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Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment?

Posted by timothy on from the won't-fit-in-my-phone dept.

MojoKid (1002251) writes "Back in the day (which is a scientific measurement for anyone who used to walk to school during snowstorms, uphill, both ways), integrated audio solutions had trouble earning respect. Many enthusiasts considered a sound card an essential piece to the PC building puzzle. It's been 25 years since the first Sound Blaster card was introduced, a pretty remarkable feat considering the diminished reliance on discrete audio in PCs, in general. These days, the Sound Blaster ZxR is Creative's flagship audio solution for PC power users. It boasts a signal-to-noise (SNR) of 124dB that Creative claims is 89.1 times better than your motherboard's integrated audio solution. It also features a built-in headphone amplifier, beamforming microphone, a multi-core Sound Core3D audio processor, and various proprietary audio technologies. While gaming there is no significant performance impact or benefit when going from onboard audio to the Sound Blaster ZxR. However, the Sound Blaster ZxR produced higher-quality in-game sound effects and it also produces noticeably superior audio in music and movies, provided your speakers can keep up."

10 of 502 comments (clear)

  1. No. by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Onboard sound is finally Good Enough*, and has been Good Enough* for a long time now.

    * YMMV, offer void in Tennessee.

    --
    Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    1. Re:No. by jandrese · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The /. writeup sounds like audiophile wank to me. I would be surprised if this Soundblaster could justify its price in a proper double blind study on real world data (music, games, movies, etc...) vs. the built in audio on your mobo.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    2. Re:No. by shadowrat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The results of my study with a sample of 1 is: I can't tell the difference. I stopped buying discrete cards a long time ago.

    3. Re:No. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People who really care about audio quality don't buy Creative hardware anyway. That's for gamers. If you want sound quality there are many cards with cheap but excellent chipsets. Via Envy24 codes and Wolfson DACs are the preferred combination, and cards with them cost under a tenner.

      Much better to spend the money on better speakers or a headphone amp. If you really want high end sound get an external DAC.

      --
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    4. Re:No. by Mike+Buddha · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Soundblaster cards don't have the imaginary qualities audiophiles look for?

      --
      by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
    5. Re:No. by techno-vampire · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I believe the word you want is "audiophule." You know, the type that claims that they can hear differences that an oscilloscope doesn't show?

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  2. Hasn't been true for a while by Hamsterdan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, a discrete card might have *better* specs (especially analog components, which was a problem on older integrated soundcards), but I haven't felt the need to use a discrete card since my nForce 2 board (Soundstorm).

    Besides, it saves me from using Creative's bloatware.

    --
    I've got better things to do tonight than die.
    1. Re:Hasn't been true for a while by gsslay · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Besides, it saves me from using Creative's bloatware.

      This is what comes to my mind whenever I hear of Creative. Nice enough hardware, but shockingly bad software, 80% of which no-one ever had any need for. And it would invariably all be set up to load at boot-time, sucking up resources and RAM.

  3. Creative can suck it. by buback · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm still bitter about Aureal.

  4. Wouldn't use a soundblaster... by Zarquon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...but discrete soundcards, especially external ones, are still alive and well if you record. The noise floor of internal sound cards hasn't gotten that much better (a PC is very noisy RF environment), and if you need mic preamps, quarter inch jacks, optical in, etc, they generally don't fit on a PCI card or laptop.

    But for general gaming or home theater use? Nope. Send the audio out over the HDMI out, or SPDIF for DVI/VGA rigs, and let the amp sort it out.

    -R C

    --
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