onboard audio is ok for most things. I found that when I have the opportunity to turn up the volume on a game when the family is not around, the onboard audio just isn't loud enough. Not that onboard audio sounds bad, in fact the sound is good, just that it never got loud enough for what I wanted and that is why I got a sound card. So the opportunity came along to buy one and I got a the sound blaster Zx. Immediately after setting it up, it does have a much higher volume level. HOWEVER, what I didn't expect was just how much clearer and crisp the sound card audio is over the onboard audio. Various sounds like footsteps and movements are now much easier to pick out and hear sooner than onboard audio, even when the audio is set at about the saem volume levels for each.
I also own a sound blaster Z, but I think a USB DAC/AMP it's kind of a better fit for most people nowadays if you're not planning to record audio. It's external so it's more portable an flexible to use with multiple computers, it's not affected as much by EMI inside the pc, and there's a lot more variety. I would even say that for most people an AMP is enough (without a DAC) if the on board audio is not very bad and you're using headphones
It could be a better fit, it's really a matter of preference and/or use case scenario. My main issue is clutter and room on my desk area,andI'm certain i'm not the only one so I went with an internal card.
I own a Sound Blaster ZxR, the flagship of the Z Series plugged next to my 2x GTX 1080s. I have zero static noise coming from it. I mostly use 5.1 surround sound for movies and games rather than headphones. I mostly use headphones for music, the ZxR drives my Sennheiser HD700 very well. External DACs don't provide true multi-channel surround sound, they just give a fake software surround. The ZxR is the currently the best PC sound card I have ever listen to in terms of audio quality, well above onboard sound.
Remember back in the day where you decide to get the 2x CD-R writer ..... OR should you splurge and go with the 4x writer???? Dang ole buffer overruns.
Great video again. I'm 52 and have had many sound cards like the original Adlib, Turtle Beach Multisound Classic and Monterey, to the original Sound Blaster then the Sound Blaster Pro & Pro 2, Audigy and Audigy Z series up to now the ASUS Xonar Xense. I still use the Xonar Xense now but really purchased it cause when it came out, there was a promotion for a pair of Sennheiser PC-350 headphones. And back when I got my sound card for $274, those headphones were easily $300+. So for $274 you got a great pair of headphones. Many purchased the package just for the headphones and re-sold the sound card. But I kept them both and until my sound card dies on me, I'll probably replace it with another internal or external sound card. I'm still using the Creative Gigaworks S750, but after 15+ years, the subwoofer is starting to cause me some issues. So when it goes, I'll get another self-powerd subwoofer; I have my eyes on a JL Audio Fathom F112 and I'll toslink my sound card sounds to a separate receiver. Through-out the years I've compared my sound cards to on board sound and I've notice more bass definition and better details/articulation in my games. So I highly recommend a sound card whether your a hardcore gamer like me and using a 2.1 to 7.1 sound system. I don't stream or use my sound card for making videos or in any professional situation, but it's nice to have a more balanced, defined sound than the on board sound. Also, even though the new on board sounds you get from a motherboard has some interference protection from the other electrical components on your motherboard, a discrete sound card will eliminate more interference that it may encounter. But ofcourse, if your very critical about the sound your receiving, an external sound card option to USB will be the best way to eliminate the most possible interference you may receive. That external Creative X7 is expensive but has a great sound to it as well as the ASUS Impresario SBW-S1 PRO USB 7.1 Sound Card which has a built-in blu-ray drive. Another great sound choice and less expensive than the Creative X7. Anyways, sorry for the long comment. Many will probably ignore it. Great video again Tech Deals! Your the best reviewer on TH-cam. Keep up the good work. Happy Holidays to all!
I'm not sorry because I found what you have written to be highly educational and very informative on what to buy especially that ASUS Impresario SBW-S1 Pro USB 7.1 which I may not have heard about before. Thank you for that information.
Your quite welcome. Many see long comments and either breeze through them or ignore them entirely cause we all live in this fast paced world and most people are always in a hurry and don't take the time to slow down to smell the roses. My typing is like my mouth, I just can't stop sometimes. But I try to give my personal scenarios of my findings and try to help others with good advice. I"m shopping for a new sound card and have been comparing many options for my needs. So I decided to list a few of my findings that I may be interested in getting. I'm very pleased that you found my comment useful. I hope it helps you to make the right choice when it comes to sound cards for your special needs.
Oh my god, you have grown and prospered so much! I've been subbed since 2K subs! I am proud of you man, I remember your MC32D review. And when I said you remind me of Michael from GTA V. Missed your channel man, hope you grow even more.
One of the things I like about this channel is the learning process. Not all directions are the most optimal, but that's not the point, learning why or why not different solutions work is.
Since this video is from 2017 and sound quality is still important to most, I would love to see an update on sound cards and external audio devices. I assume sound chips on motherboards have improved further so I wonder If cards are still worth it. Thanks.
I had the Sound Blaster Z from it's release.If I may add,there is a red light under the "hood" which CANNOT be turned off,not with hardware nor with software.It is very intense and can be annoying and not coexist with RGB lighting.The included microphone is very good quality.Keep it going,man!
I bought myself a sound blaster audigy rx 7.1 and yes it's awesome.... I was sick of my sound stuttering and popping in videos and games i have an i7 9700 with 32 gb of ram and a 1660 super gtx nvidia accelerator card and welll i grew up in the late nineties and I have some nostalgia regarding sound cards and sound blasters.... I remember getting my first card that was nothing it could only let one program use it at a time finally sound blaster live came out in the late nineties and more than one program could output sounds at a time it was freakin' miraculous.
I recently bought a Sound Blaster AE-5, which is the newest version after the Sound Blaster Z and I'm pleased with my purchase. I have front and rear bookshelf speakers and a subwoofer.
I got a Sound Blaster Z by myself with a Sennheiser Headset, and its great. Sounds are awesome! Can`t wait to see the test. Btw great videos Mr TechDeals :D
Although Onboard sound may have come a long way, it still amazes me how so many people who are willing to invest a hefty sum on a 1080ti, an expensive monitor and high capacity SSDs/HDDs simply rely on that, not even contemplating the purchase a clearly better audio experience offered by a high quality DAC.
Also, I would like to say that the Sound Blaster Z's Beamforming mic is a new great feature and good selling point. In the software your can adjust the mic's; I guess you can say tunnel or cone receiving shape, to block out many outside noises so if your gaming with your desktop speakers, you can eliminate most of their sounds and any feedback they may give by narrowing the mic's focus point on your voice. Great if your using Skype or TeamSpeak or some other type of communication program. Especially if your in a gaming clan and are constantly talking to your friends while gaming together. I'm still using a desktop mic and it works good but do have to keep positioning it to avoid the sound levels of my speakers.
The onboard VS. discrete scenario can be realized when working with higher quality speakers. I remember my first purchase of the original Sound Blaster. (volume dial/ISA slot) I actually own a couple of the Audigy RX versions for higher quality audio through Logitech Z5500 5.1 and 2.1 speakers. I notice a huge difference from the onboard on my old Ivy Z77 MSI board. The quality that can be produced from Creative for sound is noticeable and richer sounding. It makes cheap speakers sound better as well. I can talk about this topic for awhile so I'll just say it can be a nice upgrade if music and content needs to sound crisp, clear, And lively. Thanks Jason for the review since i never really see anyone else talking about this subject.
I've watched a number of videos about PC sound, and even about some of the products you outlined in this video. But there's no way I was going to pass up hearing my favorite tech youtuber talk about it as well. :D
I currently have a Sound Blaster ZxR, the flagship of the Z Series plugged next to my 2x GTX 1080s. It's an amazing card. I mostly use it for multi-channel 5.1 surround sound (movies & games). The card is able to drive high end heaphones as well like my Sennheiser HD700.
I find USB dac or dac/amp combos to be really useful when doing anything in a virtual machine since you can passthrough the whole device and not be distracted by anything happening on the host system Another great advantage is physical control over volume rather than software glitching out and blasting your ears at 100%
I remember purchasing a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI Sound Card many many years ago and it was a fantastic sound card. I believe that's the last sound card I've purchased as I've been using on-board sound cards ever since. Thanks for the memory, wow that was along time ago.
I used Creative cards since about the year 2000. The last one I bought in 2012, it was the first series that were 4 core and had the shroud like the blaster z. I had it hooked up to a high quality 7.1 home theater with a 135 inch screen and projector. I was optimistic but it sounded bad so it went back to Amazon. Ever since my first Creative card I knew they had bad driver support and every card I had would pop and crackle over the speakers. The card I bought in 2012 did the same. The problem was well known through the years and you could download user tweaked drivers that helped some. I hope Creative has fixed that. After I sent that card back to Amazon I decided to buy an HT OMEGA CLARO II 7.1 card and was shocked at the quality of the sound. I enjoy watching your channel. Keep up the awesome reviews Tech Deals! I remember when you started out and were using your own money to give reviews on products. Great to see you doing so well.
I agree with Jorge Ramos. That's the reason, what I have got Creative Titanium. Generally speaking and personly me too, the X-Fi, especially the second generation of X-Fi EMU20K2 PCIe, is still great sound card. Is the last one, which can all do via HW and have own built-in RAM.
i built a home thearter pc to hook up to my home theater system I bought the sound blaster Z installed it and was blowen away,it was worth every penny.
Professional-no unnecessary and needless rambling on about personal life unless relevant to the product on this channel. ^.^ refreshing! This sets you apart from everyone else in the "review space".
Still have my old Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS with the front panel controller. Still awesome after all these years. I remember when all of the AAA games during the 2003-2008 had the sound blaster audigy commercial on them. Good times!
The Audigy RX (not the FX) Is a legacy Audigy card adapted to pcie. It has low SNR but real EAX 3 hardware, which Is useless for today games but brings two great features for music lovers: stereo direct and hardware preset equalizer. The first routes the digital audio direct to the DAC. The second adds not only frequency mods to audio, but presence with discrete resonance; the result is crisp, vibrant and interesting, specially over those flat and loud masters in contemporary music.
I love your reviews, I'll admit I have seen other peoples tech review channels and right away put a dislike on them because they try to be flashy, funny, and also they drop an ad a couple seconds into the video. That's not what I came to that channel for. You come right to the point with no flashy crap and no ads in my face and I love your reviews for that!
audigy RX and FX are 2 TOTALLY DIFFERENT CARDS. Audigy RX is a rebadged Audigy 4 which use to be a $450 card. it uses studio quality ADC's/DAC's and also features the same EMU processor as the legendary EMU 0404 soundcard. It was marketed as basically the best card for gaming at the time that could also be used for professional home recording especially the pro version with the breakout box. Audigy FX is garbage and use's a generic realtek chip and is probably not much of an upgrade over onboard. also to @Tech Deals it's pronounced au-di-gee not audi-oli-gee
Thanks for the info, do you think a Audigy FX still worth it in 2019 ? For mainly gaming, paired with sennheiser HD660s. Thank you in advance and for the comment. Audi oli gee x) mad
I use a Sound Blaster omni 5.1 on my Lenovo Y700 gaming laptop. The Y700 has no toslink only stereo so I get over USB to Sound Blaster a toslink. And the toslink goes to my Tritton Pro + 5.1 Headset. And the Sound Blaster Omni has a build in dual microphone great for chat. I played doom 1 and 2 plus Command & Conquer on my 486 with 66MHZ and Sound Blaster 16 great time.
Nice straightforward presentation. I like your videos and started watching them a month or so ago. Just subscribed today :-) Keep up the diligent work. I'm truly impressed with your work ethic! I have a Asus Xonar DGX with the built in headphone amp. It's only a $30 sound card but a popular one because of the headphone amp. I'm surprised you didn't mention the headphone amps built into these cards you're reviewing as it does make a significant difference when gaming even with just everyday earbuds (vs. nicer full sized headphones). To me that is another main reason to consider adding one to your system. If you game and your motherboard is slightly older and doesn't have a headphone amp, even these $30-$35 cards make a huge difference with the sound quality when gaming. Great video though.
I just went and watched your z370 motherboard video to compare the sound quality...and WOW! I did not expect that big of a difference. I recently bought a 5.1 surround sound bar and wireless sub combo for my PC, and I figured that the $40 soundblaster was a good investment. Thank you for making me feel like it wasn't wasted money, and for the great in depth review!
I have an $1100.00 Asus Prime X299 Deluxe II Motherboard With High end audio built in, even separate pcb layers per channel and Japanese Caps and still use a SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme on it and just got a Sound Blaster Z se today. so even with thew high-end onboard audio I would recommend buying a high-end sound blaster all day...The difference is noticeable...
I think that this might be the only guy I would ever consider doing the whole patron thing for. I realize that sounds a bit ugly as far as the other tech guys are concerned. They all do a good job, but this guy seems to actually get into his work. Some of them seem a bit jaded. I imagine its hard coming up with new content at the rate they need to in order to stay relevant. It must be a difficult full time job, and one I would not be interested in. However I do not have allot of money. I come up short at the end of the month most times. Its usually eat or pay bills, so I have to be a bit choosy in what I spend it on. So in order to balance the budget I don't overspend. I have to look into rather or not it can be a one time thing, or if its some sort of longer term payment on a credit card. But its real money in a real world and it would cost me. I did subscribe a while back though and learned by reading other comments in the crawl that allowing adds for this channel actually helps get the guy paid. And that's cool. I hate adds but love this channel and want to support it. And if a one shot infusion of cash , although small in amount, would help then it might be a good thing to do. I can't see how someone could hold down a full time job while turning out quality and quantity. So this must be his job now. And watching for free seems kinda cheating.
Agree, there is some definite, diligent hard work that goes into this and if you don't have the passion it's just not nearly as enjoyable to watch. I just subscribed today finally after watching several videos over the last couple months, but I also just subscribed to TH-cam Red which is ad free but I believe will still help support the creators (I hope). But even though TH-cam now has their "Sponsor" option I think Patreon may be the best option because they get like a 90% pass through of the money, vs. 70% with TH-cam sponsorship. So from a simple cash flow standpoint Patreon seems the best way to go.
I think that many of us audio professionals would tell you to skip the blue yeti since most XLR condenser microphones have much better components in them and also if you invest in a quality audio interface you get quality mic preamps that may give you even better sound to your productions. There will be a time when you feel the need for that or maybe not. That would be my humble advice for you and I hope you don't mind my intrusion. I'm a huge fan of your channel and have been for quite some time. Congratulations on your purchase and keep those videos and streams comming!
Get the Rode procaster if you have a way to input xlr. I have it and I love it, and its cheap compared to most broadcasting mics like the sm7b I do use it with a fethead but it works perfectly fine without it on most preamps. I just love to have my gain ultra low.
Tech Deals Yes, you could use some sound dampening. It is not a big problem but I do clearly hear the sound reflections. I would say that that would improve your sound quality the most at this moment, first do that before you spend more on any device, my advice anyway. Ignore the Blue Yeti, the Audio-Technica is better.
If you’re going to get a sound card, it should be an audio interface to use with xlr microphones, 1/4 inputs, and studio monitors. I am looking at the Focusrite Clarrett.
I would suggest getting a decent $100 audio interface with an XLR mic input, will offer a discrete preamp and better ASIO drivers than a soundcard, but the audio sounds great in the video!
My last sound card was an Creative SB Extreme X-Fi Gamer (10 years ago?). Since then I've only bought motherboards with high quality onboard sound chipsets. I've been happier, had fewer headaches, saved money and been very impressed with the gaming experience. I'll never go back to a sound card unless the industry changes.
WK Wee I had a $300 Bose multimedia system previously but now habe Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 on one having system and Logitech Z625 2.1 on the other. I've had numerous $150 to $300 headphones too. And I've got excellent hearing. I am considering a DAC just because I've read and heard a lot about them and wanted to give it a shot for giggles.
Brisys Consulting did you actually buy the DAC? How is it does it may any difference ? Which one would you recommend me to get ? I'm in US$0-200 budget. Thank you.
Creative also makes more expensive external cards, and you can get Audio Technica Usb microphones. The biggest advantage to getting a sound card will be the Equalizer, it will really make a difference if you know how to use it. You can also buy a blue tooth transmitter with optical/aux in/out to gain wireless function while maintaining sound quality.
Sound Blaster Z or Audigy Rx make sense if you use speakers with optical connectors in the first place. On Headphones / Headset you get an advantage, when you like to play / game with extremely loud volume in comparison to the built in chipset. As far as I know both soundcards come also with ASIO drivers even if the focus surely be on Gaming / Online. Therefor the "shielded version" of the Z comes with a sort of omnidirectional mic, the RX comes with two separate MIC inputs and a line input though. Also there is a bulk version of the Z that costs the same price like the RX. There is the "Audigy FX", ALSO - making it hard to tell but the Audigy FX has no EMU Soundchip but a Realtek chip like every mainboard but of course more audio connections.
This was my first build where I decided to not use a dedicated sound card but use the display port and monitor speakers instead. While yeah, sound is somewhat different but I really felt like I didn't need $200 speakers and a sound card with bloat software. I play mostly Civilzation 6, Cities skylines, American Truck Simulator as well as other business tycoon SIM games. I recently built a system based around the Ryzen 1800x and 1080ti with the Asus ROG 27" IPS monitor.
If you're wondering I built: 1800x Ryzen, 115i Corsair Hydro, 16GB Gskill Flare X @3200 (8GBx2), Corsair 760T case, Asus ROG Strix 1080ti, Asus ROG 27" IPS monitor, Corsair HX1000i PSU, 1TB NVMe Samsung 960 Evo, Asrock X370 Tachi motherboard. Things I carried over; Razer mouse, Razer Keyboard. Splurge: USB Windows 10 install (was lazy and didnt download Windows from account) corsair commander pro and the NVMe drive
As always, extremely informative as I have been contemplating these questions myself regarding getting a sound card or not. Built a low-mid end pc for my dad so he can make his videos and edit them. You’ve provided me with very reasonable answers. Appreciate the information, keep it coming :) 👍
I've been using sound cards (mostly Creative) since the 90's. Audio fidelity, quality and loudness is just better compared to the usual built-in stuff on motherboards. Now some motherboards have pretty good built-in audio, however since I already own the Sound Blaster Z, and I actually quite like it, I'm going to use it :)
My on-board sound chip alc 1150 is horrific in terms of bass.Perhaps this happens due to poor audio capacitors.I think they fixed that with rev1.1.Anyway I bought a Creative Sound Blaster Z card ,and from the first moment it blown me away.It has enough bass to send you to Mars!.I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a high quality sound at reasonable price.
I had a SB16, a SB Awe64 Gold (now in my DOS-Rig 😎) a SB128, SBLive Value, Audigy, Audigy 2, XFi fatality. Now, I disinstalled the XFi and go with onboard out on the optical @24/192 to a FX Audio 6. It's cheap but brillant quality and you 'could' swap the opamps..
Speaking about the old days. I remember when the first 3d graphics cards Came out and you had to connect it to a basic graphics card via cable. Stil have mine in a box sonwhere. 😊 Great channel. Keep it up
I must be in the minority of viewers, but you sound fine to me. You were having some problems a few days ago when you were diving under the desk from time to time to adjust something. I'm not that picky nor do i have an up-to-date computer system, so I'm probably not the best person to review how you sound. Just my meager two-cents. Love your content and the way you present yourself on the internet. I like your style....Keep up the excellent work!
The audio under the desk issues is on an older Z97 motherboard using built in sound, replacing that with the Sound Blaster Z is likely to fix those issues. :)
Streaming, the yeti mic is going to be okay if you dont want to be a casual streamer. Anything else go with a xlr mic,mixer or usb audio interface, make sure it has 48v phantom power.
I remember spending £130 on an AWE64! I have issues on my Z170 sound so i went for a usb Snowball (not the "ice", the extra £20 is well worth the difference). Added a ground isolator box to remove all the hum from the 3.5mm speaker output into which I plug my headphones and it all works great. Added a £10 amazon desk mount for the mic and I love it. The sound quality of the snowball recorded over videos/discord is great and easily matches that of the Yeti.
I have started with $20 pc speakers and sounblaster pci cards as well like two decades ago and the upgrades brought me to $3,5k "pc speakers" setup lol currently use $1300 PreSonus Sceptre S8 monitors with $200 IsoAcoustic stands, $200 Audio Technica AT2020 phantom mic into old $250 Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 usb soundcard and a $800 USB DAC/Pre-Amp/headphone amp Pioneer U-05 and modded $150+ Sennheiser HD558 and heavily modded $300+ Hifiman 4xx also have about 3k audio setup for my tv in another room. yeah once you start to mess with audio gear it gets expensive pretty fast
it's really only entry level audiophile stuff (all the components could easily be 3x-10x more expensive) but for a "gamer" it's pretty decent kinda all-round setup that works good enough for gaming/watching videos/music listening/movies/music production and just about anything else you throw at it
You're really my tech guy/voice of reason whenever I need to buy anything tech-related ever since I stumbled upon your videos! Provided that it took a few videos initially before I'm totally hooked. Cheers mate, glad to see the channel getting more popular :D You deserve it!
I'm using the beamforming mic in my Jeep as my bluetooth mic. People say I sound like I'm standing right there when I'm pumping gas and yacking on the phone at the same time. My Soundblaster Z becomes undetected everytime I shut down or when I get blue screened during my overclocking ventures. This has been an issue ever since Windows 10. Creative attempted to put out a Win 10 driver for it but many people still experienced the issue. Microsoft wont even touch this issues with a ten foot pole. To get card working again I have to shut down the comp for ATLEAST five mins with the powercord disconnected, take out the card and disconnect the 3mm cable audio cable. If I only wait four mins and thirty seconds the SoundBlaster Z will still be undetected after I reseat everything and boot back up.
Your AT shotgun mic I can guarantee you is far better than any Blue Yeti will ever be. And your right about your room, you are lucky because I'm not hearing echo in the audio. I'm not a audio engineer but I did work as a audio tech for about a decade in live event recordings.
I also have those speakers and was looking at this card. Is it any good? I use on board sound and get a lot of popping and crackling through the speakers.
There is another group of audio cards you did not mention, and most of them are external USB cards from companies like M-Audio, Focusrite, Steinberg, and Avid. They are a little higher-priced, and are geared for those who do professional sound recording. For that group of people, they are highly recommended.
For me if you have a good headphone, I suggest using an external dac and amp. Especially if you're also listen to lots of music, having a good dac-amp really help.
Well, dac and amp is a very subjective topic. Before buying any of these please consider, what head phone do you have, what genre are you listening, and what do you want your music to sound like (whether you would like it to be very precise in detail or you would want to add extra bass)? For 150 dollar i would like to recommend Geek Out: Portable USB DAC, the dynamic together with the tonal balance on this DAC-amp was one of the best i've heard at this price, but please remember it's very subjective so if possible find a store near by and try it by your own, you are the best judge
I have upgraded to a new pc and I had to notice that onboard audio is still not supported well by windows. Especially surround sound. When I connect my 5.1 logitech speakers via analog cables the right rear speaker is distorted and when I connect via optical cable I get full surround sound everywhere except in pc games that do support 5.1! I do have a sound card (soundblaster x-fi) that is 10+ years old and driver support for win10 is... well, lets say it is usable with a few bugs here and there. So I hoped that, with a modern motherboard and all the updates to windows, onboard sound was finally working, but nope. Here I am looking for a new sound card. Informative video which helped me to get back into the topic.
Thanks so much for putting this info out there. I was using USB mics and couldn't get rid of the lag / latency problem, so tried one of these upon your advice. And it got rid of the problem! My video now syncs up with the audio (talking head imagery). It felt somewhat nostalgic to buy and install a sound card after all these years, but if I use a video card instead of onboard video, it makes sense to use an audio card instead of onboard audio - especially when recording video from two separate devices at a high rate. Thanks again!
The last sound card I had was sound blaster 16 lol. Never needed a dedicated card since then really. Onboard sound has got better and better. I think the room my setup is in is just accidentally perfect for audio. I have two speakers on the desk 6 inches apart, sitting back watching TV you'd never know and would think it was a proper setup. Its strange really
Thanks for confirming of what I always believe of having sound cards. Not that I was hoping for a great sound in my new MSI Motherboard but once I started using the computer I noticed the sound sounded acceptable but anemic like, it does have bass but something is missing. Downloaded some special sound FX to make sound better but still something was missing. So I removed the old trusty Soundblaster Titaniun from the windows 7 computer and boy what a difference. The bass has that missing humph and there is plenty of volume to go around. True, the drivers available from the website for windows 10 did not work, and instead the card stopped working. So I removed and installed the ones for window 7 and so far I have no problems. Sound cards make the audio sound richer no matter what you listening to. Period.
Tech Deals A little addition: for headphones you get a better quality of sound than for speakers for the same money, generally speaking. I do agree that you shouldn't buy a good soundcard or DAC+amp for $35 speakers/headphones, first upgrade your speakers, then buy a good soundcard or DAC+amp. The $100 might be a bit conservative, I would recommend spending more on the speakers until a higher amount because I think that you get better sound that way but of course it strongly depends on the impedance curve of those speakers. Personally I use a Sennheiser HD 700, even with a simple soundcard from Soundblaster like the Soundblaster Audigy Rx (I have one which is simpler and cheaper: Soundblaster 5.1 surround pro USB) that delivers great sound. My advice, start with headphones of around $200 and such a soundcard when your budget is limited. Those headphones aren't on the same level as the high end ones but it gets relatively close to it and the difference with low end sound is astonishing. Also it is not bad to start with cheaper headphones and experience the differences between different kind of headphones and different frequency-impedance graphs, it allows you to discover what you like. For laptops the Dragonfly USB is interesting. For good headphones I recommend an external DAC+amp but then you are talking about >$400 headphones, not about $200 headphones. Schiit is a popular brand but unfortunately a bit difficult to buy. By the way, we finally know what microphone you use. You mentionend the brand before but not the model yet. Good choice in my opinion, Audio-Technica is a no nonsense company which spends its money on R&D and the product and very little on marketing, quite the opposite of a company like Apple or Beats. :) A nice sweetspot budget for microphones as far as I understand. You probably get more quality for a higher budget but with the compression of sound on TH-cam, the substandard speakers which most viewers use (not even mentioning laptopspeakers - the horror) and the soundcard which processes the input from the microphone it probably would be a waste of money to buy a $1000 microphone. :) I am not a fan of the Blue Yeti, I think it is overhyped. th-cam.com/video/_sjZJ9i_mH0/w-d-xo.html For audio it is just like with a computer, if you spend more on one component you should spend more too on the other components to keep the system balanced. That should be the takeaway message.
kamaboko1 Yes it is but you can hear his voice bouncing off the walls of his room making a slightly tinny reverb. I expect he'll upgrade his studio at some point.
You know, the Audigy Rx advertises 7.1 but the documentation depicts that just one port on the back contains the center, sub, and side surround channels. This would mean you need a 3.5mm to a three RCA jack cable. I am not sure this exists or if it does, what special magic sauce physical specification of where each wire connects to is required.
Growing up, I used the SAME soundcard I got in 1994 all they way up to 2002. That was a great, generic Packard Bell SoundBlaster compatible sound card. Those were the days.
I finally got my titanium HD to work again for 2018 it’s been on the shelf for a few years but I just plugged it in and it randomly worked after new bios update and installed Daniel K’s drivers and let me tell you coming from on the board sound huge improvement and games and movies FPS games actually sounds scary now
Yea, at your level (over 200K!) it should be all pro audio/video. What techno-gadgetry bliss there is to be had these days! A great time to be building a home studio.
Well, it ain't cheap, but, like in many industries nowadays, the technology is so good...along with the current manufacturing paradigm.... you can get professional quality results for a fraction of what it recently cost. Some real "Tech Deals"! The "high-end" computer is central to it all, of course, and you've got that covered!! Thanks for your videos.
My first sound card was an AWE64 Gold, followed by a Live! Value card. The Live! card died on me, and I replaced it with an Audigy SE. I used Audigy SE cards after that until PCI card slots disappeared from motherboards, although for one build I used onboard audio (Realtek ALC 1150 codec on a Gigabyte Z97 motherboard). I'm currently using an Audigy RX on one machine, and onboard audio on the other.
this is a very very good channel, so much useful when I need to buy something on the PC world (Mothreboards, Graphic cards, cpu and more). The speaker is very objective about everything, and the subjects are often updated. I am not english but He speak a very good english so with subtitles I can understand everything. congratulations!
wow, the difference between that msi krait video and this one is incredible. you sound so much crisper on the dedicated sound card. it blows my mind how much of a difference that makes :0
I have bought the Soundblaster Z 3 separate times for different systems entirely and they have all been plagued by random screeching electronic noise that cannot be remedied without a full system power shutdown. Just a warning for EVERYONE. I do recommend the Soundblaster Z for the Microphone utilities.
Yea once they started putting sound into the motherboards I gave up my sound blaster cards. I have creative 5.1 speakers and the built in sound on my mb seems fine.
Also creative said: "The Sound Blaster Audigy Rx supports up to 7.1 channels of audio through the analog ports. However, the sound card via the optical output only supports the stereo sound(!). In contrast, the Sound Blaster Z supports the 5.1 sound through the analog ports and also via the optical output."
onboard audio is ok for most things. I found that when I have the opportunity to turn up the volume on a game when the family is not around, the onboard audio just isn't loud enough. Not that onboard audio sounds bad, in fact the sound is good, just that it never got loud enough for what I wanted and that is why I got a sound card.
So the opportunity came along to buy one and I got a the sound blaster Zx. Immediately after setting it up, it does have a much higher volume level.
HOWEVER, what I didn't expect was just how much clearer and crisp the sound card audio is over the onboard audio. Various sounds like footsteps and movements are now much easier to pick out and hear sooner than onboard audio, even when the audio is set at about the saem volume levels for each.
I agree 100%. I have a brand new mobo with Realtek ALC1220, and it is VERY underwhelming. I need to install a soundcard pronto!
I also own a sound blaster Z, but I think a USB DAC/AMP it's kind of a better fit for most people nowadays if you're not planning to record audio. It's external so it's more portable an flexible to use with multiple computers, it's not affected as much by EMI inside the pc, and there's a lot more variety. I would even say that for most people an AMP is enough (without a DAC) if the on board audio is not very bad and you're using headphones
It could be a better fit, it's really a matter of preference and/or use case scenario. My main issue is clutter and room on my desk area,andI'm certain i'm not the only one so I went with an internal card.
Brolivia Wilde That's definitely a good point
I own a Sound Blaster ZxR, the flagship of the Z Series plugged next to my 2x GTX 1080s. I have zero static noise coming from it. I mostly use 5.1 surround sound for movies and games rather than headphones. I mostly use headphones for music, the ZxR drives my Sennheiser HD700 very well. External DACs don't provide true multi-channel surround sound, they just give a fake software surround. The ZxR is the currently the best PC sound card I have ever listen to in terms of audio quality, well above onboard sound.
Sound Blaster LIVE! - 200$
CD-R Writer - 250$
90's were LIT :D
Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32 - 400$
Sony CDU-920S Doublespeed SCSI-2 CD-Writer - 2000$
Adaptec AHA-2940 SCSI-2 Host Adapter - 600$
PlayStation Games - Free
I paid $140 for my SB Live in 1999 (and it was the platinum with the live drive)
i buy my Sound Blaster LIVE! 5.1 $20 in year 2000, still using now year 2020
I had a soundblaster live...I remember it made MIDI (haha remember that?) sound so much better
Remember back in the day where you decide to get the 2x CD-R writer ..... OR should you splurge and go with the 4x writer???? Dang ole buffer overruns.
Didnt know how badly i needed an aftermarket sound card until i got my ZxR. MAN do i love that thing. The audio fidelity is incredible.
Is the Z SE basically the same as the ZxR, just without the daughterboard and the ACM?
@@snackman94 No, the ZxR has higher quality caps and different op-amps resulting in a higher SNR rating
Great video again. I'm 52 and have had many sound cards like the original Adlib, Turtle Beach Multisound Classic and Monterey, to the original Sound Blaster then the Sound Blaster Pro & Pro 2, Audigy and Audigy Z series up to now the ASUS Xonar Xense. I still use the Xonar Xense now but really purchased it cause when it came out, there was a promotion for a pair of Sennheiser PC-350 headphones. And back when I got my sound card for $274, those headphones were easily $300+. So for $274 you got a great pair of headphones. Many purchased the package just for the headphones and re-sold the sound card. But I kept them both and until my sound card dies on me, I'll probably replace it with another internal or external sound card. I'm still using the Creative Gigaworks S750, but after 15+ years, the subwoofer is starting to cause me some issues. So when it goes, I'll get another self-powerd subwoofer; I have my eyes on a JL Audio Fathom F112 and I'll toslink my sound card sounds to a separate receiver. Through-out the years I've compared my sound cards to on board sound and I've notice more bass definition and better details/articulation in my games. So I highly recommend a sound card whether your a hardcore gamer like me and using a 2.1 to 7.1 sound system. I don't stream or use my sound card for making videos or in any professional situation, but it's nice to have a more balanced, defined sound than the on board sound. Also, even though the new on board sounds you get from a motherboard has some interference protection from the other electrical components on your motherboard, a discrete sound card will eliminate more interference that it may encounter. But ofcourse, if your very critical about the sound your receiving, an external sound card option to USB will be the best way to eliminate the most possible interference you may receive. That external Creative X7 is expensive but has a great sound to it as well as the ASUS Impresario SBW-S1 PRO USB 7.1 Sound Card which has a built-in blu-ray drive. Another great sound choice and less expensive than the Creative X7. Anyways, sorry for the long comment. Many will probably ignore it. Great video again Tech Deals! Your the best reviewer on TH-cam. Keep up the good work. Happy Holidays to all!
I'm not sorry because I found what you have written to be highly educational and very informative on what to buy especially that ASUS Impresario SBW-S1 Pro USB 7.1 which I may not have heard about before. Thank you for that information.
Your quite welcome. Many see long comments and either breeze through them or ignore them entirely cause we all live in this fast paced world and most people are always in a hurry and don't take the time to slow down to smell the roses. My typing is like my mouth, I just can't stop sometimes. But I try to give my personal scenarios of my findings and try to help others with good advice. I"m shopping for a new sound card and have been comparing many options for my needs. So I decided to list a few of my findings that I may be interested in getting. I'm very pleased that you found my comment useful. I hope it helps you to make the right choice when it comes to sound cards for your special needs.
Oh my god, you have grown and prospered so much! I've been subbed since 2K subs! I am proud of you man, I remember your MC32D review. And when I said you remind me of Michael from GTA V. Missed your channel man, hope you grow even more.
One of the things I like about this channel is the learning process. Not all directions are the most optimal, but that's not the point, learning why or why not different solutions work is.
Since this video is from 2017 and sound quality is still important to most, I would love to see an update on sound cards and external audio devices. I assume sound chips on motherboards have improved further so I wonder If cards are still worth it. Thanks.
I'd like to know also. Also to see if the fps gain is still a thing when using a souncard.
Setting up Sound Blaster card to play X-wing/TIE on a 386/486... good old days!
*Cry* The memories! TIE Fighter is one of my top 5 all time favorite games ever!
Still relevant 3 years later. Cheers mate.
Ah, sound blaster... Now good memories are flooding inside my head..
Ohhhhh Yeah!!! Finally someone does this professionally!
I had the Sound Blaster Z from it's release.If I may add,there is a red light under the "hood" which CANNOT be turned off,not with hardware nor with software.It is very intense and can be annoying and not coexist with RGB lighting.The included microphone is very good quality.Keep it going,man!
I bought myself a sound blaster audigy rx 7.1 and yes it's awesome.... I was sick of my sound stuttering and popping in videos and games i have an i7 9700 with 32 gb of ram and a 1660 super gtx nvidia accelerator card and welll i grew up in the late nineties and I have some nostalgia regarding sound cards and sound blasters.... I remember getting my first card that was nothing it could only let one program use it at a time finally sound blaster live came out in the late nineties and more than one program could output sounds at a time it was freakin' miraculous.
I recently bought a Sound Blaster AE-5, which is the newest version after the Sound Blaster Z and I'm pleased with my purchase. I have front and rear bookshelf speakers and a subwoofer.
Hi, Sir~ Do you think you can do an updated review on the relevancy of soundcards in 2023? Thank you~
I got a Sound Blaster Z by myself with a Sennheiser Headset, and its great. Sounds are awesome!
Can`t wait to see the test.
Btw great videos Mr TechDeals :D
Bro.is sound blaster Z better?
Although Onboard sound may have come a long way, it still amazes me how so many people who are willing to invest a hefty sum on a 1080ti, an expensive monitor and high capacity SSDs/HDDs simply rely on that, not even contemplating the purchase a clearly better audio experience offered by a high quality DAC.
Also had a Sound Blaster 16 loooong ago, good times! :)
Also, I would like to say that the Sound Blaster Z's Beamforming mic is a new great feature and good selling point. In the software your can adjust the mic's; I guess you can say tunnel or cone receiving shape, to block out many outside noises so if your gaming with your desktop speakers, you can eliminate most of their sounds and any feedback they may give by narrowing the mic's focus point on your voice. Great if your using Skype or TeamSpeak or some other type of communication program. Especially if your in a gaming clan and are constantly talking to your friends while gaming together. I'm still using a desktop mic and it works good but do have to keep positioning it to avoid the sound levels of my speakers.
The onboard VS. discrete scenario can be realized when working with higher quality speakers. I remember my first purchase of the original Sound Blaster. (volume dial/ISA slot) I actually own a couple of the Audigy RX versions for higher quality audio through Logitech Z5500 5.1 and 2.1 speakers. I notice a huge difference from the onboard on my old Ivy Z77 MSI board. The quality that can be produced from Creative for sound is noticeable and richer sounding. It makes cheap speakers sound better as well. I can talk about this topic for awhile so I'll just say it can be a nice upgrade if music and content needs to sound crisp, clear, And lively. Thanks Jason for the review since i never really see anyone else talking about this subject.
The audio is much improved from previous videos, well worth the investment!
Your current sound is perfectly fine, I hear you clearly and that's what really matters.
I just bought an Creative Audigy rx 7.1 Surround. It might arrive to me in 30.03.2019. I'm really excited to try it along side with my new PC.
how is it ? is it good ?
I've watched a number of videos about PC sound, and even about some of the products you outlined in this video. But there's no way I was going to pass up hearing my favorite tech youtuber talk about it as well. :D
You should update this blog for 2019 and include the EVGA NU Audio vs other sound cards or DAC's.
I currently have a Sound Blaster ZxR, the flagship of the Z Series plugged next to my 2x GTX 1080s. It's an amazing card. I mostly use it for multi-channel 5.1 surround sound (movies & games). The card is able to drive high end heaphones as well like my Sennheiser HD700.
I find USB dac or dac/amp combos to be really useful when doing anything in a virtual machine since you can passthrough the whole device and not be distracted by anything happening on the host system
Another great advantage is physical control over volume rather than software glitching out and blasting your ears at 100%
I remember purchasing a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI Sound Card many many years ago and it was a fantastic sound card. I believe that's the last sound card I've purchased as I've been using on-board sound cards ever since. Thanks for the memory, wow that was along time ago.
I used Creative cards since about the year 2000. The last one I bought in 2012, it was the first series that were 4 core and had the shroud like the blaster z. I had it hooked up to a high quality 7.1 home theater with a 135 inch screen and projector. I was optimistic but it sounded bad so it went back to Amazon. Ever since my first Creative card I knew they had bad driver support and every card I had would pop and crackle over the speakers. The card I bought in 2012 did the same. The problem was well known through the years and you could download user tweaked drivers that helped some. I hope Creative has fixed that. After I sent that card back to Amazon I decided to buy an HT OMEGA CLARO II 7.1 card and was shocked at the quality of the sound. I enjoy watching your channel. Keep up the awesome reviews Tech Deals! I remember when you started out and were using your own money to give reviews on products. Great to see you doing so well.
I agree with Jorge Ramos. That's the reason, what I have got Creative Titanium. Generally speaking and personly me too, the X-Fi, especially the second generation of X-Fi EMU20K2 PCIe, is still great sound card. Is the last one, which can all do via HW and have own built-in RAM.
I didnt know Soundblaster was still around? Back in the day I had one in my 286 heehee 🐢😄
i built a home thearter pc to hook up to my home theater system I bought the sound blaster Z installed it and was blowen away,it was worth every penny.
Professional-no unnecessary and needless rambling on about personal life unless relevant to the product on this channel.
^.^ refreshing!
This sets you apart from everyone else in the "review space".
Your audio on this video is excellent already. It is clear and has little echo and sounds good enough on my earbuds.
My SBZ has served me well for the last 2.5 years. Good investment especially for the price I got it for on black Friday.
I've recently moved to external amp/DAC for my headphone's audio. Very enjoyable experience
Still have my old Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS with the front panel controller. Still awesome after all these years.
I remember when all of the AAA games during the 2003-2008 had the sound blaster audigy commercial on them. Good times!
The Audigy RX (not the FX) Is a legacy Audigy card adapted to pcie. It has low SNR but real EAX 3 hardware, which Is useless for today games but brings two great features for music lovers: stereo direct and hardware preset equalizer. The first routes the digital audio direct to the DAC. The second adds not only frequency mods to audio, but presence with discrete resonance; the result is crisp, vibrant and interesting, specially over those flat and loud masters in contemporary music.
Nice raytracing effects on the table 👌
I love your reviews, I'll admit I have seen other peoples tech review channels and right away put a dislike on them because they try to be flashy, funny, and also they drop an ad a couple seconds into the video. That's not what I came to that channel for. You come right to the point with no flashy crap and no ads in my face and I love your reviews for that!
audigy RX and FX are 2 TOTALLY DIFFERENT CARDS. Audigy RX is a rebadged Audigy 4 which use to be a $450 card. it uses studio quality ADC's/DAC's and also features the same EMU processor as the legendary EMU 0404 soundcard. It was marketed as basically the best card for gaming at the time that could also be used for professional home recording especially the pro version with the breakout box. Audigy FX is garbage and use's a generic realtek chip and is probably not much of an upgrade over onboard. also to @Tech Deals it's pronounced au-di-gee not audi-oli-gee
Thanks for the info, do you think a Audigy FX still worth it in 2019 ? For mainly gaming, paired with sennheiser HD660s. Thank you in advance and for the comment. Audi oli gee x) mad
I use a Sound Blaster omni 5.1 on my Lenovo Y700 gaming laptop. The Y700 has no toslink only stereo so I get over USB to Sound Blaster a toslink. And the toslink goes to my Tritton Pro + 5.1 Headset. And the Sound Blaster Omni has a build in dual microphone great for chat. I played doom 1 and 2 plus Command & Conquer on my 486 with 66MHZ and Sound Blaster 16 great time.
The most reliable and informative source in the tube. You deserve all of your success ! Thx
Nice straightforward presentation. I like your videos and started watching them a month or so ago. Just subscribed today :-) Keep up the diligent work. I'm truly impressed with your work ethic! I have a Asus Xonar DGX with the built in headphone amp. It's only a $30 sound card but a popular one because of the headphone amp. I'm surprised you didn't mention the headphone amps built into these cards you're reviewing as it does make a significant difference when gaming even with just everyday earbuds (vs. nicer full sized headphones). To me that is another main reason to consider adding one to your system. If you game and your motherboard is slightly older and doesn't have a headphone amp, even these $30-$35 cards make a huge difference with the sound quality when gaming. Great video though.
I just went and watched your z370 motherboard video to compare the sound quality...and WOW! I did not expect that big of a difference. I recently bought a 5.1 surround sound bar and wireless sub combo for my PC, and I figured that the $40 soundblaster was a good investment. Thank you for making me feel like it wasn't wasted money, and for the great in depth review!
I have an $1100.00 Asus Prime X299 Deluxe II Motherboard With High end audio built in, even separate pcb layers per channel and Japanese Caps and still use a SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme on it and just got a Sound Blaster Z se today. so even with thew high-end onboard audio I would recommend buying a high-end sound blaster all day...The difference is noticeable...
I don't think I've ever had a dedicated sound card, always just used the on board audio until recently when I swapped to a USB DAC :)
Jarrod'sTech How is it? You notice a difference? Also which USB DAC did you pick?
I think that this might be the only guy I would ever consider doing the whole patron thing for.
I realize that sounds a bit ugly as far as the other tech guys are concerned. They all do a good job, but this guy seems to actually get into his work. Some of them seem a bit jaded.
I imagine its hard coming up with new content at the rate they need to in order to stay relevant.
It must be a difficult full time job, and one I would not be interested in.
However I do not have allot of money. I come up short at the end of the month most times.
Its usually eat or pay bills, so I have to be a bit choosy in what I spend it on.
So in order to balance the budget I don't overspend.
I have to look into rather or not it can be a one time thing, or if its some sort of longer term payment on a credit card.
But its real money in a real world and it would cost me.
I did subscribe a while back though and learned by reading other comments in the crawl that allowing adds for this channel actually helps get the guy paid.
And that's cool. I hate adds but love this channel and want to support it.
And if a one shot infusion of cash , although small in amount, would help then it might be a good thing to do.
I can't see how someone could hold down a full time job while turning out quality and quantity.
So this must be his job now. And watching for free seems kinda cheating.
Mr.Mudcatslim keep ur head up and best of luck 🍀
Agree, there is some definite, diligent hard work that goes into this and if you don't have the passion it's just not nearly as enjoyable to watch. I just subscribed today finally after watching several videos over the last couple months, but I also just subscribed to TH-cam Red which is ad free but I believe will still help support the creators (I hope). But even though TH-cam now has their "Sponsor" option I think Patreon may be the best option because they get like a 90% pass through of the money, vs. 70% with TH-cam sponsorship. So from a simple cash flow standpoint Patreon seems the best way to go.
hey bro if u want you could be a member for 2 dollars a month if you want to support him
I think that many of us audio professionals would tell you to skip the blue yeti since most XLR condenser microphones have much better components in them and also if you invest in a quality audio interface you get quality mic preamps that may give you even better sound to your productions. There will be a time when you feel the need for that or maybe not. That would be my humble advice for you and I hope you don't mind my intrusion. I'm a huge fan of your channel and have been for quite some time. Congratulations on your purchase and keep those videos and streams comming!
Thanks for the feedback...
Get the Rode procaster if you have a way to input xlr. I have it and I love it, and its cheap compared to most broadcasting mics like the sm7b
I do use it with a fethead but it works perfectly fine without it on most preamps. I just love to have my gain ultra low.
sound cards also takes the stress out of the processor and gives you a tiny bit more fps. 3-5fps.
Tech Deals
Yes, you could use some sound dampening. It is not a big problem but I do clearly hear the sound reflections. I would say that that would improve your sound quality the most at this moment, first do that before you spend more on any device, my advice anyway. Ignore the Blue Yeti, the Audio-Technica is better.
If you’re going to get a sound card, it should be an audio interface to use with xlr microphones, 1/4 inputs, and studio monitors. I am looking at the Focusrite Clarrett.
Savoir Faire
Did you get the Clarrett? I went for Audient.
I would suggest getting a decent $100 audio interface with an XLR mic input, will offer a discrete preamp and better ASIO drivers than a soundcard, but the audio sounds great in the video!
My last sound card was an Creative SB Extreme X-Fi Gamer (10 years ago?). Since then I've only bought motherboards with high quality onboard sound chipsets. I've been happier, had fewer headaches, saved money and been very impressed with the gaming experience. I'll never go back to a sound card unless the industry changes.
Brisys Consulting
Same. Except I also use a usb interface. My motherboard has a burr brown op amp, which I should use.
wonder what's the speaker system in use. it makes a lot of different.
WK Wee I had a $300 Bose multimedia system previously but now habe Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 on one having system and Logitech Z625 2.1 on the other. I've had numerous $150 to $300 headphones too. And I've got excellent hearing. I am considering a DAC just because I've read and heard a lot about them and wanted to give it a shot for giggles.
Sorry for the misspellings, I'm responding while riding as a passenger on a bad road. LOL
Brisys Consulting did you actually buy the DAC? How is it does it may any difference ? Which one would you recommend me to get ? I'm in US$0-200 budget. Thank you.
Only watched 3 min inn and I love the way you explain the options in details.
Creative also makes more expensive external cards, and you can get Audio Technica Usb microphones.
The biggest advantage to getting a sound card will be the Equalizer, it will really make a difference if you know how to use it. You can also buy a blue tooth transmitter with optical/aux in/out to gain wireless function while maintaining sound quality.
Sound Blaster Z or Audigy Rx make sense if you use speakers with optical connectors in the first place. On Headphones / Headset you get an advantage, when you like to play / game with extremely loud volume in comparison to the built in chipset. As far as I know both soundcards come also with ASIO drivers even if the focus surely be on Gaming / Online. Therefor the "shielded version" of the Z comes with a sort of omnidirectional mic, the RX comes with two separate MIC inputs and a line input though. Also there is a bulk version of the Z that costs the same price like the RX. There is the "Audigy FX", ALSO - making it hard to tell but the Audigy FX has no EMU Soundchip but a Realtek chip like every mainboard but of course more audio connections.
I'll definitely be getting the SoundBlaster card. I'm an audiophile and have high end speakers. I must have good quality sound.
This was my first build where I decided to not use a dedicated sound card but use the display port and monitor speakers instead. While yeah, sound is somewhat different but I really felt like I didn't need $200 speakers and a sound card with bloat software. I play mostly Civilzation 6, Cities skylines, American Truck Simulator as well as other business tycoon SIM games. I recently built a system based around the Ryzen 1800x and 1080ti with the Asus ROG 27" IPS monitor.
By the way, Thanks to Tech Deals, I watched his videos before I built my system. His videos are a great help!
If you're wondering I built: 1800x Ryzen, 115i Corsair Hydro, 16GB Gskill Flare X @3200 (8GBx2), Corsair 760T case, Asus ROG Strix 1080ti, Asus ROG 27" IPS monitor, Corsair HX1000i PSU, 1TB NVMe Samsung 960 Evo, Asrock X370 Tachi motherboard. Things I carried over; Razer mouse, Razer Keyboard. Splurge: USB Windows 10 install (was lazy and didnt download Windows from account) corsair commander pro and the NVMe drive
As always, extremely informative as I have been contemplating these questions myself regarding getting a sound card or not. Built a low-mid end pc for my dad so he can make his videos and edit them. You’ve provided me with very reasonable answers. Appreciate the information, keep it coming :) 👍
I've been using sound cards (mostly Creative) since the 90's. Audio fidelity, quality and loudness is just better compared to the usual built-in stuff on motherboards. Now some motherboards have pretty good built-in audio, however since I already own the Sound Blaster Z, and I actually quite like it, I'm going to use it :)
My on-board sound chip alc 1150 is horrific in terms of bass.Perhaps this happens due to poor audio capacitors.I think they fixed that with rev1.1.Anyway I bought a Creative Sound Blaster Z card ,and from the first moment it blown me away.It has enough bass to send you to Mars!.I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a high quality sound at reasonable price.
I had a SB16, a SB Awe64 Gold (now in my DOS-Rig 😎) a SB128, SBLive Value, Audigy, Audigy 2, XFi fatality. Now, I disinstalled the XFi and go with onboard out on the optical @24/192 to a FX Audio 6. It's cheap but brillant quality and you 'could' swap the opamps..
Speaking about the old days. I remember when the first 3d graphics cards Came out and you had to connect it to a basic graphics card via cable. Stil have mine in a box sonwhere. 😊 Great channel. Keep it up
I must be in the minority of viewers, but you sound fine to me. You were having some problems a few days ago when you were diving under the desk from time to time to adjust something. I'm not that picky nor do i have an up-to-date computer system, so I'm probably not the best person to review how you sound. Just my meager two-cents. Love your content and the way you present yourself on the internet. I like your style....Keep up the excellent work!
The audio under the desk issues is on an older Z97 motherboard using built in sound, replacing that with the Sound Blaster Z is likely to fix those issues. :)
Streaming, the yeti mic is going to be okay if you dont want to be a casual streamer. Anything else go with a xlr mic,mixer or usb audio interface, make sure it has 48v phantom power.
I remember spending £130 on an AWE64! I have issues on my Z170 sound so i went for a usb Snowball (not the "ice", the extra £20 is well worth the difference). Added a ground isolator box to remove all the hum from the 3.5mm speaker output into which I plug my headphones and it all works great. Added a £10 amazon desk mount for the mic and I love it. The sound quality of the snowball recorded over videos/discord is great and easily matches that of the Yeti.
I have started with $20 pc speakers and sounblaster pci cards as well like two decades ago and the upgrades brought me to $3,5k "pc speakers" setup lol
currently use $1300 PreSonus Sceptre S8 monitors with $200 IsoAcoustic stands, $200 Audio Technica AT2020 phantom mic into old $250 Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 usb soundcard and a $800 USB DAC/Pre-Amp/headphone amp Pioneer U-05 and modded $150+ Sennheiser HD558 and heavily modded $300+ Hifiman 4xx
also have about 3k audio setup for my tv in another room.
yeah once you start to mess with audio gear it gets expensive pretty fast
Wow, sounds like you got seriously addicted. I bet it sounds amazing though. Sounds like some pretty serious equipment.
it's really only entry level audiophile stuff (all the components could easily be 3x-10x more expensive) but for a "gamer" it's pretty decent
kinda all-round setup that works good enough for gaming/watching videos/music listening/movies/music production and just about anything else you throw at it
You're really my tech guy/voice of reason whenever I need to buy anything tech-related ever since I stumbled upon your videos! Provided that it took a few videos initially before I'm totally hooked.
Cheers mate, glad to see the channel getting more popular :D You deserve it!
I'm using the beamforming mic in my Jeep as my bluetooth mic. People say I sound like I'm standing right there when I'm pumping gas and yacking on the phone at the same time. My Soundblaster Z becomes undetected everytime I shut down or when I get blue screened during my overclocking ventures. This has been an issue ever since Windows 10. Creative attempted to put out a Win 10 driver for it but many people still experienced the issue. Microsoft wont even touch this issues with a ten foot pole.
To get card working again I have to shut down the comp for ATLEAST five mins with the powercord disconnected, take out the card and disconnect the 3mm cable audio cable. If I only wait four mins and thirty seconds the SoundBlaster Z will still be undetected after I reseat everything and boot back up.
This channel really covers all aspects of PC. Great video!
Your AT shotgun mic I can guarantee you is far better than any Blue Yeti will ever be. And your right about your room, you are lucky because I'm not hearing echo in the audio. I'm not a audio engineer but I did work as a audio tech for about a decade in live event recordings.
Ordered my Soundblaster Z today. I'm using a Logitech Z906 so i'm hoping this will improve the audio quality.
Thank you for the video BTW :)
I also have those speakers and was looking at this card. Is it any good? I use on board sound and get a lot of popping and crackling through the speakers.
Very detailed reviews. If this channel reviews a feature or product, I don't need to watch a second video.
There is another group of audio cards you did not mention, and most of them are external USB cards from companies like M-Audio, Focusrite, Steinberg, and Avid. They are a little higher-priced, and are geared for those who do professional sound recording. For that group of people, they are highly recommended.
For me if you have a good headphone, I suggest using an external dac and amp. Especially if you're also listen to lots of music, having a good dac-amp really help.
What would you suggest for around 150 bucks?
Well, dac and amp is a very subjective topic. Before buying any of these please consider, what head phone do you have, what genre are you listening, and what do you want your music to sound like (whether you would like it to be very precise in detail or you would want to add extra bass)?
For 150 dollar i would like to recommend Geek Out: Portable USB DAC, the dynamic together with the tonal balance on this DAC-amp was one of the best i've heard at this price, but please remember it's very subjective so if possible find a store near by and try it by your own, you are the best judge
Thank you, i will try it.
I have upgraded to a new pc and I had to notice that onboard audio is still not supported well by windows. Especially surround sound. When I connect my 5.1 logitech speakers via analog cables the right rear speaker is distorted and when I connect via optical cable I get full surround sound everywhere except in pc games that do support 5.1!
I do have a sound card (soundblaster x-fi) that is 10+ years old and driver support for win10 is... well, lets say it is usable with a few bugs here and there. So I hoped that, with a modern motherboard and all the updates to windows, onboard sound was finally working, but nope. Here I am looking for a new sound card. Informative video which helped me to get back into the topic.
Thanks so much for putting this info out there. I was using USB mics and couldn't get rid of the lag / latency problem, so tried one of these upon your advice. And it got rid of the problem! My video now syncs up with the audio (talking head imagery). It felt somewhat nostalgic to buy and install a sound card after all these years, but if I use a video card instead of onboard video, it makes sense to use an audio card instead of onboard audio - especially when recording video from two separate devices at a high rate. Thanks again!
*EXTREME HYPE FROM THE NEWER MIC*
Finally! Tech Deals gets a new mic! Or has improved sound quality.
THANK GOODNESS!
The last sound card I had was sound blaster 16 lol. Never needed a dedicated card since then really. Onboard sound has got better and better. I think the room my setup is in is just accidentally perfect for audio. I have two speakers on the desk 6 inches apart, sitting back watching TV you'd never know and would think it was a proper setup. Its strange really
I'm a pro sound guy. Your room sounds fine. If you want foam for the look, have fun. You don't need it for echo.
Agree, I didn't hear any need for foam or sound treatments.
I have hade my own pro studio for 8 years now and the right foam and bass taps do wonders, just place it where it is needed, then it is fantastic! :)
what is a good headphone amplifier for PS4 Headset?
I love how quick you talk
Thanks for confirming of what I always believe of having sound cards. Not that I was hoping for a great sound in my new MSI Motherboard but once I started using the computer I noticed the sound sounded acceptable but anemic like, it does have bass but something is missing. Downloaded some special sound FX to make sound better but still something was missing. So I removed the old trusty Soundblaster Titaniun from the windows 7 computer and boy what a difference. The bass has that missing humph and there is plenty of volume to go around. True, the drivers available from the website for windows 10 did not work, and instead the card stopped working. So I removed and installed the ones for window 7 and so far I have no problems. Sound cards make the audio sound richer no matter what you listening to. Period.
Tech Deals
A little addition: for headphones you get a better quality of sound than for speakers for the same money, generally speaking. I do agree that you shouldn't buy a good soundcard or DAC+amp for $35 speakers/headphones, first upgrade your speakers, then buy a good soundcard or DAC+amp. The $100 might be a bit conservative, I would recommend spending more on the speakers until a higher amount because I think that you get better sound that way but of course it strongly depends on the impedance curve of those speakers. Personally I use a Sennheiser HD 700, even with a simple soundcard from Soundblaster like the Soundblaster Audigy Rx (I have one which is simpler and cheaper: Soundblaster 5.1 surround pro USB) that delivers great sound. My advice, start with headphones of around $200 and such a soundcard when your budget is limited. Those headphones aren't on the same level as the high end ones but it gets relatively close to it and the difference with low end sound is astonishing. Also it is not bad to start with cheaper headphones and experience the differences between different kind of headphones and different frequency-impedance graphs, it allows you to discover what you like.
For laptops the Dragonfly USB is interesting. For good headphones I recommend an external DAC+amp but then you are talking about >$400 headphones, not about $200 headphones. Schiit is a popular brand but unfortunately a bit difficult to buy.
By the way, we finally know what microphone you use. You mentionend the brand before but not the model yet. Good choice in my opinion, Audio-Technica is a no nonsense company which spends its money on R&D and the product and very little on marketing, quite the opposite of a company like Apple or Beats. :)
A nice sweetspot budget for microphones as far as I understand. You probably get more quality for a higher budget but with the compression of sound on TH-cam, the substandard speakers which most viewers use (not even mentioning laptopspeakers - the horror) and the soundcard which processes the input from the microphone it probably would be a waste of money to buy a $1000 microphone. :)
I am not a fan of the Blue Yeti, I think it is overhyped.
th-cam.com/video/_sjZJ9i_mH0/w-d-xo.html
For audio it is just like with a computer, if you spend more on one component you should spend more too on the other components to keep the system balanced. That should be the takeaway message.
I think the sound on this video is very good.
kamaboko1 Yes it is but you can hear his voice bouncing off the walls of his room making a slightly tinny reverb. I expect he'll upgrade his studio at some point.
You know, the Audigy Rx advertises 7.1 but the documentation depicts that just one port on the back contains the center, sub, and side surround channels. This would mean you need a 3.5mm to a three RCA jack cable. I am not sure this exists or if it does, what special magic sauce physical specification of where each wire connects to is required.
Growing up, I used the SAME soundcard I got in 1994 all they way up to 2002. That was a great, generic Packard Bell SoundBlaster compatible sound card. Those were the days.
Did you ever have a Soundblaster Live! card? I had one back in the 1990s and it was awesome.
I finally got my titanium HD to work again for 2018 it’s been on the shelf for a few years but I just plugged it in and it randomly worked after new bios update and installed Daniel K’s drivers and let me tell you coming from on the board sound huge improvement and games and movies FPS games actually sounds scary now
SB AWE 32. Nostalgia, baby. :D
Yea, at your level (over 200K!) it should be all pro audio/video. What techno-gadgetry bliss there is to be had these days! A great time to be building a home studio.
Yes, but it gets expensive really quickly! :(
Well, it ain't cheap, but, like in many industries nowadays, the technology is so good...along with the current manufacturing paradigm.... you can get professional quality results for a fraction of what it recently cost. Some real "Tech Deals"! The "high-end" computer is central to it all, of course, and you've got that covered!! Thanks for your videos.
My first sound card was an AWE64 Gold, followed by a Live! Value card. The Live! card died on me, and I replaced it with an Audigy SE. I used Audigy SE cards after that until PCI card slots disappeared from motherboards, although for one build I used onboard audio (Realtek ALC 1150 codec on a Gigabyte Z97 motherboard). I'm currently using an Audigy RX on one machine, and onboard audio on the other.
this is a very very good channel, so much useful when I need to buy something on the PC world (Mothreboards, Graphic cards, cpu and more). The speaker is very objective about everything, and the subjects are often updated. I am not english but He speak a very good english so with subtitles I can understand everything. congratulations!
Please do another sound card video. So many more options have come out, and I'd like another price to performance on this wonderful product!!
wow, the difference between that msi krait video and this one is incredible. you sound so much crisper on the dedicated sound card. it blows my mind how much of a difference that makes :0
Get a Micca OriGen G2 High Resolution USB DAC and Preamplifier ($109) and call it a day...
Great video and thank you for sharing...
I have bought the Soundblaster Z 3 separate times for different systems entirely and they have all been plagued by random screeching electronic noise that cannot be remedied without a full system power shutdown. Just a warning for EVERYONE. I do recommend the Soundblaster Z for the Microphone utilities.
I use a Behringer USB mixing board as my sound card and it seems to work well
Yea once they started putting sound into the motherboards I gave up my sound blaster cards. I have creative 5.1 speakers and the built in sound on my mb seems fine.
Also creative said: "The Sound Blaster Audigy Rx supports up to 7.1 channels of audio through the analog ports. However, the sound card via the optical output only supports the stereo sound(!). In contrast, the Sound Blaster Z supports the 5.1 sound through the analog ports and also via the optical output."