Sound Card 5.1/7.1 Audiophile and Music production

[Carbolts]

First of all I want to thank the site owners and moderators for such a great site. So happy to have found it.


I run a fasteners company in the UK. We listen to music all day while we work and love to have very nice quality sounds.(mostly using Spotify)

We have a basic home cinema setup to use in our spare time and I am also into music production as a hobby.

At the moment we have an all in one solution which includes a computer, large monitor, 2 amplifiers 7 speakers including a sub (full list of equipment below)

List of Components:

New computer with super low noise and internal Sound Blaster Audigy FX sound card
Marantz PM6004 Amplifier to power the front speakers and workshop speakers (£150 second hand)
Rotel 321 amplifier to power the rear speakers (£50 second hand)
Lentek S4 Speakers FRONT (£99 second hand. Amaising speakers from the 80's £300 when new = £1350 in today's money)
Acoustic Reference BS300 Speakers REAR (£100 second hand. These need replacing)
Acoustic Energy Ageis one Speakers for the work shop (can't remember what these cost)
REL Acoustics Storm 3 Powered SUB (£100 second hand. This is another old one the cost a lot when new)
Native Instruments Machine Mk3 (£250 second hand)
Native Instruments A61 (£90 second hand)
Abelton Live 10 Software

I'm using a Sound Blaster Audigy FX sound card which is just not good enough due to the interference from the computer.

I am looking for an alternative sound card, ideally something that will do everything the current sound card does but without the interference and better quality audio. I was looking at the ASUS PCI-Express x1 Sound Card XONAR ESSENCE STX II. In fact it was searching for that card that I found this site's review. I now realise that maybe an internal sound card is not the answer.

Is there something on the market that will be able to fulfil all my need in 1 i.e. run the 5.1 cinema, good quality sound that will be compatible with the music production equipment through the computer (ASIO Compatible) or do I need to look at maybe have to separate setups?

As you can tell, I like to keep the costs down and try to get the most for my money. That said I am willing to spend up to £250 but would prefer a cheaper option, if there is one. If anyone can help me with this, It would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
John

 

[digitalfrost]

If you want good ASIO support I'd suggest you look at professional audio interfaces as opposed to consumer soundcards. Below 250 GBP there's not a lot of options if you want >= 6 output channels:

- ESI Gigaport HD+
- Behringer Firepower FCA1616
- Behringer U-Phoria UMC1820
- Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 2nd Gen

 

[Carbolts]

Hi Digitalfrost,

Thank you for your reply. I was considering the Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 Internal 5.1 after seeing the review on here. However your suggestions look very interesting. I do like Creatives version of Dolby for the cinema, but the audio interfaces you have suggested will have lower latency for the Machine Mk3 and keyboard I'm guessing.

For listening to music which would you think would sound the best (Signal to noise ratio etc) the AE-5 or one of your suggestions?

 

[digitalfrost]

The AE-5 has a pretty good ES9016K2M DAC chip. The ESI Gigaport has asynchronous USB, which you don't want, and much worse specs, but it's a cheap pro card.

The AE-5 ASIO drivers seem to have problems with multiple applications. You also mentioned interference from the computer - external cards are much less likely to have these problems, and it's not said that the AE-5 will fix this. I guess if you can send it back, try it out.

 

[Tim6622]

The soundblaster Ae-9 looks like something you might want to look into. It comes with an microphone/headphone interface.

 

[Carbolts]

Thank you for your replys. I have just ordered the AE-7 As this seems to have everything that I need.

I will report back to this thread when I have tested it. I'm tempted to order a DAC as well and compare them.

 

[Carbolts]

So After using the AE-7 for a few days this is what I have found.

First of all it has got rid of the interference sound from the computer, so that is good.

Using the sound card in direct mode gives an very clean sound.

However this means that you can only run it in stereo. If you want to use the 5.1 outputs it seems you have to use the SBX profile (unless I'm missing something). When the SBX is turned on there are lots of processing of the audio making it sound wishy washy. This effects all the speakers including the front speakers.

So all in all in not too happy with the product as it is doing what I wanted it to do. I have contact Creative support, to see if there is something Im missing. If there is no way round this, then I will be returning it and looking at buying a DAC with 8 outputs.