Looking for a Decent Low to Mid Range Sound card

S

SilentRabbit

New Member
Hello everyone,

Deciding what to spend money on, id like a sound card as im currently using on board sound!

My speakers are some old stereo harman/kardon's that recquire a headphone jack only to get their sound, ive been looking at the ASUS xonar DX and i was wandering if it would work with my speakers? if not then can anybody suggest a similar priced decent sound card that would?

PCIe is preferred but i could fit it in a PCI slot, budget is around 50 pounds, thanks! :)

P.S. Lastly i will need an audio splitter for the sound card so if you can advise me on reliable companys or even a reliable splitter that doesnt ruin the audio quality then thanks!
 
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You'll hear absolutely no difference in quality between onboard and dedicated sound card for those speakers. If you want to spend money, you should buy better speakers.
 
It really depends on what you the main purpose of your music is. Do you often listen to bass heavy music? Do you play games, watch movies?

If you're going for something that can get loud and crank lout lots of bass you'll be fine with the logitech. If you're looking for something a bit tamer and more focused on midrange, I would suggest another pair. Also, what's your budget?
 
I play games and plan on playing more, (switching from xbox to pc) i listen to bass heavy music yes and will sometimes watche the odd movie, id like 5.1 for the immersion really!

My budget is about £50 which is about 80 dollars if your american (sound card is £25 budget) ;) so these speakers fit that specification from what ive reasearched and you've said, but i was wandering if they would go well with the sound card i have chosen and if you could recommend a better sound card/speakers!

Thanks youve been really helpful!:)
 
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Okay im ordering the x530 speakers now, im not going to order a sound card until i have further advice, i may not get one at all and buy skyrim with my money to test out the surround sound ;)
 
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Hold off on the sound card for now. You may or may not see a large difference. Those speakers aren't the clearest (but they are loud!).
 
I have the x-540s and I really like them. Gaming they are really good. Music is pretty good except for they only play out of the front 2 unless you enable speaker fill. But that will mess with the 5.1 in games. Movies are kinda rough with them as they are really base heavy. Talking is too quiet and background noise is too loud in most cases.

Overall I really love mine. Dispite what I have mentioned here I would still recommend them. :D
 
The fault with 5.1 is that speech only comes through the centre channel, even if a character speaking is behind you in the movie.
 
linkin said:
The fault with 5.1 is that speech only comes through the centre channel, even if a character speaking is behind you in the movie.
Click to expand...

Not quite right, the centre speaker does act as primary voice but speech will come through the other speakers when voices were recorded in back ground directions....That is the Idea of 5.1.
Most people do not know how to set up 5.1 sound for their environment,most times their settings are not set correctly so they are not getting the correct sounds as intended.

When I watch movies at home I get voices on other speaker channels as required by the coding of the movie.

On another note there is different 5.1 sound set ups, Dolby Surround, Dolby Pro Logic, Dolby Digital, and DTS.

I would suggest you look them up and understand the differences as to what they produce.
 
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thanks for the advice guys ive ordered the x530's, thanks for the support salvage this you made me more confident in case they are just cheap bits of plastic (i realise you got the x540 but still;))

Thanks everyone else youve been a good help, when they arrive ill post here to let you and others know what they are like and if i think i need a sound card :D
 
Thanks :D only problem so far (which everyone seems to get) is the occaisional french radio that comes through.....

its very rare but hey nothing can be done and its not very annoying as it only comes on at like 10 at night!
 
I used to think soundcards didn't really make a difference and that onboard audio was enough but its not really like that. Maybe for sound systems like Logitech's its fine but for me, I have a small amp and 2 bookshelf speakers and it makes all the difference.

The sound is so much better and it allows me to tune the sound to exactly what I want it to be.
 
It used to be the case that the soundcard would aid in FPS games because it would take the sound processing load of the cpu and provide its own memory increasing the frames per second.

These days with cheap ram, and cpus that eat games (e.g. 2500K), the only reason to get a sound card is when you plan on using a very good quality set of speakers or headphones, otherwise you're just kidding yourself.
 
bigfellla said:
It used to be the case that the soundcard would aid in FPS games because it would take the sound processing load of the cpu and provide its own memory increasing the frames per second.

These days with cheap ram, and cpus that eat games (e.g. 2500K), the only reason to get a sound card is when you plan on using a very good quality set of speakers or headphones, otherwise you're just kidding yourself.
Click to expand...

That and most if not all integrated sound cards these days are just codecs, the CPU still does all the processing, sends it back the chip and outputs.
 
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