a bit (annoy the neighbors) when trying to turn up the sub. I don't use a sub now; I wonder if a SubDude would cut out the boominess though since I do have a set of 2.1s somewhere...in the garage.