Best Soundcard, Confusion!

First off, EAX is only emulated on ASUS cards. While Creative/Auzentech cards use Alchemy to convert Directsound calls to OpenAL (which is still hardware accelerated) using Alchemy to get 100% accurate effects, ASUS cards simply covert the EAX calls to a call the card can understand. The main disadvantages are lack of 100% true EAX, and lack of hardware acceleration for the EAX calls. The main advantage is far more games will run with EAX, as Alchemy doesn't need to be updated seperatly. Unless you are strictly a gaming audiophile though, ASUS's implementation is good enough for 99.9% of us.

As for the cards themselves:

ASUS STX Essence:
The STX essence only supports stereo out via analog (RCA ports), but supports 5.1 output over its digital port using either Dolby Digital or DTS encoding. (Seperate decoder needed to play back the output). For those of us with 5.1 systems and a Dolby/DTS decoder, nothing beats the STX in playback quality, not even the Auzentech Forte...The main downside in my mind is lack of a digital input port...

Speaking of the Forte, its the best X-fi card avaliable. Supports 7.1 analog via the VGA-like connector, and 5.1 over digital via Dolby Digital and DTS encoding. I still give the STX the edge in overall quality, but with "true" EAX support for games, this is a serious contender. The main downside, again, is lack of a digital input port...

ASUS HDAV 1.3 Delux: The Home Theatre card. Supporting every Dolby/DTS encoder/decoder I know of, and HDMI in/out, this card does it all. Meant more for streaming in/out video then sound processing though, so not the best choice for gamers. Comes with a daughter card that supports 7.1 analog outputs (soon to be sold seperatly).

ASUS Xonar D2/D2X: For audio playback, this card falls between the Auzentech Prelude and Auzentech Forte. The D2 is PCI and D2X is PCI-E, but are otherwise 100% the same. Supports ASUS's EAX implementation, 7.1 over analog, and 5.1 in/out via digital port. No longer a top of the line card, but for those needed an optical INPUT (glares at card manufactures...) still a very, very good option. As an aside, the newer Xonar DX is essentially a D2X with more budget components, but otherwise behaves exactly the same.

I will not even list a Creative card, as there is no reason to buy one with their horrific driver support.

As you use Z5500's, your best solution would be 5.1 using either Dolby Digital or DTS coming from the cards optical output. In this case, the STX Essence would be the "Best" choice for overall playback quality, with the Forte a very, very close second. Your headphones can also be hooked up via optical (supports only Dolby Digital and not DTS), so the lack of 3.5mm jacks on the Essence is not a major concern.

On an aside, I've been looking for a new headset to replace the Razer Barracuda HP-1's and my generic Sony ones. The Tritton AX Pro's are the first I've seen that uses a mic over the optical port and works for the 360/PS3...I might have to get a pair myself...

The forte is one hell of a soundcard. The stx is pretty amazing also but the forte is less $ and IMO, a much better sounding card for games. Music on the other hand, the stx has the forte beat. But the 2 cards are good at what they are geared for.

Basically, only EAX 1, 2, and 5 are officially supported an ASUS cards (very few games used 3 or 4 anyways). What ASUS did was interpret the EAX calls driver level via its GX engine. Works very well, but some effects will be a bit off.

For instance, in "true" EAX 5 Bioshock, if you go from a large room to a small room, you'll get the gradual change in environmental sounds as you pass through the rooms, where on an ASUS card, you'll go from "Large room" to a "small room" environment instantaneously once you pass into the smaller room. Granted, this can still be improved in drivers, but its worth noting.

As for you're specific questions (in no particular order):

1: The STX gets 5.1 via its optical jack using DD/DTS encoding (otherwise it just outputs 2.0), and 2.0 via RCA. Basically, rather then focus on analog, they made the only card I know of (minus the HDAV) that truly focuses on digital output. The main issue is, unless you can decode an incoming DD/DTS signal, the best you'll be able to output over spdif is 2.0 (DD/DTS signals are compressed, which is why they can be transfered; a uncompressed 5.1 signal is too large for Spdif to carry).

The main problem in this area is only HDMI has the capacity to output a digital 7.1 signal, which is why every 7.1 speaker setup I know of still uses analog connections for each individual speaker pair. Hence, why the HDAV supports digital 7.1 outputs and all Dolby/DTS formats, and other cards do not.

2: The HDAV focus as a media card, although its daughter card is nothing to laugh at either. That being said, its around as good playback wise as the Auzentech Prelude, maybe a tiny bit better. If you plan to use a HDMI connection to a reciever that supports high end 7.1 Dolby/DTS formats, then this is the card for you. If not, then you're probably best served looking elsewhere.

3: I believe the forte has a general input port which can be used for a Spdif/Toslink input.

Basically, if you don't have a way to decode a DD/DTS signal, then the HDAV and STX are probably not the way you want to go, as thats the only way to get above 2.0 over a digital connection. In that case, the older Xonar D2(X) (or the newer DX) and the Auzentech Forte become the two cards to look at in my mind.

*Note, I tend to use Spdif/Toslink interchangably. ASUS cards use Toslink by default, but ship with Spdif converters. Coaxial is a different form of digital connection, and only works if theres a dedicated port.

Your monitor plugs into your geforce through dvi... maybe hdmi although i haven't seen the newest geforces yet but they still likely have dvi

YOur speakers connect to your sound card through analog or optical or maybe hdmi i haven't seen the newer sound cards but i doubt the speakers will connect through hdmi anyway... so most likely analog.



it should be pretty straight forward just hookup matching connector with the cables they gave you.... or just read the manuals that come in your shiny new boxes lol


you never have to change cables between video/audio as they should not be hooked up to the same card




i.e. video card for video
and sound card for sound.