Good quality soundcards and how it would improve my system

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Yeldur

Yeldur

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Jan 28, 2017
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Hi, I'm looking for a decent soundcard, but I'm also interested to learn, obviously a sound card impacts sound, but how do soundcards improve the quality of audio coming through my headset?

My motherboard: Motherboard ASUS® ROG STRIX Z370-H GAMING: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs

It's running the standard soundcard: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1)

I'm running a 7.1 Virtual Surround sound headset, I'm looking to get better audio quality, and from what I've been told, the best thing to do is not to upgrade the headset, but to upgrade the sound card to something better, any recommendations as to what would be best for me and my system?

Any good explanations as to what soundcards do more specifically as to how they work is appreciated as well, I like to learn more specific info other than just "if u get this it make audio betr xd"

Cheers!
 
Solution
R
I'm guessing your current headset connects via USB? If that's the case then a the headset is completely bypassing any other sound devices in your system. Those USB headsets include a "sound card", they do all their own processing.

The advice you got is correct if you're using analogue headphones (with the 3.5mm audio jacks). In that case the headphones are just the speakers and all the audio processing and amplification is handled by whatever card or sound device you've plugged the headphones in to. With a decent quality set of analogue headphones, the sound card starts to make a big difference. In your case however (assuming your headphones are USB), a sound card would literally do nothing, unless or until you plugged something into it.
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Deleted member 217926

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Your onboard audio will get the most out of anything sold as a "7.1 Virtual Surround sound headset". In fact that board has pretty good audio. You won't do better with less than a flagship card like the Xonar Essence STX II. What you have now even has a headphone amp so you could ditch the low end gaming headset for some real headphones.

You're mostly backwards about sound quality. At the high end it's 90%+ the headphone or speakers and the rest is mostly the amp. A DAC matters the least as a good DAC is transparent and doesn't color the sound at all.
 
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rhysiam

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Mar 24, 2013
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I'm guessing your current headset connects via USB? If that's the case then a the headset is completely bypassing any other sound devices in your system. Those USB headsets include a "sound card", they do all their own processing.

The advice you got is correct if you're using analogue headphones (with the 3.5mm audio jacks). In that case the headphones are just the speakers and all the audio processing and amplification is handled by whatever card or sound device you've plugged the headphones in to. With a decent quality set of analogue headphones, the sound card starts to make a big difference. In your case however (assuming your headphones are USB), a sound card would literally do nothing, unless or until you plugged something into it.
 
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Solution
Yeldur

Yeldur

Honorable
Jan 28, 2017
228
25
10,720
Ah righty, right now I'm running via USB, so in that case, it makes no difference what sound card I have as it's bypassed anyways. Fair enough. If I ever get an analogue type headset with a jack then I'll look into a soundcard, otherwise I'll stick with what I got. The headset I've got isn't too bad either way, the surround sound isn't bad for virtual surround sound, and the audio quality is very nice. Plus the microphone on it is the best I've ever had, really good quality on it.

I was looking at a surround sound headset originally but then I was told that all other audio suffers as a result, and I don't want that. Would rather have virtual surround sound and keep good quality audio personally.
 
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