Looking to spend $100-ish to improve sound quality of Audio Technica ATH M50X

LordRascus

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Jul 4, 2015
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Hi all,

I have recently built a new pc and I'm looking to improve the sound quality of the headphones I use, Audio Technica ATH M50Xs. The Crystal sound or whatever the motherboard I got (Asus z170-AR) came with, is pretty decent. But it still isn't what I think my M50Xs are capable of. Also, I have been having a problem with the audio drivers the motherboard has, which is RealTek Audio Manager, which detects my headphones are speakers and messes up the not so bad audio even more. I ended up setting the "speaker" configuration on 7.1, because that sounds the best, but the audio that comes from the centre is really low and this is especially horrid in game dialogue. I won't have this do...

I don't know a whole lot about audio, but I know there are sound cards, headphone amps, and DACs. I first of all don't want to deal with this rubbish realtek nonsense, so I need someway to get around that, or fix it. If I bought a soundcard would it work properly with my headphones? As I said $100 AUD is my target budget, but if its worth spending over that, I would probably do that. I would appreciate any recommendations, but it would be easier to recommend something from this store:

https://www.umart.com.au/umart1/pro/Products_list.phtml?id=10&bid=2&id2=32&name=SoundCards

Thanks!

Maybe something cheap like this?

https://www.umart.com.au/umart1/pro/Products-details.phtml?id=10&id2=32&bid=2&sid=95530

 

Victorion

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I use Xonar Essence STX in my summerhouse pc, and Xonar Phoebus for my home pc.

Both are great, Xonar Phoebus has advantage for headphones and features surround sound support - while xonar essence stx is mainly for great 2 speaker setup,

They may be out of your budget, but i love them both and would recommend them
 

LordRascus

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I downloaded Razer Surround.

But a 50 dollar 5.1 sound card would sound much better than a 7.1 virtual surround right?
 

LordRascus

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Jul 4, 2015
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I had a look at those cards, as I said I'm using Audio Technica ATH M50X headphones. Would I see much of a difference as I don't intend to use speakers, with getting such an expensive soundcard just for headphones? Would I just be better getting that 50 soundcard. Or getting a headphone amp and using Razer Surround instead of realtek?