Sound Blaster Z thoughts?

[Tattoedsailor]

Just picked up the Fatality Recon 3d for $59 @ Best Buy. Box was really dinged up, so salesman gave me a killer deal. So far its been pretty good. The reviews on it are bit scary.. The Z edition was $40 more.. What am I missing? My speakers Logitech z506. Were not talking real high end here. I mainly bought it to go with my AD700 headsets. Drivers are pretty up to date over @ Creative (April 2013)

 

[Ben90]

If your happy, that's all that matters. With the quality of current on-board sound, I wouldn't recommend a sound-card unless you want a headphone amp and prefer something internal. My Asus Essence STX sounds the exact same as my 4 year old on-board except being able to power my 250ohm DT770's.

I'm actually using my onboard for input because the STX adds an insane amount of EMI. Keep in mind I bought the cheapest X58 board at the time of launch, the non-cutdown boards have an even better Realtec codec.

If you speakers accept S/PDIF, definitely use that as you want to have the DAC as close to the end of the change as possible. Unless that DAC is absolutely terrible for some reason.

*edit*
For giggles I plugged my current headphones into my onboard for the first time. For the most part it sounds decent except not having any lowend and not being able to ramp the volume up very loudly. For sober listening on an easier-to-drive Samson SR850s this wasn't too big of a deal. The occasional quiet youtube video or "having the whirlygigs" lead to myself wanting a headphone amp.

 

[Tattoedsailor]

Well I just picked up Z and did a comparison. Figure I would post my result fwiw. The Z beats out Recon. Much cleaner sound. Where I really noticed difference was in lows and highs. Not as much distortion. Much more polished fuller cleaner sound. The Recon going back. On a whole agree with you. On board sound is pretty damn good. I had Xonar DG in my last build. The headphone amp was awesome but that was about it. On board was just as good w/speakers. With Z card no comparison. Definitely a worthy upgrade. In games you really notice the sound separation. Music more crisp more cleaner sounding less distortion especially @ higher volumes. I'm a guitar player and I know sound is subjective to user.

 

[Remobz]

Well I just picked up Z and did a comparison. Figure I would post my result fwiw. The Z beats out Recon. Much cleaner sound. Where I really noticed difference was in lows and highs. Not as much distortion. Much more polished fuller cleaner sound. The Recon going back. On a whole agree with you. On board sound is pretty damn good. I had Xonar DG in my last build. The headphone amp was awesome but that was about it. On board was just as good w/speakers. With Z card no comparison. Definitely a worthy upgrade. In games you really notice the sound separation. Music more crisp more cleaner sounding less distortion especially @ higher volumes. I'm a guitar player and I know sound is subjective to user.

I would go for the Z series as compared to the Asus xonar series.

 

[Tattoedsailor]

I ended up taking the Z, but I got oem version. The EMI shield just fluff.. Figured I would save a couple bucks. Don't know why Creative had to put such a bright red led in the casing. Thank god they got a version with out it. The led is actually brighter then my UV led strip.