Hello there,
first let me tell you that I am really happy that I found this place. I thought that there is no place on the net where audio equipment would be thoroughly tested, methodical, like it is the case here - instead what I always found were those "reviews" where people would just listen to the soundcard, often not even with a comparison, and then... write their opinion - you get the idea. So I was really happy when I found this place. Pretty hard to find though google though, that sucks, because this site deserves more exposure.
Anyways, the reason I am here is that I own a Gigabyte Aorus Elite x570 with a Realtek ALC1200 sound chip. I recently bought a headset with an usb soundcard ( HyperX KHX-HSCP-RD Cloud II ). And I discovered, that the usb soundcard is so much worse than my onboard sound, so that got me wondering, if I can improve on my onboard sound. The common wisdom on the internet is that there is probably no big difference between that and a better solution (at least from what I've heard over the years) but now I am intrigued... I also own a pretty good but ancient stereo system (yes, just stereo) and a Bose QC25 headset. Strangely though, with the ALC1200 I feel like the highs are way too loud - so I reduced them via the included equalizer. That is something I never had to do before, so I am wondering if my ears are starting to act up, lol - but it was ok on the cheap usb soundcard.
I am wondering if it is possible to get a significant better sound, as in better differentiation between the different frequencies? I.e. to be better able to listen to certain instruments in a song (instead of them feeling more smashed together, if you can say that). Basically, what I would like to use this solution for would be listening to music,
gaming (pretty important, especially the ability to hear footsteps in fps games even if there is a lot going on at the moment - virtual surround sound would be nice if it helps me listening to and locating footsteps - I don't know if there are any software solutions that reliably help with this) and as a bonus, using it with a DAW (asio drivers would be nice but I would also settle for asio4all if it works with that soundcard). I don't care if it is USB or PCIe. But if it is USB, it should go to sleep if my PC goes to sleep - that HyperX USB soundcard stays on no matter if the pc is in sleep mode or not, which is pretty annoying.
What do you guys think, would it be worth upgrading? What budget would I need to have? Any hardware suggestions?
Also, is there a post that explains the different tests you do when testing a soundcard?
thanks a lot!
first let me tell you that I am really happy that I found this place. I thought that there is no place on the net where audio equipment would be thoroughly tested, methodical, like it is the case here - instead what I always found were those "reviews" where people would just listen to the soundcard, often not even with a comparison, and then... write their opinion - you get the idea. So I was really happy when I found this place. Pretty hard to find though google though, that sucks, because this site deserves more exposure.
Anyways, the reason I am here is that I own a Gigabyte Aorus Elite x570 with a Realtek ALC1200 sound chip. I recently bought a headset with an usb soundcard ( HyperX KHX-HSCP-RD Cloud II ). And I discovered, that the usb soundcard is so much worse than my onboard sound, so that got me wondering, if I can improve on my onboard sound. The common wisdom on the internet is that there is probably no big difference between that and a better solution (at least from what I've heard over the years) but now I am intrigued... I also own a pretty good but ancient stereo system (yes, just stereo) and a Bose QC25 headset. Strangely though, with the ALC1200 I feel like the highs are way too loud - so I reduced them via the included equalizer. That is something I never had to do before, so I am wondering if my ears are starting to act up, lol - but it was ok on the cheap usb soundcard.
I am wondering if it is possible to get a significant better sound, as in better differentiation between the different frequencies? I.e. to be better able to listen to certain instruments in a song (instead of them feeling more smashed together, if you can say that). Basically, what I would like to use this solution for would be listening to music,
gaming (pretty important, especially the ability to hear footsteps in fps games even if there is a lot going on at the moment - virtual surround sound would be nice if it helps me listening to and locating footsteps - I don't know if there are any software solutions that reliably help with this) and as a bonus, using it with a DAW (asio drivers would be nice but I would also settle for asio4all if it works with that soundcard). I don't care if it is USB or PCIe. But if it is USB, it should go to sleep if my PC goes to sleep - that HyperX USB soundcard stays on no matter if the pc is in sleep mode or not, which is pretty annoying.
What do you guys think, would it be worth upgrading? What budget would I need to have? Any hardware suggestions?
Also, is there a post that explains the different tests you do when testing a soundcard?
thanks a lot!
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