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View Full Version : How about a great sound card?



robruffo
04-05-2008, 09:09 PM
Are sound cards on PCs worth paying more for?

Which?

nhan070
04-07-2008, 10:39 AM
My 2 cents....No, why waste the $$. Assuming you are buliding a HTPC and you have a receiver with digital audio coaxial input, just get a motherboard with digitial audio coaxial output. Have your receiver do the amplication and digital processing.

Most of the newer MBs are equiped with this. Mine is nearly 3 years old.

robruffo
04-07-2008, 10:59 AM
So your experience has been that a good on-board sound card (my motherboard is maybe 6 months old, and has digital sound-out) sounds as good/clean as a $200 PCI card?

P Seastrand
04-07-2008, 05:18 PM
My understanding is that if you are using analog out on the PC card, then a good card might be worth the expense. If you are using digital out, the motherboard should be fine. Not much you can do to mess up a digital signal.

If you are looking for the HD audio formats, e.g., Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD MA, then you'd best wait. There's really nothing out there that I've run across that will do these justice. If/when we get a HDMI 1.3 compatible card, and some are apparently coming soon, these might be worth a look.

robruffo
04-07-2008, 07:52 PM
Thank you both so much for sharing your knowledge. :)

nyitgeek
10-18-2009, 11:53 PM
Well if you are thinking on spending huge bucks on getting a sound card then i will suggest to go with a new mobo, 8 channels or higher a full high defi ready sound system.

jk121764
10-20-2009, 05:49 PM
Certainly if one is a gamer. I like mine because it has front outs for headphones. Creative Soundblasters are the industry leaders.