The best "pci" not E sound card on the market.

[Thor.]

Hey everyone, i had it with hdmi audio, the always on thing and the fact my tv sucks with when it comes to that sort of thing. Anyways does anyone know of any good standard 1x pci sound cards on the market that supports DD+DTS. HDMI is for the birds, i rather just have a worries free toslink setup. With the video piping through DVI for Asus 3d 144HZ monitor, and the audio piped through the Sound card for simplicity.

 

SLI in the future, so pci e is a no go.

 

LOOL

 

You can disreagrd this topic of discussion, i didn;t do much research on the card i had in ind before i posted this.

 

The Last thread the best sound card on the market. The Creative z does support all pci interfaces,

 

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102048

 

I literally regretted posting this lol,

Edited January 26, 2014 by Thor.

[obobski]

I don't follow your question - you say "PCI not PCIE" but then "PCI x1" and mention the Sound Blaster Z (which is PCI Express). What exactly do you need to plug into? PCI Express or PCI?

 

Anyways, "best" is kind of subjective, but in general all of the Creative cards back through Audigy can support Dolby Digital Live (although older cards will require DDL licensing to be purchased - last I checked it was like $2). Audigy and X-Fi are PCI, X-Fi and "SoundCore" (Recon3D, Sound Blaster Z) are PCI Express.

 

Asus cards also fulfill your needs and as far as I'm aware they still offer both a PCI and PCI Express version of every card they make (if I remember right, all of their cards actually use PCI native chipsets, so the PCI Express versions are just the PCI card + a bridge to PCI Express; this should not impact performance/quality in the least, but it does mean they can offer multiple versions of the same board).

 

Asus vs Creative is where it gets pretty subjective - some folks will say Creative, others will say Asus. Either way you should be set though.

 

Other manufacturers exist, but it's much more of a mixed bag. If you want to go with some other brand, figure out who makes the chipset on the card (it will almost certainly be either VIA or C-Media; if it's C-Media, go Asus (that's where they source their chips from), if it's VIA you're probably better off going with someone else - I think M-Audio is the only manufacturer still hanging on, and last I knew their drivers still have not "come back" to where they were ten years ago, and they also don't produce gaming/multimedia cards anymore).

[Thor.]

I figured out a solution to the problem, i have a free pci e 16x slot available. So i used it instead, the creative soundblaster z supports up to 16x pci e slots. Its part of my single video card gaming htpc setup.

 

i have a Cooler master Haf xb case on the floor next to my tv. Steam box aka HTPC gaming setup. Its one of the few sound cards that supports Toslink DTS spdif passthrough. It upscales any source to 5.1, including the stereo content.

Unfortunately there is no sound card on the market that have OHM rating of 8, the max you can get is 6 at max.. It has to do, I can have a decent volume without disturbing everyone at night, giving a clearer means what the differences is.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Thor.

[obobski]

I figured out a solution to the problem, i have a free pci e 16x slot available. So i used it instead, the creative soundblaster z supports up to 16x pci e slots. Its part of my single video card gaming htpc setup.

 

i have a Cooler master Haf xb case on the floor next to my tv. Steam box aka HTPC gaming setup. Its one of the few sound cards that supports Toslink DTS spdif passthrough. It upscales any source to 5.1, including the stereo content.

Unfortunately there is no sound card on the market that have OHM rating of 8, the max you can get is 6 at max.. It has to do,

 

Any PCI Express card can be used in a "greater" slot - so any x1 card would work in there. Just make sure you securely mount the card, so it doesn't "tilt back" in the slot (it's essentially unsupported on the rear of its shoe, because there's extra slot there). Usually the screw on the I/O shield is enough to do this, but I'd suggest double-checking if you plan to plug something heavy into it (like a 1/8" to 1/4" adapter and 1/4" headphone jack - in that specific example I'd run a 1/8" extension off and put the adapter somewhere where it can sit on the floor, but you get thei dea).

 

Every soundcard I'm aware of that has S/PDIF in/out can do passthrough - meaning if you, for example, have a DVD player plugged into it, whatever it takes in, it will spit back out (even the M-Audio 2496 can do that). Internal passthrough is also pretty common. The Z does, however, also offer DTS Connect - which will convert audio the computer is generating into DTS 5.1. Use either DTS Neo:PC or Creative's own CMSS to scale stereo up to 5.1; play around with the settings in SBX Pro to get the sound where you want it. Alternately, if you're plugging into a receiver, the receiver might perform this conversion (and may have A LOT more options) - so sending out a stereo PCM signal (assuming you're sourcing from stereo) may be a better idea there. If you're gaming, set things to 5.1, enable DDL or DTS:Connect, and let it ride.

 

The part I absolutely am not following: "Ohm rating of 8" - what?

[Thor.]

The Quality rating of the headphone amp is rated 6, same with the sound card itself. That is the quality the sound it makes, Crystal quality sound is hard to come by. But if you look hard enough for a decent pair of speakers, make sure to see what the OHm rating is, sometimes it comes with tinny sound but comes with a big amp. Two is what you want, quality and a decent sub.

 

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_higher_or_lower_ohms_better_for_a_speaker?#slide=4

 

Louder is better :D at a lower volume. Less noise, and more clarity. With the speakers i have, i can turn the knob one octave on the receiver, yet have a decent volume, hence uses less wattage per db volume.

 

i could in theory crank it up to insane levels without sacrificing wattage. With a receiver rating at max 60db, i only ever use at least 10db out of 50db do to the high OHM clarity.

 

I have tested this with a 4 OHM rated speaker vs a 8ohm speaker, and the difference is noticeable. In a sense the wattage of the speakers is higher, and can handle more power vs a rated 4 OHM speaker.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Thor.

[FMod]

The Quality rating of the headphone amp is rated 6

 

What's that? First time I hear the term.

[obobski]

 

The Quality rating of the headphone amp is rated 6

 

What's that? First time I hear the term.

 

 

I'm with you on this one...

 

I've re-read the post 3 times and still come away going "huh?" :wacko:

 

I'm guessing by "ohm rating" what's meant or being read is the speaker's nominal impedance, and on the sound card either the rated impedance loading spec or its output impedance, but none of that is a direct measure of "quality."

[Thor.]

It does matter if you want clarity yet without sacrificing loudness, at a low volume. It gives that movie theatre feel.

Boston acoustic man, they make some of the best bookshelf speakers on the market, the name says it all, acoustic.

 

The wiki explains what impedance does to a speaker

Edited February 4, 2014 by Thor.

[kalikka]

I'm confused...

What are you talking about?

The soundcard output impedance has absolutely nothing to do with the speakers as the speakers amplifier is there. The amplifier is which decides the output impedance to the speakers, not the soundcard!

Line-level (100ohm-600ohm output impedance) is as good as 2ohm for speakers.

 

The SBZ headphone amp is nothing spectacular, it's output impedance is 20ohm etc. Schiit Magni and O2 beat it easily without breaking a sweat.

I seriously hope you are not reading Coconut-Audio...

Edited February 4, 2014 by kalikka

[obobski]

I'm confused...

What are you talking about?

The soundcard output impedance has absolutely nothing to do with the speakers as the speakers amplifier is there. The amplifier is which decides the output impedance to the speakers, not the soundcard!

Line-level (100ohm-600ohm output impedance) is as good as 2ohm for speakers.

 

The SBZ headphone amp is nothing spectacular, it's output impedance is 20ohm etc. Schiit Magni and O2 beat it easily without breaking a sweat.

I seriously hope you are not reading Coconut-Audio...

 

 

I'm not entirely sure where you're going here, but output impedance is not a measure of quality for an amplifier (be it for speakers or headphones).

 

 

Thor - I think the confusion is coming from the article you linked in context of what you're posting; the article is about impedance selection for car audio speakers, not anything to do with the quality of source electronics or home audio speakers. Nominal impedance (or any other kind of impedance; output, input, etc) doesn't dictate or speak to the quality of a speaker or sound system - it's just a specification that's useful for matching components to one another. Judging the quality of a pair of speakers is a somewhat more involved process - unfortunately there's no simple metric like WEI or 3DMark for that, at least currently.