With the advances in onboard sound chips on mobos these days, do standalone sound cards offer much of an improvement in quality? Say if you only use headphones and not interested in 5.1/7.1 speaker systems.

I use 7.1 headphones most of the time, but also have a 4.1 speaker set.

IMHO, unless you are using music encoded in a high bit sampling rate and want it reproduced in really HQ, it is really a waste of money.

If you only play games, sound files are rarely sampled higher than 16 bit at 44.1 KHz. The onboard sound hardware is more than capable of reproducing these. There is definitively better quality from a dedicated card (although not much different than onboard if you go for the cheap solutions). Maybe a better positioning algorithm and channel separation is what you could get. The cost of a good sound card is hardly justifiable these days.


I guess, another unintended consequence of having the latest games developed for multiple platforms.

In that case, I wouldn't bother. I'm a big fan of my card, but only due to my Z-5500 surround set up. You can get a lot of benefit with the adjustability it offers in a good speaker system, but IMO it would be a waste with headphones or basic speakers. Hard to beat a good set of headphones, put the money into that.

I gotta have my SB XFi Platinum Fatality ed.

for my studio work, i need all the MIDI in/outs and stuff.

Onboard is fine, although sometimes your mileage may vary.
My old work computer had absolutely abysmally poor RFI on the sound outputs, which is one place where I would use an external sound card. For my composing machine where I need low MIDI latency, I use a somewhat exotic Emu 1212M. It is quite overkill for game/sim stuff though.

If you use headphones most of the time, I'd spend a bit more cash and go for >£100 stuff. Sennheiser HD555s or AKG 701s, I think they were. Depends on whether you like reference or a "hi-fi" sound I guess.

I've had my X Fi since they first came out. I've got the Xtreme Music or whatever it was called, the first wave of them.

I've thought about getting one of the newer PCI-E models, but in the end I just stick with my old PCI model.



The Jedi Master

I've looked at high end headphones before but they need to accommodate my TIR trackclip and not many have a flat area on the band.

I have a SB Live 5.1 Platinum ($299 when it was new). in my old system.

When i built the newer system in 2005/6 I upgraded to a SB XFi Platinum w/ 64MB of XRam.

The only games that utilized the EAX X-Ram was a few EA / Battlefield 2 Games (dont remember).

The reasons I Stuck with A NICE addon Card is, are the reasons I'll transfer my XFi Card to my WIP System Im Building Now.

Even though Most Onboard audio chips have improved in terms of Dolby Digital Decoding and all the features.

the SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio), on their Outputs are no where near where they should be for quality sound. most of hte system's I've used headphones on had the analog noise/hiss on them due to poor shielding of the chip and the jacks.

And Like i Said a few days ago, I do Audio/Video Studio Work, so I can switch between 3 modes on my XFi
(Gaming, Entertainment, Audio Creation.) Each mode effects the Sound Processor and uses different features/filters.

And I Use all the ports on the 5.25 Bay Expansion (Mini MIDI In/Outs, Line In/Outs, Optical SPDIF In/Out, RCA SPDIF In/Out) 1/4 MIC, 1/4 Headphone, etc etc.)

Quick forum search goes a long way.

I recommend reading all 3 pages of the above linked thread. We covered 99% of the sound card related stuff.

I still don't have a TIR, so I don't know what the attachment system requires, but is it possible to dash together something using old cereal/cardboard boxes, some glue or masking tape?