SoundCard recommend?

[KyleGates]

Long story short, I had an XFi Fatality and now, I do not.

I have a 4.1 setup for speakers (have yet to see a need for 5.1 for gaming...and thats all I do with this PC).

I use headphones a lot as well (again, for gaming only) and I use a set of Sennheiser 598's.

One thing I was always a big fan of with the XFi (and older Creative cards), was their simulated surround effect with headphones. Sure, its simulated but I've always thought it was done well enough to actually be able to tell the difference between sounds in front of, and behind.

I run SLi (with a z87-Expert) and also dont want the card to interfere in any way. (Not that it would but I have heard there can be...issues depending on what slot is used for the soundcard).

So, what card should i go with?

 

[BrightCandle]

Either a card with CMSS like the new Soundblaster Z or a Dolby Headphone based card like the Xonar. Either will give you surround over headphones and the effect is relatively similar. I personally prefer the Xonar compared to the Soundblaster xfi I had before but either will do the job and it sounds like you get on with the surround effect from the soundblaster so I new one of those is what I would say to go for.

 

[T9D]

There is a huge sticky thread on the creative forums about static and pops with cards in SLI computers. Not sure if the new cards are having the problem though.

I bought the best ZxR card. I don't have SLI but I'm getting massive static with my amps when hooked to the RCA outs. Nothing seems to fix it. I already threw away the box so I might have to eat it on this one. That's not cheap. I don't know it just seems I hear about creative having some stupid big problem every generation. I just couldn't recommend them anymore. I'm going to have to go with another company this time. I'd probably say do the same.

 

[Ampersand38]

Another vote for Xonar and Dolby Headphone. Xonar DGX should fit in the first PCIe x1 on your mobo. If you don't want anything in the case there is also Xonar U3 which is basically the same thing, via USB.

 

[BrightCandle]

I use a Xonar D2X and I use the Xonar unified drivers rather than Asus' drivers since the main drivers have some issues. Those drivers seem to have a problem with Windows 8.1 (as by my Nvidia cards) so I am currently stuck on Windows 8 due to the driver problems. But I have never had pops or static or anything else. Soundblasters are kind of famous for having driver issues over the last decade so its a shame to hear its happening again with the Z series of cards. I had a similar problem a decade ago, perhaps I should go share what I found back then as I was the one that found the workaround back then, it might still be the same stupid problem.

Technically Dolby headphone with 7.1 to headphone conversion should produce a worse surround sound effect than CMSS, because CMSS is based on the sounds position whereas dolby headphone is estimating based on the 7.1 input. But in practice I find it gives me better surround sound than what I had on the xfi. I don't know if they have improved that with the latest cards but I sure wish they would, I want Aureal Vortex levels of surround capability on the fly!

 

[KyleGates]

There is a huge sticky thread on the creative forums about static and pops with cards in SLI computers. Not sure if the new cards are having the problem though.

Good to know. I am mainly speaking of stability issues though as some have had trouble when their GPU's and Soundcard share the same resources depending on which slot is used for said soundcard.

Still, if I gotta skip Creative thats coo, I hear ASUS makes some very nice cards.