I need a good sound card for my Roccat Kave headphones

[youssef 2010]

Hello Everybody,

I hope this message finds you well. I will tell the whole story to make sure you get the whole picture.

I purchased the Roccat Kave headphones about two months ago. They seemed to work fine at the beginning with on-board audio and I noticed many improvements from my previous headphones. About a month ago, I began hearing strange interference from the Center speaker. I first doubted the headphones but I tested them on my older PC (Win XP) and found out that the output had no interference at all!!!!!. I tried plugging the Center/Subwoofer jack into another output on the audio card and also heard no interference at all!!!!!. Then I assumed it was the sound card and began searching for an affordable sound card that won't break the bank and would produce good sound with the Kave Headphones. Because of the availability of sound cards in my country. There're basically three models to choose from. Namely, the Xonar DG, DS & DX. According to the reviews I read, Xonar DX & DS are far better than the DG.

I have simple questions:

1) Is there a solution for the on-board audio issue? or will I have to buy a discrete soundcard?

1) Which is better, the DS or the DX?

3) Due to various mixed opinions I've come across, I have to ask another question: Will the Xonar DX or DS be better than the on-board audio?

4) I've heard of something called GPU interference and I'd like to know if that will affect me as I have my available PCI-E x1 slots either above or beneath the GPU. My other options include the secondary PCI-E x8 slot beneath the GPU but that would cause the board to go into x8,x8 mode. Where should I put the sound card in your opinion?

Hardware Info that might help:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P F8 BIOS
GPU: MSI Radeon HD 6950 unlocked to a fully-featured 6970
PSU: Seasonic J-Series 750W PSU
Case: CM Storm Sniper Black Edition
Headphones: Roccat Kave

If any of my inquiries sound stupid. Please, go easy on me and remember that I know very little about sound cards

 

[youssef 2010]

Thanks for the help, guys. Got the Xonar DX, will post again when I install it to assess it's performance.

This is the first time that I post a question and nobody answers me. Although 70+ people have read the question, None of them gave me the courtesy of a reply.

P.S: You feel bad when you try to help people and nobody helps you in return.

 

[gamerk316]

^^ Truth be told, I just saw this thread today. We don't have many audio experts here [we have two, counting me ]...

But to answer the questions anways:

1) Is there a fix for the on-board audio issue? or will I have to buy a discrete soundcard?

Aside from the normal driver upgrades, I'm not sure what else you can do. Onboard doesn't exactly have a lot of options to play with...

1) Which is better, the DS or the DX?

DX.

3) Due to various mixed opinions I've come across, I have to ask another question: Will the Xonar DX or DS be better than the on-board audio?

Yes. Especially with a decent set of speakers/headphones.

4) I've heard of something called GPU interference and I'd like to know if that will affect me as I have my available PCI-E x1 slots either above or beneath the GPU. My other options include the secondary PCI-E x8 slot beneath the GPU but that would cause the board to go into x8,x8 mode. Where should I put the sound card in your opinion?

Any PCI-E slot will do, but farthest away from the GPU is preferable, just in case.

 

[we1shcake]

im using kaves aswell but if you use the stock asus drivers the sound is echoey as the rear channels have a slight amount of lag. http://brainbit.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/ use these instead to fix the problem but make sure you dont install the stock ones at all

 

[gamerk316]

^^ Yeah, I've heard nothing but good things about the Xonar Unified Drivers, but I have not encounted the problem you have described personally using the standard drivers. Always a fallback option though.

 

[youssef 2010]

Thank you for your reply.

According to the detailed specs on ASUS's website, the Xonar DX supports GX 2.5, enabling EAX 5.0 emulation. But when clicking the information button in my driver. I found the GX version displayed to be 1.0.10.917 and the 3D audio Engine to be ONLY EAX 2.0 capable. I have two questions:

1) Is this card capable of emulating EAX 5.0 on my OS?

2) Does this card support GX 2.5 or not?

 

[gamerk316]

1: Technically, yes. ASUS cards offer full EAX 1-2 support [as do most all sound devices these days], and emulated EAX 5.0 support through its drivers.

Note, that officially, only the X-fi chipset can handle EAX 5 [even if changes in Vista/7 also force it to be software emulated]. Also note that GX needs to be enabled to active EAX 5 effects, and this *can* cause some problems in some circumstances [I know Mass Effect has some problems with GX mode].

2: It supports GX 2.5.

 

[youssef 2010]

Has anybody been able to enable EAX 5.0 on windows 7 using this card? I tried Doom 3 RoE and it reports that " No capable hardware was found". Bioshock could enable EAX even if GX wasn't enabled in the driver.

@gamerk316: If you know a way to confirm this, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me. I'll post a picture of the driver information tab. If you see anything out of the ordinary, tell me

 

[we1shcake]

^^ Yeah, I've heard nothing but good things about the Xonar Unified Drivers, but I have not encounted the problem you have described personally using the standard drivers. Always a fallback option though.

it mostly only happens when playing fps's the gunfire sounds like your standing in a concrete tube, bugged the hell out of me as thats what i bought the headset for

 

[youssef 2010]

Thank you for your great help guys. All issues have been resolved or explained for the time being.

 

[youssef 2010]

Best answer selected by youssef 2010.