Recon3d pcie or buy somthing else instead ?

[fastwing76]

hello everyone.
I currently have a recon3d pcie sound card, I bought it about 2 months ago when I upgraded to a new build so it was kinda of a rush since I ordered everything togather, I have been hearing pretty bad stuff about this sound card, am not a hardware specialist but I have been hearing it has low quality dcbs and other components also the quad core is not even a real quad core. so am kinda confused, what make things worst is that it even has 102snr which is lower than my motherboard onboard sound card 108!snr.
I havn`t had any hardware or software problems with it so far, and the sound quality is slightly better than the onboard or barley comparable, am not an audiophile but that what sounded like.
I have been thinking about getting a new sound card such as the asus essense st or something similar but worried that it might not perform well in games and wont be future resistant since it has been released few years ago.
so my options are.
1-go ahead and buy asus xonar essense st hook my headphones in and my sony hi fi system and then perform a full comparision between them both so that everyone could know the difference.
2-save the money and abuy a better 5.1 system for the pc and keep the recon3d pcie
3-sell the recon3d or burn it ! and stick with the motherboard onboard sound.
4-wait for creative to release a driver update that might make this thing sound better and get a better reviews and be actually comparable to even the older x-fi series.

I would really love everyone opinion in this, if you were me what would you do? and am open to any other sound card options that am not aware of.
thank you all for your help.

 

[popatim]

Since your not an audiophile use whatever is 'good enough'.
If on-board is good enough then sell the recon and pocket some cash.
If the recon is good enough then use it.
If neither are good enough, sell the recon and buy something better.

 

[fastwing76]

Since your not an audiophile use whatever is 'good enough'.
If on-board is good enough then sell the recon and pocket some cash.
If the recon is good enough then use it.
If neither are good enough, sell the recon and buy something better.

after I have spent some time with it and played various games, I have found that this card has an amazing surround 3d like sound over the headphones, something that is crucial in playing fps games, am not sure if the essense xt has that or not, besides am not really intrigued by the Idea of buying a sound card that has been release 3 years ago, despite it having the top reviews until now, the recon3d is only few months old, so it hasn`t been matured enough driver wise and maybe after some times a new driver will improve it even more.

this is the only card that has a 5.1 analogue output and a dedicated headphone output with an amp and a virtual surround sound that really pinpoint the exact position in FPS, something that other cards don`t have even if this card is lacking components, it is still a very intresting option for gamers who cannot give up their 5.1 speakers or their headphones, after all this is the real reason I bought it for.

on paper this card is really lacking but in real gaming situations, its drivers work perfectly and its features are really intresting.

well thank you for your reply, I was hoping to recieve more replies and opinions but thinking about it I have already bought it so ....

 

[Idonno]

From what I understand that card was made primarily for gaming and not aimed at the audiophile part of the market but even if it was geared towards the audiophile crowd if you don't have quite a bit invested in your amp & speakers you won't here the difference anyway.

For instance if you think Logitech Z-5500's sound great, you won't hear the difference. Trust me!

From what I understand your primarily into gaming and your not an audiophile so it sounds like you have a perfect match!

As an audiophile who's not big into gaming I would never buy that card but it's all about what your into so don't let a bunch of audiophile's reviews lead you to believe that your card isn't any good for your purposes.

I've heard your card is pretty awesome for gaming, using the latest tech for that purpose.

Again It's all about what your into and it sounds like you've found a pretty good match.

 

[fastwing76]

From what I understand that card was made primarily for gaming and not aimed at the audiophile part of the market but even if it was geared towards the audiophile crowd if you don't have quite a bit invested in your amp & speakers you won't here the difference anyway.

For instance if you think Logitech Z-5500's sound great, you won't hear the difference. Trust me!

From what I understand your primarily into gaming and your not an audiophile so it sounds like you have a perfect match!

As an audiophile who's not big into gaming I would never buy that card but it's all about what your into so don't let a bunch of audiophile's reviews lead you to believe that your card isn't any good for your purposes.

I've heard your card is pretty awesome for gaming, using the latest tech for that purpose.

Again It's all about what your into and it sounds like you've found a pretty good match.

your absolutly right Idonno, it has the best 3d sound position I have ever heard on headphones and on 5.1 speakers,
I do not own a logitech 5500 cuz I am primarly into headphone gaming, I own a pair of denon studio cans since I don`t believe in those 5.1 gaming headsets that costs as much as a good pair of high quality stereo headphones, I upgraded my computer for gaming and productivity, and watching series and movies, I do not listen to music much, so this card seemed like a perfect match at the time of purchase cuz it was in my price range and it had all the things I needed, I also purchased it cuz it had a digital out that support 5.1 so I can upgrade to an energy 5.1 system or a recieve and shelf speakers equivelant later in the future, I have always known logitech for mouses and keyboard not audio products, although am sure their audio products are great for most people.
am not an audiophile but I have some tendency toward becoming one .... but am trying to not get cought in it since its kinda of a costy habit.

 

[fastwing76]

titanium HD was on discount so I grapped one on amazon, I am currently using it instead of the recon3D, obviously its way better in music and movies, but gaming, I must say it`s kind of hard to determine what is better, but recon3d seems to have better postioning audio, but I guess thats about it cuz the titanium HD seems to handle all the sounds much better in games, everything seems more clearer but the R and L factor is more obvious in the T-HD, I cannot say what is really better in games until I get the asgard amplifier this way the T-HD will be head to head with the recon3d sine the recon3d has an intergated amplifer.

guys I would really love your comments and thoughts about this ^_^

 

[gamerk316]

this is the only card that has a 5.1 analogue output and a dedicated headphone output with an amp and a virtual surround sound that really pinpoint the exact position in FPS, something that other cards don`t have even if this card is lacking components, it is still a very intresting option for gamers who cannot give up their 5.1 speakers or their headphones, after all this is the real reason I bought it for.

Uhh? Several ASUS/Auzentech/HT Omega cards have the same exact feature set. They simply do virtualized surround via Dolby Headphone. The cards with a built in amp [that I can think of off hand]:

ASUS Xonar DG
ASUS Xonar Xense
ASUS Xonar ST/STX
Auzentech Forte [X-fi based]
Auzentech Bravura [X-fi based]
Auzentech Home Theatre HD [X-fi based]
HT Omega Claro Halo XT

The ASUS Xonar DG is the most interesting of the bunch, since its the only card with a built in amp comming in under $100 [though it can only drive 150 Ohms, rather then the 300/600 the others can].

 

[douglasw]

If it's not to late to put in my 2 cents what id do is if you have a stereo system that has less quality then the Logitech Z-5500 then id keep the Recon 3 because the Z-5500 are like the borderline when it comes to good quality sound. If your a audiophile then get yourself a high end sound card like an asus or a ht omega then your just getting the sound quality your looking for..Alought of people think to solve there problem they just need a highend sound card but thats not the case..Myself i have the Z-5500's and i bought the HT Omega claro plus and that was just the easy part then if your a music nut like me thats wants the best quality sound posible theres hours on hours setting everything up from placing your speakers on stands to making insolated stand for your subwoofer to controle vibration plus i went as far as changing my 5000 song collection to a highter bit rate of 320 kbp/s Then theres setting up the sound card itself, it took me weeks to get the right comdination but when everything comes together the sound quality is no less then amazing plus im always trying to figure out ways to improve....so i think i fit the picture of being a audiophile.....

 

[Idonno]

titanium HD was on discount so I grapped one on amazon

Well it's a little late but I would have advised against that. I bought one on sale a little over 1yr ago and I had so many issues with the drivers I replaced it with an HT l Omega eClaro.

The Titanium HD was good hardware even though it didn't really have all the features I wanted, I just couldn't get Creatives software to work right all the time.

It was pretty new then hopefully you'll have better luck with their newer drivers.

If you do find the need for another sound card go with a "HT l Omega". They only have 5 internal sound cards on newegg But, 4 out of those 5 have 5 egg ratings and the other one is four eggs.

Both Creative and Asus have more than double that amount of internal sound cards each and they DON'T have ONE 5 egg rating between the two of them. If you read the reviews the poor ratings are usually due to driver issues with Creative being the worst in that department. HT l Omega's drivers JUST WORK!

Don't get me wrong I used to be a Creative fan and I think they still make some good hardware (like the Titanium HD) but a lot of people (myself included) have had to many issues with their software.

Here's hoping you have better luck!

 

[douglasw]

You know iv always been lucky with creative but i know what you mean about driver issues for a few years i ran the creative X-fi fatality 1 pro series but it never had onboard dolby digital Live encoder so it left me to go on line & buy the DD live DTS pack that creative sold for pennies but it never did run right there was always somthing going wrong & on top of that the licence had a expiry date so i knew it was time to upgrade to another brand..So im trying the HT Omega claro Plus i think it will be a good match with the Logitech Z-5500..

 

[Idonno]

So im trying the HT Omega claro Plus i think it will be a good match with the Logitech Z-5500..

I just checked out that card on newegg. It's another 5 egg card from HT l Omega. The problem is it's deactivated and it doesn't seem like It's too easy to buy anywhere else either except for eBay.

All's not lost though, It's successor the HT | OMEGA CLARO II has all the same features, Audio Chipset, opamp and DAC
The only differences I see are the added shield and they also added "ANTI-POP CIRCUITRY" to get rid of those annoying snaps and pops you can sometimes get when you boot-up and shut-down your PC.

 

[douglasw]

Yes i agree the card i choose is very hard to find but i found one on Ncix.ca and i already Payed for it. Mind you there saying there out of stock at the main warehouse but the top dog assured me that it will be sent to me this week...I hear on there forum site if you ordered a product and took your money and they cant produce what they do is give you there better product it its place...That would be a bonus..hell hey ill take the HT Omega halo... thats a step up from the claro plus

 

[gamerk316]

I just checked out that card on newegg. It's another 5 egg card from HT l Omega. The problem is it's deactivated and it doesn't seem like It's too easy to buy anywhere else either except for eBay.

All's not lost though, It's successor the HT | OMEGA CLARO II has all the same features, Audio Chipset, opamp and DAC
The only differences I see are the added shield and they also added "ANTI-POP CIRCUITRY" to get rid of those annoying snaps and pops you can sometimes get when you boot-up and shut-down your PC.

These days, HT Omega/Auzentech/ASUS simply keep releasing C-Media CMI-8788 varients over and over. I can't wait for ASUS' next soundcard refresh, as the specs looked excellent. At the very least, now that C-Media made a native PCI-E audio chipset, I expect to see a lot of the old PCI-E cards [which use a PCI->PCI-E chip to make the card work on that interface] retired.

 

[Idonno]

I hear on there forum site if you ordered a product and took your money and they cant produce what they do is give you there better product it its place...That would be a bonus..hell hey ill take the HT Omega halo... thats a step up from the claro plus

I'd tell them you need the 7.1 analog so you couldn't possibly settle for anything less than than the Halo XT as a replacement. LOL

 

[Idonno]

These days, HT Omega/Auzentech/ASUS simply keep releasing C-Media CMI-8788 varients over and over. I can't wait for ASUS' next soundcard refresh, as the specs looked excellent. At the very least, now that C-Media made a native PCI-E audio chipset, I expect to see a lot of the old PCI-E cards [which use a PCI->PCI-E chip to make the card work on that interface] retired.

I'd definitely like to see some more PCIe cards out there and IMO a chip developed with PCIe in mind would go a long way towards furthering that goal. I've had a PCIe x1 slot on a PC since I bought a Dell 4700 over 10 yrs ago. When everything in the PC world is moving so fast I sometimes feel that the audio part of that world it barely moving. More new audio chips developed for PCIe is way past due!

 

[douglasw]

Yes i hear you, its weird how a video card comes out every few months pos to sound cards every few years..Myself i dont think you'll see any new cards come from Ausus in the near future...With video cards your dealing with the eyes and how they try to create effects to trick the eye into believing stuff like 3D, but sound you almost think they have taken it as far as they can i was shocked to find out my sound card i choose is already close to 5 years old..And iv notice some of the newest sound cards that came out has taken a step backwards like the Recond 3D...Also i find there making more PCIE x1 cards maybe its for the reason to free up the PCI slots for other devices it does make sense...Anyways iv notice newegg dont carry the HT Omega claro Plus anymore so i guess i consider myself luck that the local carrier just delivered my card this morning..

 

[gamerk316]

I'd definitely like to see some more PCIe cards out there and IMO a chip developed with PCIe in mind would go a long way towards furthering that goal. I've had a PCIe x1 slot on a PC since I bought a Dell 4700 over 10 yrs ago. When everything in the PC world is moving so fast I sometimes feel that the audio part of that world it barely moving. More new audio chips developed for PCIe is way past due!

Well, C-Media JUST released a native PCI-E chipset, and ASUS has already announced a now RoG branded soundcard that looks really good.

The main problem right now is the lack of a decent API (OpenAL is good, but too generalized). It isn't like we can do too much more in the audio quality department, so until a new gaming dedicated audio API comes out, we're basically stuck where we are.

 

[fastwing76]

guys thank you all for your replies, and I am sorry for not replying to any of you since I havn`t received a notification by E-mail, I have finally got the titanium HD to work well on my new reg after a fresh windows install, and it works as a sharm now, got it hooked to asgard and d5000 headphones and the combination sounds just great!

 

[fastwing76]

Best answer selected by fastwing76.

 

[fastwing76]

cheers everyone, if its up to me I would have choose u all guys as best answers cuz you guys helped alot with all the info you provided.

thank you all for the help

 

[Idonno]

"fastwing76" I'm glad you got every thing sorted out and your happy with your card.

 

[fastwing76]

you were right about the titanium HD drivers, but everything went well after I did a fresh windows istall, since I went from amd platform to intel so I took the chance to re-install everything from scratch.
thank you for your help and thanks for everyone around here