Creative launches Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe sound card with ESS DAC
Posted by kikimaru024@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 149 comments
Posted by kikimaru024@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 149 comments
ritz_are_the_shitz@reddit
I've never heard a sound card that was on par with external DACs half their price. Just get a desktop dac/amp for the same money, it'll blow this away.
jsheard@reddit
Yeah, putting analog audio stuff right next to an interference-spewing graphics card is just making things difficult for no good reason. External interfaces don't have to worry about that.
marmarama@reddit
Flip side is that if low latency is your thing, USB isn't the best (although usually adequate).
It's also very easy to transmit interference across USB ground, designers still need to be very careful about the analogue side of things. I have one USB audio interface that is quite buzzy with certain combinations of computer and USB cable. I suspect that with proper shielding and analogue side design, this SoundBlaster could be better than a lot of USB audio interfaces, despite the noisy environment.
I don't think I'd buy an internal sound card in this day and age, but it's not entirely open-and-shut.
I-never-joke@reddit
The USB latency thing is really not that clear cut and anecdotally may be actually lower in latency then PCI.
I am a longtime PCI soundcard user who switched to a usb desktop and noticed no perceivable difference.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Correct. Avoiding USB is one of the major reasons these would still benefit people.
This one however uses a pcie>usb bridge. So it's likely it doesn't even do that.
ritz_are_the_shitz@reddit
I don't know why anyone would bother using USB to connect to a DAC. Basically every motherboard I've seen in the past 15 years has an optical spdif port.
Asgardisalie@reddit
99,9% of mobos do not have SPDIF.
boringestnickname@reddit
Uh, why?
You get $6000 Neve interfaces running on USB.
Nobody that cares about sound cares about SPDIF. It's basically all consumer stuff.
crystalchuck@reddit
It's still handy for connecting a CD player to a DAC/whatever. But that's about it AFAIK.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
If the toslink doesn't communicate over usb(sadly common in modern motherboards with toslink) then yes, it reduces latency by a measurable degree for WASAPI shared(most games)
Successful_Ad_8219@reddit
If you want more than stereo... And no, DolbyDigital 5.1 over SPDIF isn't what I would call good enough.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
A lot of those actually internally use usb controllers too sadly. They may also be 1-2 chipsets down, both of which defeats the purpose.
I suppose for most people the lack of extra cables(usb bus powered), easier software management, and the higher max audio bit rate/depth(even if it doesn't really matter) means they'll be drawn towards usb solutions.
marmarama@reddit
In which case: eww.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Unfortunately way more common than you might think. Most modern cards(barring sketchy Chinese "brands" either lack MSI, use a USB based audio controller(ALC4080), a pcie>usb bridge, or some combination of them.
The newest brand name one that doesn't do any of that is the audigy fx v2, which just uses the ALC1220, can use Microsoft HDA drivers to avoid the issue with creative's own solutions, and can utilize MSI. It's however not a very "capable" audio card relatively speaking, I honestly just use mine for 3.5mm microphone input to avoid latency there.
The best modern way to avoid the usb audio stack latency and still get high quality audio is to get it from the GPU via an audio extractor, or directly from the monitor via toslink or EARC(rare for new high end monitors) to a dedicated external DAC, or a good DAC 3.5mm(niche but exists)
Jeep-Eep@reddit
And it seems to be avoiding issues common in a lot of USB sound implementations; don't know WHY a high end mobo can't outdo that, but they can't.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
We even had good onboard motherboard solutions back in the day too!!! Creative had some of their best tech implimented directly on some of them back in the day, and Nvidia even had their own competing solution.
Creative killed off advanced audio, and I hate to say it but the gamer masses helped lower the bar to decent audio too with their lack of caring.
kpmgeek@reddit
RME has been pulling off wicked low latency in class compliant USB devices for a while now.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
For Asio. Irrelevant for WASAPI shared.
kpmgeek@reddit
Fair, but thats up to the windows driver stack and creative's drivers. I'm on linux where pipewire latency in all my applications is super low.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Agreed, it's just frustrating that the majority of what pc users/gamers experience will be this insanely high latency WASAPI shared usb mess.
kpmgeek@reddit
I wonder how it performs routed through some of the ASIO to WASAPI bridges like Voicemeter. That shouldn't be faster, and yet anything is possible with how bad the Windows audio stack performance is.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Nah it's an extra processing step and it causes latency. I don't have any links off hand but I've seen people test and talk about it in the past.
kpmgeek@reddit
Yeah, I was just wondering if the latency it added was less than the latency caused by the Windows class compliant audio driver, but I haven't tested anything.
VenditatioDelendaEst@reddit
AFAICT adequate is pretty damn good.
A search turned up this guy benchmarking audio interfaces.
Poking through the results suggests that the Motu M2 (USB, $$$), is only like 1ms slower than the $$$$ rack mounted PCIe interfaces. That's swamped by buffer size, and the ability to run small buffers is determined by having a non-buggy BIOS free of SMIs, deep CPU c-states disabled, OS tuned for ~zero cpu-intensive background services and no swap, etc.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Almost none of that is relevant for gamers-Asio is rarely ever used nor is WASAPI exclusive.
WASAPI shared is the majority of the problem and it absolutely fucks latency over USB.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Yeah, USB ought to be able to match PCIE to USB, but in practice it just don't far too often. The noise problem for in-case sound is massively overstated anyway with any competent DAC design and between that and the fact it's one less thing to fall off my desk, an easy rec.
ritz_are_the_shitz@reddit
If low latency is your thing, you should be using a dedicated device that is given over to the software directly and skips Windows.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Windows audio stack bypass/low level access and real time hardware offloading is long since dead in WASAPI shared/games unfortunately.
Real time gaming audio was quite literally orders of magnitude better decades ago.
sturgeon02@reddit
USB audio can have issues with noise too. I have a pretty nice motherboard and I still get some faint noise on certain USB ports when my GPU draws a lot of power
Toslink is the best solution, imo
kuddlesworth9419@reddit
Whenever I am about to get a phone call my speakers will play some noise that I can only assume is from the phone network. I don't think it's the DAC though or my AMP but probably interfering with the speaker cable or something. It's kind of funny actually.
boringestnickname@reddit
Don't put your phone next to unshielded speakers.
What you're hearing is basically directly from the drivers. Has nothing to do with anything at the opposite end of the chain.
kuddlesworth9419@reddit
Granted my speakers aren't really for desk use and it doesn't happens all the time only when my phone in in a specific area I guess.
boringestnickname@reddit
Almost guaranteed to be your speaker.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
I wish EARC was natively supported and implemented on GPUs or monitors.
dparks1234@reddit
The workaround I’ve done in the past is hooking up a second HDMI cable to an old audio receiver and configuring it as an invisible 1080p monitor. So I had one HDMI output going to my 4K projector, and a second HDMI output going to my old Yamaha receiver with the PC’s video set to the projector and audio output set to the “1080p Yamaha monitor”.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Yup that's unfortunately one of the "best" ways to do it these days. Supposedly there's a way you can remove the second virtual monitor if you have w11 pro workstation edition but I've never looked into it. Luckily I chose my current monitor specifically because it has a good ESS DAC built into it so I've never needed to mess with those solutions, but I have looked into getting at an EARC>my Sound blaster G8 that's sitting unused.
No atmos or other things but I also feel like that might not matter because non stereo getting force down mixed by an external solution to non native stereo creates accuracy issues.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
From empirical personal experience, and folks doing signal testing of the AE-5, that issue is *massively* overstated in practical use.
James_Jack_Hoffmann@reddit
I got an Asus Xonar Essence STX as a gift (think it's like 300-400 USD at the time) long ago that I shelved back in my home country and hoping to put it sometime. But then I realised I have a Topping A70/D70 now. Quite honestly yeah, the Topping carries more punch audio wise, and don't have to worry about the messiest driver issues you'll deal with Windows.
Asgardisalie@reddit
Yeah, but it's Topping, a Hifiman of headamps/dac. Terrible built quality and most will die before 2 year period.
Successful_Ad_8219@reddit
And I've never once seen any evidence that a reasonably competent DAC in a PC, in an expensive external DAC, or a cheap internal DAC, have any audible difference.
ritz_are_the_shitz@reddit
I'm not going to sit here any tell you that thousands of dollar DACs make a difference, but I do think they need to be good enough, and removing them from the EMR inside your case is very helpful.
Successful_Ad_8219@reddit
Assuming it's an issue. Most integrations that I've tested, even in cheap commodity hardware, doesn't seem to have that problem. I think the last time I've had this issue is with an old piece of crap Dell from the early 2000s. It only takes about $100, and that's still on the high end, to get a transparent DAC, at least compared to the dynamic load that is any speaker or headphones which will cause distortion many magnitudes higher.
highchillerdeluxe@reddit
To be honest, I thought pcie sound cards are dead. Haven't seen one in a long time.
eivittunyt@reddit
really? when I was looking I couldn't find reputable external amps with multiple outputs for less than the 70€ that I paid for my soundblaster z.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
And up the price scale, the AE-5 still goes toe to toe with often more expensive outboard solutions and wins.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
AE-5 plus. Done.
TheDeeGee@reddit
I don't want clutter on my desk, so a PCI-E soundcard is the way to go.
It's why i still use the €250 Sound Blaster ZxR from 2012 with my AKG Studio Headphones.
Ecsta@reddit
Wow they're still in business? lol
HiCZoK@reddit
whoa internal sound card? that's kinda nonsense. Who wants to plug in their headphones in the back of the pc? usb on desk dac makes more sense... honestly wireless is so amazing nowadays, I dont bother with wires anymore
imKaku@reddit
SPDIF IN? That sounds pretty neat honestly.
AwesomeFrisbee@reddit
There's more creative cards with that, but I'm not sure the pictures are the real deal. The spdif-out is not a regular one (unless they mean that weird connector that can also be plugged into 3,5mm. But that means that many spdif wont connect to it).
hhkk47@reddit
SPDIF can have optical (the SPDIF in on this card) or coaxial (physically the same as RCA, like the SPDIF out on this card) connectors. There are adapters that can convert between the two.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
I'm guessing mislabeling. Optical is nice but pointless if it's over USB
monocasa@reddit
The point of optical is galvanic isolation, which is kind of orthogonal to having USB in other places in the chain.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Maybe in a vacuum, but most people that aren't audiophiles can't hear/tell/care that there's EMI, and audiophiles generally don't care about gaming sound cards. It also causes issues like clock jitter. For gamers, the usb bridge/controller adds unacceptable latency for games.
monocasa@reddit
I mean, anyone can hear a bad ground loop; that's what it's trying to easily avoid in a way the consumer users can't mess up. The higher end is expected to know how to set their stuff up without introducing ground loops, and why optical for professional/audiophile never really took off and it stayed a consumer thing.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
For sure, it's always useful as that niche but it's increasingly rare to NEED it for consumers.
FollowingFeisty5321@reddit
I haven't seen it before but that port is actually illustrated on Wikipedia, I guess it doesn't really matter because the data's got to stop being light somewhere, it's really just a question of which side of the connector that's going to happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
You mean toslink? It's been out forever and almost anything that needs to touch audio uses it
FollowingFeisty5321@reddit
It looks like it's terminating with an ordinary RCA connector in both the article and the image in Wikipedia.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
I'm so confused what you're talking about. SPDIF has been around forever and it's always used either analog or digital connectors.
FollowingFeisty5321@reddit
Apparently some of us hadn't seen it before, personally I'd only seen the little black square plugs and the 3.5mm headphone-ish ones.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Oh gotcha. Sorry I was genuinely confused
Mineplayerminer@reddit
I could actually find this useful in some applications. I have some game consoles and I'm tired of having to shove my headphones into everything, while I could just keep them plugged into my PC with an amplifier and just switch the TOSLINK cable around.
meyers980@reddit
Agreed. It's the one thing making me look closely at this card.
UsernameIsTaken45@reddit
What benefit does this bring over what’s already included in the system? I don’t have high impedance headphones like 600ohm but isn’t most of the features where we’d notice the difference already present? Wrt gaming.
Ayfid@reddit
Unless you specifically need the inputs for something (in which case you probably already know what you need), you would be better off buying a USB DAC (or DAC+Amp combo) from Topping or SMSL. They will be cheaper and with much better performance.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Much higher latency however
Ayfid@reddit
For gaming, the difference is negligable. There are far larger contributors to audio latency end-to-end from a game to your speakers than the interface latency to the DAC, and the difference between USB and PCIe is a fraction of even that.
Latency matters for things like monitoring loopback, although even then if that matters to you, you should already know what kind of device you need and you might want the loopback to happen in hardware anyway.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Incorrect.
The difference is typically 30-80MS depending on factors.
https://rentry.co/ALTResults
https://youtu.be/okIpbu1tp_A?si=9TaHN0w_9r9QdXK3
cc413@reddit
You don’t have to install Realtek drivers
f3n2x@reddit
Back in the day Creative was infamous for having the shittiest drivers in the entire tech industy. They're the reason I'll never buy another one of their products for the rest of my life. I can't recall ever having a problem with a Realtek sound driver.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Even the twitchy early days of my AE-5 drivers were a quantum leap over Realtek sound drivers. That shit wanted a reinstall as much as weekly. And they're both easy to reinstall, and are exceedingly stable nowadays.
FastHotEmu@reddit
Electrical noise isolation, software, DSP, consistent processing, higher quality components, a better DAC (you can actually hear the difference between a good and a bad DAC)
Some of these benefits shrink if you have a more premium Realtek chip in your system.
Zone15@reddit
I have an ASUS STRIX Z790-E which was $499 at the time, my decade old SoundBlaster Z card has way better audio, it's not even close. Let's not even talk about the mess that is the Realtek drivers.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Yeah, realtek anything is of the devil, and my AE-5 was one of the best 200ish that went into my last build as it's beaten the sound on 2 X-70 tier AMD mobos and will probably be doing that until the caps dry out.
TheDeeGee@reddit
Yep, when i got my Z590 motherboard in 2021 i tried it with my AKG Studio Headphones, and it was AWEFUL!
Quickly went back to my trusty Sound Blaster ZxR, which i still use to this day.
FastHotEmu@reddit
oh yeah i forgot about that: anything high latency is a shit show unless you have a good card
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Unfortunately if you look at the specs it looks like they omitted the DSP.
SplitBoots99@reddit
I like them for being able to have multiple outputs and the software is pretty good. Allows quick switching from speaker setup to head phones. It’s really a niche thing though.
JarekPL@reddit
Still no EAX 5.0? :/
They should do EAX 6.0 now. Sound technology in games degraded so much over the years :/
ours@reddit
EAX winning over A3D was the beginning of the end.
Some crappy reverb effect vs. raytraced audio was always a major downgrade.
AwesomeFrisbee@reddit
SPDIF being unsupported in most sound bars is what started the end imo. Why one would want to waste an HDMI connector purely for audio is still weird to me. Especially if there is only really one you can use and it has other properties as well.
VTOLfreak@reddit
More bandwidth. You are not sending Atmos over a SPDIF port. EAX may be dead but there are a lot of games that support Atmos now. Instead of buying a soundcard, you are better off buying a receiver that can decode Atmos.
Canadian_Border_Czar@reddit
oooh I can respond, I thought we were in r/headphones where the POS moderators banned me for literally zero reason and have not responded to a single question I've asked them as to why.
TIL that S/PDIF is not high bandwidth optical in the sense I think of fibre optic internet. I always assumed it would carry the best of the best signal with no interference due to the air gapping. Instead it's just a legacy port we still have for... reasons?
Someone should upgrade that standard to be modern.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
There were companies that did, look at ADAT light pipe for example-however it's largely been superseded by ARC/EARC which are superior in virtually every way.
Unfortunately neither of those have caught on in the PC market for whatever reason, so toslink is still one of the best ways to send fully digital non usb audio from the PC to a DAC.
It's also good if you're not an audiophile or have legacy equipment or lack of hdmi ports; it's still better than pretty much every other non hdmi port for audio.
Canadian_Border_Czar@reddit
ChatMakeShitUp told me that USB-C 3.2 is superior to S/PDIF. Now I'm questioning everything. (I did specifically ask it about 3.2, so I don't know if previous standards were better or worse)
VTOLfreak@reddit
They did upgrade it, search for MADI. (also known as AES10) But you will only find MADI in professional audio equipment. In the consumer world, the best we are going to get is Atmos carried over HDMI.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
They're talking mainly for low latency hardware accelerated 3d positionally accurate real time wave traced audio-which is exactly what A3D and EAX and their counterparts/derivates accomplished decades ago.
I actually much prefer EARC-higher bandwidth, lower latency, no clock jitter issues, uncompressed codecs, etc.
I just wish it had better adoption on PC, natively from GPUs or on more monitors.
BrightCandle@reddit
Aurreal 3D was so good I miss it so much. They had such a good binaural implementation with those cards and I hung onto it for as long as I could.
The sennheiser GSX 1000 is pretty old but its about the best of the headphone binaural systems I have heard, its not however A3D ray traced sound its just doing the best available job of 5.1 to 2.0 headphones.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
They're definitely better than other solutions but at the end of the day any of those "surround sound" options be it software like windows or hardware in DACs are a gimmick-it's all post processing and tricking, none of it is native and it will often mess with native game engine audio mixing to give you less accuracy. It's like an instagram filter.
We need to bring back low latency hardware accelerated wave traced audio, but creative killed most of it. AMD and Nvidia both tried to bring it back in some way, but they never really took on. There's derivatives of AMD's solution, and some third parties are/have developed their own, but so far none have achieved mass success and implimented everything we lost.
apoketo@reddit
Valve made probably the best spatial audio tech available with Steam Audio but basically nobody uses it. But to be fair it took them like 8 years to release a Wwise plugin.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Steam audio technically relies on a fork of AMD's TrueAudio(next) for this, which was AMD's attempt to bring back hardware accelerated ray traced audio. Half life Alyx uses this, and Returnal uses a form of TrueAudio for both ps5 and PC-there's even an option for ray traced audio in the settings.
The new avatar game also uses their own version iirc.
But you're right, it's severely lacking. Mostly due to lack of interest. There's dozens of people/teams trying their own version but none have achieved mass success or brought back everything we lost(possibly due to Microsoft nuking most capability and creative's patents they love to sit on)
Omega_Maximum@reddit
EAX is impossible following the changes to the Windows driver stack starting with Vista. Basically, you can't have hardware accelerated sound anymore. What you'd want instead is for games to include things like OpenAL's environmental audio effects, but despite that being open source, nobody does it.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
If MS was serious about pulling up its gaming perf in 11, they'd also revise their audio stack to add potential capabilities.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Totally agree, and creative needs to work with them because they're the ones that killed it.
Network bypass would also be nice. Killer used to be able to do this, Mellanox too. My connectx-6 NIC is being hard throttled by Microsoft's shitty network stack
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Essentially due to creative destroying the market and then refusing to implement all the tech they acquired and releasing buggy unstable drivers(hey nothings changed there)
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Directly due to their actions.
ChocolateSpecific263@reddit
how about linux drivers?
3G6A5W338E@reddit
Creative is overpriced crap hw with awful drivers.
protip: Topping DX3 Pro+ and Sennheiser HD600.
iinlane@reddit
It's not so clear. I've got Topping DX3 Pro+ and would prefer having this soundcard for convenience. Switching outputs (between headphones and speaker) is ass on it. Had FIIO K11 before but it had unusable volume scaling from OS. Neither of the DAC/AMPs were significant upgrades to mobo out + shiit magni for me.
3G6A5W338E@reddit
Other than the headphones (which are excellent), I live in an apartment building thus I cannot use good speakers. I switch (via software) to the monitor's soundbar in the rare occasion I do not have my HD600 on my head
So I haven't used the line out much. Regardless, I have in the past, and while via the wheel it is work, through the DX3 remote switching it isn't overly complicated
wojwoda10@reddit
Yea, how about no? The last time my AE-5 Plus had driver issue (SB Command Center), and it happened only once (restart solved it) was 6+ years ago when I was on W7. Never had issues under W10. Also, at least here in DE, AE-5 Plus + Philips Fidelio X2HR are often discounted, and that combo for under 200 € blows way more pricier combos if you listen music and watch movies, series, anime, and similar.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
I want the Topping DX3 in PCIE AIB format tbh. Looks like it would fit in a 2 slot board footprint and it would get that safely off my desk.
bluke424@reddit
No balanced output, even though a lot of us use studio monitors on our desks. What a joke.
NotMedicine420@reddit
People who need balanced connections don't use consumer audio interfaces.
Successful_Ad_8219@reddit
So my consumer grade device that has balanced output is not a consumer audio interface? I get your point. Most people don't know and don't care to know.
iinlane@reddit
Interesting...
I just bought Topping DX3 Pro this spring; would have preferred to have convenience of a sound card that can drive my headphones.
Successful_Ad_8219@reddit
Topping is top shelf stuff. Stick with that. It will serve you better long term.
AlbiteTwins@reddit
If you are only using a single 3.5mm output and don't mind losing a USB-C port, the $9 Apple USB-C to 3.5mm adapter is a surprisingly good entry level external DAC.
mckirkus@reddit
I just want a soundcard with HDMI out that doesn't show up as a display device.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
100%
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
I don't love the fact it uses a USB bridge(latency is one of the main issues with gaming audio, mostly due to WASAPI Shared over USB) and you'd think a pro-sumer enthusiast brand like creative would understand and cater to that.
The lack of information on the Microphone ADC and the is concerning.
EARC would be nice instead of toslink in 2026.
No DSP is incredibly disappointing as well.
I hope it at least comes with MSI/MSIX support to help counteract some of the latency from usb.
ZekeSulastin@reddit
So what’s the actual number for the latency improvement for true PCI vs USB you’ve mentioned in your comments on this post?
forgottenendeavours@reddit
For comparison's sake btw, my Focusrite audio interface will happily run with 3.25ms latency, which is the lowest the drivers allow without modification or trickery (eg. running at odd sampling rates). My main interest in fast return audio is as a guitarist, and at that, I am unable to perceive roundtrip lag when the latency is less than around 15ms.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
That is with Asio/WASAPI exclusive. Try https://superpowered.com/webbrowserlatency for WASAPI shred results.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
I wouldn't be surprised if there's direct PCIE to audio in higher ends of this new series if they're a thing, the AE-XII and XIV, along with features like Dolby Atmos.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Part of me doubts there is going to be more of this, I think this is going to be their "high end". AE5/7/9 have iffy
Support on w11, the Audigy fx v2 covered the low end and the fx pro covered the mid, this is easily the "high end" especially since they have the G8 and sound blaster re:imagine for external high end.
I do hope I'm wrong, I'd love to see better cards with true Pcie, MSIX, a good microphone ADC and new, modern, useful DSP for EAX(6.0?) and future ability to bring back low latency hardware accelerated real time 3d positionally accurate wave traced audio. XRAM would be cool to see brought back.
Decoding more formats would also be cool.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Iffy support on Win11? News to me, mine runs just fine here.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Look on the sounblaster Reddit. Creative is known for shitty support.
kikimaru024@reddit (OP)
Source: VideoCardz.com
Dominicus1165@reddit
Insane. Sound cards 10 years ago were 30 -60 €
CHAOSHACKER@reddit
The higher end ones from creative were always about 200€ or even higher
Dominicus1165@reddit
The external ones maybe. The pure internal ones never.
SoundBlaster Z is currently at 75€ and was one of the best back then. It was one of the first with a housing.
Zx and ZxR were that expensive but were with external controller (and two cards).
The SoundBlaster AE-5 was the first really expensive one.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Soundblaster Live was $200, which is over $400 now.
jnf005@reddit
Took me like 5 mins to google and find a $199 SoundBlaster
YouDoNotKnowMeSir@reddit
Bro I got my sound blaster z like 10+ years ago and it was $100.
jenny_905@reddit
Live! series were very expensive, from memory.
OverlyOptimisticNerd@reddit
Never? I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
The Sound Blaster Live launched in 1998 at $200 US and I bought one. Their successive Audigy and X-Fi lineups over the next decade always had a $200+ option in their lineup. Internal cards.
jloome@reddit
And they weren't even the most expensive. There were Turtle Beach cards back in the late 90s, early 2000s well over $200 (and SBs as well.).
phylter99@reddit
If I know Creative's game, then chips in this sound card are probably from 15 years ago. The thing about sound is that they really don't need to up their game much. Sound processing isn't terrible difficult and hasn't been for years.
The only reason I see to buy a sound card like this is to get a very low noise floor, but even built-in motherboard sound cards have great noise floors these days. If you need professional audio then companies like Focusrite have what you need for decent prices and they won't take up your PCI lanes needlessly.
Gah_Duma@reddit
Good thing it's not about the chips. It's about how the whole board is designed to lower the noise floor. You often have to get flagship mobos to get decent noise floors these days.
Needlessly? What else do people use PCI lanes for nowadays?
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
I personally love having expansion cards and I wish I had more direct cpu pcie lanes to use more of them. I have my GPU, SmartNIC, and soundcard(mic only) occupying all of my slots. If I had more, I could probably squeeze in a single slot 3050 6g for native physx offload and more power efficient offload for YouTube and non-gaming background tasks, an HBA card for dozens more storage drives, you name it.
Acinixys@reddit
You csn get a decent external DAC for like 100 bucks
Who TF is this for?
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
A proper implemented native Pcie sound card with MSI/MSIX bypasses the large latency incurred with the windows sound stack for WASAPI Shared audio streams(most modern games).
This has a Pcie>usb bridge, so it's likely it doesn't even do that.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Well, on both onboard and USB sound handling... high end mobos ought to be able to match this, but they sure as shit far too often don't, and that's an issue.
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
The funny thing is I'm not an audiophile, I'm not that snobby on audio quality-it's just modern gaming audio is SO BAD that it's impossible to ignore. Most gamers being ignorant on the matter doesn't help the industry, they'll happily turn on 2 fake post process virtual surround sound options on their wireless headphones with 150ms latency and never care enough to want better.
Gah_Duma@reddit
No kidding. Computer audio was way better in the early 2000s. I remember when everyone had surround sound speakers for their gaming setups and now everyone is just using trash audio. Sound bars and cheapo gaming headsets. Are people just more poor now?
ResponsiblePen3082@reddit
Well yes, but that's only part of it. I don't myself care for the physical surround sound and it's not feasible for most people, but we had much better stereo positioning due to low latency, direct hardware access and offload, real
Time 3d positionally accurate wave traced audio-mixed perfectly for HRTF headphones, as that's always been the bread and butter of pc gaming.
We're only recently after decades of decline and stagnation-starting to crawl back to SOME of this.
TheDeeGee@reddit
People like me, who don't want clutter on their desk.
Psychostickusername@reddit
Almost like they're not all created equally
Tex-Rob@reddit
My Soundblaster AWE32 was like $250 in 1994.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Sound cards were like how we think about graphics card now in their heyday.
TheDeeGee@reddit
My current still in use Sound Blaster ZxR from 2012 was €250.
I got it for €130 though during a flash sale.
pattymcfly@reddit
The ESS DAC is very high end.
fafatzy@reddit
I have the sound blaster z from years ago, pretty neat. I think on board audio in my current motherboard is probably very serviceable but there is something about having a dedicated card on the pc that just takes me back to the good old 90s with the sound blaster pro. I know it’s just in my head
Jeep-Eep@reddit
Eh, not necessarily. While on paper the DAC in that mobo likely beats it, sound is heavy dependant on board quality and electronic design, and mobo vendors just keep beefing the analog electronic design there that would let that high end DAC shine.
Jeep-Eep@reddit
If it's anything like my AE-5, it's probably actually a bang for buck king in silicon and keeps your desk clear; it will outlive multiple builds as it's beatsthe onboard silicon on two gens of Xx70 mobos so far.
TheDeeGee@reddit
I wonder if it's an upgrade over my ZxR from 2012, which was their highest end card of the Z-series.
I only use it with AKG Studio Headphones.