Hey all this june i'm going to be in the market for a brand new PC, and I've got my rig all figured out
i7 2700k or I7 3930k
Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z board or Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Another 6950, to couple with the one i already have
700Watt XFX PSU that I already have
Corsair H80 Cooler
16Gigs of G.Skill RAM Ripjaw Xseries 1600MHz
already got a blu-ray drive
Asus VH236H Monitor
Corsair 800D Case
already have a Vertex 3 120Gig
already have a backup 500Gig HDD
Now here's another thing I'm adding to it, HT OMEGA eClaro 7.1 Soundcard.
I'm not too big on soundcards, but i thought obviously they sell them second hand for a reason, they must be better in some way. The question is how though? I mean do they really improve sound quality by any means at all, or are the just a huge gimmick. I'll eventually be buying a nice set of AKG Q701's and probably buying a Shanling PH100 Headphone amp to make the headphones really put out, then hook em up to my PC. So will this sound card do me any good, or should I just chuck it. BTW anyone saying the rig is too overkill, I'm going to be starting up a youtube channel and streaming channel. Hopefully I can get a decent following, I'll be posting up CoD Vids, BF vids, And stream some game I play on the computer. I'm also getting a Blue Snowball mic, and a blackmagic intensity shuttle or intensity pro to capture the Xbox video. So I definitely need a good Processor for all the video encoding, and the 16 gigs of ram is for some photoshop editing I'll be messing with.
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I've only used sound cards when my motherboard's on-board sound failed. I haven't noticed any difference in quality...
If you're using a USB headset, your sound card isn't even used: the headset has it's own "sound card".
Some cards advertise "hardware acceleration", but in reality modern games use their own sound mixing software and just run it on a seperate thread. Back in the single-core days it might have made a difference, but not anymore.
The only use to a good sound card is if you have high-end PC speakers and are an audiophile, if not you won't really see the difference and will waste your money.
The only use to a good sound card is if you have high-end PC speakers and are an audiophile, if not you won't really see the difference and will waste your money.
Well I will eventually be getting some nice speakers to hook up to a reciever, but i'm a little ways off from that. The HEadphones I want are pretty good AKG Q701's and I'm getting a headphone amp to push them, so maybe it's worth it.
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It is worth it if you have the hardware to connect to it. I use an Auzentech X-Meridian 2G with old Logitech Z-580s and Sennheiser HD515 headphones.
What's good about this particular card is that it has Dolby Headphone and simulates 7.1 surround sound through two channels. I honestly have a hard time hearing the difference. It's magnificent.
Just remember, the cost of a good soundcard is in the OPAMPS which change the digital signal from the source to an analog signal to be sent to analog speakers. If you connect speakers via the digital connection you're bypassing the OPAMPS and you would have been better saving your cash and using the onboard digital connection.
The eClaro uses the same Audio processor as the 2G and has Dolby Headphone, so you're making a good choice. It also has its own dedicated headphone jack that supports high impedance headphones so I doubt you'll need an amp. Although I couldn't find exactly what impedance the jack supports on their site, the impedance of the headphones you're planning to get is only 62 ohms anyway. So you'll be sweet.
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"For the price of one bullet you can eat 4 hotcakes." - Vash the Stampede.
It is worth it if you have the hardware to connect to it. I use an Auzentech X-Meridian 2G with old Logitech Z-580s and Sennheiser HD515 headphones.
What's good about this particular card is that it has Dolby Headphone and simulates 7.1 surround sound through two channels. I honestly have a hard time hearing the difference. It's magnificent.
Just remember, the cost of a good soundcard is in the OPAMPS which change the digital signal from the source to an analog signal to be sent to analog speakers. If you connect speakers via the digital connection you're bypassing the OPAMPS and you would have been better saving your cash and using the onboard digital connection.
The eClaro uses the same Audio processor as the 2G and has Dolby Headphone, so you're making a good choice. It also has its own dedicated headphone jack that supports high impedance headphones so I doubt you'll need an amp. Although I couldn't find exactly what impedance the jack supports on their site, the impedance of the headphones you're planning to get is only 62 ohms anyway. So you'll be sweet.
Thanks for the feedback, I'm not super big on audio tech specs, I'm more of a video guy, but I love audio I think its more important than video I just haven't read up much on it so I'm not sure about why the resistance matters. So would getting a 62 Ohm headphone sound worse than say a 300 Ohm like the Sennheiser HD 600/650/800? and what are the OPAMPS? and any other information you have on describing what to look for in headphone would be much appreciated.
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The resistance is related to how much power is required to drive the headphones more than the quality of the sound produced. The more resistance the headphones have the more powerful the sound produced can be, especially bass.
OPAMP stands for operational amplifier. They are the parts of the sound card which amplify the analog signal. The quality of the OPAMP is what determines the sound quality you achieve. The brand and type of OPAMP can drastically change the tone of the sound you hear. Some will produce lower, more defined bass, while others produce brighter highs, for example.
The card you chose has removable OPAMPs meaning you can, if you want, go and purchase others that have different characteristics to fine tune the sound you hear (very audiophile and expensive).
From the Auzentech site:
The quality of the Operational Amplifier (OPAMP)
influences analog sound quality, because OPAMPs amplify the analog signal in your soundcard. With a
, the signal is transferred with less loss and distortion.
An OPAMP is a DC-coupled high-gain electronic voltage amplifier. It has "differential Inputs" and usually a single output. In its ordinary usage, the output of the op-amp is controlled by negative feedback. Because of the amplifier’s high gain, the negative feedback primarily determines the output voltage for any given input.
Auzentech actually sell OPAMPs so you can switch out the ones that come on your card if you wish. The prices for some are staggering. $245 for one. You can actually mix and match OPAMPs too, for example leaving the more bassy one in the Center/sub channel and brighter highs ones for the rest.
Oh, when buying headphones look at the frequency it's able to produce. The bigger the range the better though there's only a certain range the human ear can pick up as well. I've always found looking up reviews on specific models I'm interested in is a good step as well as going for a brand I like. In my case I'm very happy with Sennheiser as the quality is great and the comfort is exceptional for long listening sessions.
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"For the price of one bullet you can eat 4 hotcakes." - Vash the Stampede.
So ideally what I want is to look for headphones/speakers with a high resistance, I like it when I can crank it up and absolutely be immersed in the world or music, Then look for reviews of the headphones that have a well rounded tone, but is a little warm, and that packs a huge bassy punch, because that's the type of tone i'm looking for. Then change the OPAMPS of my soundcard to have the soundcard deliver lower basslines, and higher highs than normal. I should also look for a wide frequency range so i don't miss out on any sounds either. BTW thanks a lot for all the info. Really helped me out a lot.
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I wouldn't go changing the OPAMPs right away since the price you're paying for that sound card is going to be for the OPAMPs they chose to put on it. I wouldn't choose headphones based on their resistance alone either. You will be able to tweak the sound card's graphic equaliser to fine tune sound output as well.
If you're planning to use headphones a lot then the card is good because of Dolby Headphone, it'll simulate 7.1 channels through stereo phones. It tends to add more bass to sounds when you use it too.
But yes, read reviews, heaps of them. There's a whole audiophile world out there to explore. Be careful when purchasing headphones to know what size jack it requires by default. You may need an adaptor and if that's the case it may not fit next to the other outputs on the back of the sound card. My HD515s use a 6.35mm jack and I'm forced to use an adapter so I can plug it into my 3.5mm jack.
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"For the price of one bullet you can eat 4 hotcakes." - Vash the Stampede.
Is there a way to up the resistance on a headphone. I mean if Resistance equals more volume, or power, which is exactly what I want, then can I up it somehow? or is it set in stone as 62 Ohms or 300Ohms
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An amplifier drives a headphone with voltage, the current drawn by the headphone is proportional to the headphone's impedance.
Pros and cons of high impedance headphones:
Headphone impedance is usually increased by thinner wire and most importantly more turns of wire in the voice coil. More turns or loops creates a larger field (area of magnetic influence). In layman's terms more magnetic force for the coil to move the diaphragm. Thinner wire usually works out to a lighter, more responsive diaphragm. Depending on the headphone design, this may lead to more accurate response.
The displacement (amount of movement) of the diaphragm (the part that vibrates to produce sound) can be better controlled via a more accurate flux (magnetic field to pull and push the diaphragm).
Difficult to drive for small headphone amps with low output voltage and low gain.
Most high impedance headphones need an amplifier with higher voltage gain and higher output voltage, e.g. the 600 ohm Beyer DT770/880/990 series.
Allow Solid State Op Amps to work more efficiently with less distortion. Have a look at Op Amp data sheets and a graph of distortion vs. output impedance for most audio Op-Amps and you'll get the idea. This is a very complex subject, but most Op Amps are designed to output (typically) up to 10 Volts into 600 ohm loads or higher.
The higher the impedance, the more power is needed to get a proper output volume from the headphone:
32 or 80 ohms = mobile use with laptop, MP3 Player, portable recorder etc..
250 ohms and higher = for permanent installations, headphone amplifiers etc.
Background:
Impedance ist the AC resistance of the headphones' voice coil, which is connected to the headphone amplifier. A impedance of 0 ohms would be a short-circuit of the headphone amplifier output; the headphone amplifier supplies an extreme current and afters getting very hot, it either turns off automatically or dies. The other side of the story is infinite resistance (broken cable); no current flows, but also no audio signals arrives - so, we have to be in between these two: 0 and infinite.
In generel, headphones with low impedance are designed for use with mobile devices; mobile devices use low power from batteries and therefore also the output power is limited. A low impedance headphone can only play louder at a low power output. But why high impedance headphones??:
The impedance is determined by the voice coil (dynamic headphones), which is a winded copper wire (coated to avoid a short-circuit). This copper wire is available in nearly every length, but not in every gauge (thickness) and a thicker wire has less resistance than a thin wire ("less fits through"). The magnetic field of the voice coil depends on the number of windings of the coil, causing a low impedance system to use a thicker (also heavier) wire and since the membrane foil can't be infinitely light-weight, the moving mass (voice coil and membrane) is relatively high. It's pretty clear that a higher mass can't move as easily (following an audio signal) as a lower mass. This low mass can easily be accomplished with thinner (lower weight) wire, but the thinner wire has a higher impedance. This means that the DT 770 PRO with 250 ohms sound more natural, but plays (depending on the used headphone amplifier) not as loud as the 80 ohms version.
The transducers of the 80 ohms versions are stronger and more powerful, a bit more mid accentuated and therefore this version is ideal for powerful reproducing of low-frequency material f.e. coming from a bass guitar. The 250 ohms version sounds more smooth and voluminous and can be used for mixing situation within the studio to analyse the whole mix.
What I gathered from most of them was that the response of the diaphragm inside the phones determines a lot as well. Quality over power.
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"For the price of one bullet you can eat 4 hotcakes." - Vash the Stampede.
The more people interested in good audiophile quality soundcards for computers the better in my opinion.
We're in serious danger of having onboard sound completely obliterating the rest. While some motherboards actually put X-Fi processors onboard it's still not great.
While onboard sound has improved a lot there are some features that it lacks which, at least in my case, can't be lived without.
Creative popularised high-ish quality sound cards for gamers and their stuff's getting pretty nice. They have their own 7.1 surround emulation, CMSS 3D which does the same thing as Dolby Headphone, which is better is a personal choice. Some of their cards even have swappable OPAMPs.
At any rate, I would never use onboard sound, any time I've tried it's been a horrible experience. Once you go high quality audio you can't go back.
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"For the price of one bullet you can eat 4 hotcakes." - Vash the Stampede.
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i7 2700k or I7 3930k
Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z board or Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Another 6950, to couple with the one i already have
700Watt XFX PSU that I already have
Corsair H80 Cooler
16Gigs of G.Skill RAM Ripjaw Xseries 1600MHz
already got a blu-ray drive
Asus VH236H Monitor
Corsair 800D Case
already have a Vertex 3 120Gig
already have a backup 500Gig HDD
Now here's another thing I'm adding to it, HT OMEGA eClaro 7.1 Soundcard.
I'm not too big on soundcards, but i thought obviously they sell them second hand for a reason, they must be better in some way. The question is how though? I mean do they really improve sound quality by any means at all, or are the just a huge gimmick. I'll eventually be buying a nice set of AKG Q701's and probably buying a Shanling PH100 Headphone amp to make the headphones really put out, then hook em up to my PC. So will this sound card do me any good, or should I just chuck it. BTW anyone saying the rig is too overkill, I'm going to be starting up a youtube channel and streaming channel. Hopefully I can get a decent following, I'll be posting up CoD Vids, BF vids, And stream some game I play on the computer. I'm also getting a Blue Snowball mic, and a blackmagic intensity shuttle or intensity pro to capture the Xbox video. So I definitely need a good Processor for all the video encoding, and the 16 gigs of ram is for some photoshop editing I'll be messing with.
If you're using a USB headset, your sound card isn't even used: the headset has it's own "sound card".
Some cards advertise "hardware acceleration", but in reality modern games use their own sound mixing software and just run it on a seperate thread. Back in the single-core days it might have made a difference, but not anymore.
What's good about this particular card is that it has Dolby Headphone and simulates 7.1 surround sound through two channels. I honestly have a hard time hearing the difference. It's magnificent.
Just remember, the cost of a good soundcard is in the OPAMPS which change the digital signal from the source to an analog signal to be sent to analog speakers. If you connect speakers via the digital connection you're bypassing the OPAMPS and you would have been better saving your cash and using the onboard digital connection.
The eClaro uses the same Audio processor as the 2G and has Dolby Headphone, so you're making a good choice. It also has its own dedicated headphone jack that supports high impedance headphones so I doubt you'll need an amp. Although I couldn't find exactly what impedance the jack supports on their site, the impedance of the headphones you're planning to get is only 62 ohms anyway. So you'll be sweet.
Thanks for the feedback, I'm not super big on audio tech specs, I'm more of a video guy, but I love audio I think its more important than video I just haven't read up much on it so I'm not sure about why the resistance matters. So would getting a 62 Ohm headphone sound worse than say a 300 Ohm like the Sennheiser HD 600/650/800? and what are the OPAMPS? and any other information you have on describing what to look for in headphone would be much appreciated.
OPAMP stands for operational amplifier. They are the parts of the sound card which amplify the analog signal. The quality of the OPAMP is what determines the sound quality you achieve. The brand and type of OPAMP can drastically change the tone of the sound you hear. Some will produce lower, more defined bass, while others produce brighter highs, for example.
The card you chose has removable OPAMPs meaning you can, if you want, go and purchase others that have different characteristics to fine tune the sound you hear (very audiophile and expensive).
From the Auzentech site:
Auzentech actually sell OPAMPs so you can switch out the ones that come on your card if you wish. The prices for some are staggering. $245 for one. You can actually mix and match OPAMPs too, for example leaving the more bassy one in the Center/sub channel and brighter highs ones for the rest.
Oh, when buying headphones look at the frequency it's able to produce. The bigger the range the better though there's only a certain range the human ear can pick up as well. I've always found looking up reviews on specific models I'm interested in is a good step as well as going for a brand I like. In my case I'm very happy with Sennheiser as the quality is great and the comfort is exceptional for long listening sessions.
If you're planning to use headphones a lot then the card is good because of Dolby Headphone, it'll simulate 7.1 channels through stereo phones. It tends to add more bass to sounds when you use it too.
But yes, read reviews, heaps of them. There's a whole audiophile world out there to explore. Be careful when purchasing headphones to know what size jack it requires by default. You may need an adaptor and if that's the case it may not fit next to the other outputs on the back of the sound card. My HD515s use a 6.35mm jack and I'm forced to use an adapter so I can plug it into my 3.5mm jack.
What I gathered from most of them was that the response of the diaphragm inside the phones determines a lot as well. Quality over power.
We're in serious danger of having onboard sound completely obliterating the rest. While some motherboards actually put X-Fi processors onboard it's still not great.
While onboard sound has improved a lot there are some features that it lacks which, at least in my case, can't be lived without.
Creative popularised high-ish quality sound cards for gamers and their stuff's getting pretty nice. They have their own 7.1 surround emulation, CMSS 3D which does the same thing as Dolby Headphone, which is better is a personal choice. Some of their cards even have swappable OPAMPs.
At any rate, I would never use onboard sound, any time I've tried it's been a horrible experience. Once you go high quality audio you can't go back.