upgrading a sound card?

[crossfire]

i have a creative SB audigy 4 sound card. does the job. i usualy use headphones most of the times (getting speakers soon). if i upgrade to a x-fi music card. would it be alot better than my audigy 4? sound wise? would it increase the sound quality of the headphones im using? (btw im using a sennheiser pc150), will there be a huge difference?

 

[the_stiffmeister]

I've heard there is a massive difference. I'm in the same boat with an Audigy 4, prob will upgrade soon.

 

[choirbass]

truthfully... ive heard more of the contrary of noticable differences, if you already have a discrete sound card (a fairly current one no less), the difference between it and an upgraded card will be more negligable...

the largest difference will be in the headphones/speakers you choose to use (since they are what deliver the sound you hear, after all)... if you upgrade your headphones to a higher quality set, you will get a larger acoustical difference than going from an audigy 4 to an x-fi... also depending on how improved the headphones/speakers are too, over what you already have

 

[the_stiffmeister]

It probably depends on what you want to do with it. I've heard that games like BF2 which have specific support for the x-fi cards show a big difference, so big that it actually gives you a competitive advantage in game. Of course if you have crappy speakers or headphones the difference will be less but you have sennheiser heaphones you you should be ok.

 

[choirbass]

yeah, if a game has specific support for it, that would make sense (such as bf2)... but if a game does not however, such as most games (unless he mostly only plays bf2)... also no games that im aware of yet that have support for EAX5, though im not sure on that... ...but aside from that, although he didnt ask, the largest improvement, make no doubt, will be in the speakers used... he has a set of senn 150, so im sure theyre okay

but if he wants noticably improved sound quality... that would be the way to go... its his choice either way though, and his money

 

[chuckshissle]

Well if you want to upgrade then get the X-Fi Fatal1ty for gaming and music. Really nice sound card, and paired with a good quality speakers you'll have amazing audio quality. I'm using X-Fi Extreme Music and Klipsch 2.1 ProMedia and it sound really nice in music, movies and games.

 

[crossfire]

well i play cod2, bf2142, rainbow six: vegas, and the future games when it comes out. i dont really want to spend so much on a sound card. but then. choirbass did got a point. i'll proberly upgrade my headset and keep this audigy 4 for 1 more year

thanks

 

[sink]

I had an audigy 2 paired with crappy 4.1 speakers, upgraded to logitech z-5500 speakers and the sound difference was incredible. Bought a new pc recently with X-Fi Xtreme Gamer (same as Fatal1ty but with out the 5,1/2 I/O drive) and still use my z-5500's and the different was not all that noticeable for music and dvd's but was a more noticeable boost for games. I would upgrade to high quality speakers first then get X-Fi when you have enough money.