Good evening.
I'm looking for some ideas.
I currently have the following setup:
ASUS Xonar Essence STX II (has a custom 10 band +/- 20dB graphic EQ built in to "Audio Center")
ASUS Mini Tower PC
Windows 10
Microsoft Media Player (latest one)
Logitech Z-2300 2.1 speakers
Music ripped @ 320Kbps MP3
I'm very happy with this setup in terms of accessing music and sound quality, and whilst I can keep this beyond the end of Windows 10, I am considering how I might move on as it's really now the only reason I have an unnecessarily large mini tower computer with a non-silent fan.
My original plan was to switch to a small HP Mini desktop with an external ASUS Xonar U7 but these soundcards are quite old now and I suspect support will cease imminently. Already I've read people struggling with Windows 11 and I know from my own experience that ASUS support is not the best. I also suspect these are not as good as my STX II from a spec comparison.
I looked at Creative Labs but none of their software seems to have more than graphic EQ pre-sets meaning I can't set it how I want (Media Player has one built-in but it's not great).
I'd consider a third party graphic EQ if there is one that will work and is at least equivalent of that with the Audio Center.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of other manufacturers I've heard of producing external sound cards so my suspicion is they are not popular anymore and the industry has moved on. I have had my setup for probably 15 years now albeit with predecessor hardware in some cases so I wouldn't be surprised.
The research I've done so far seems the advice these days is to buy a DAC, run from USB and cut out the soundcard altogether.
I would prefer to maintain or improve what I have assuming I would buy an HP Mini desktop running Windows 11 and Media Player and carry on with the Logitech Z-2300 speakers and same MP3s.
TIA!
I'm looking for some ideas.
I currently have the following setup:
ASUS Xonar Essence STX II (has a custom 10 band +/- 20dB graphic EQ built in to "Audio Center")
ASUS Mini Tower PC
Windows 10
Microsoft Media Player (latest one)
Logitech Z-2300 2.1 speakers
Music ripped @ 320Kbps MP3
I'm very happy with this setup in terms of accessing music and sound quality, and whilst I can keep this beyond the end of Windows 10, I am considering how I might move on as it's really now the only reason I have an unnecessarily large mini tower computer with a non-silent fan.
My original plan was to switch to a small HP Mini desktop with an external ASUS Xonar U7 but these soundcards are quite old now and I suspect support will cease imminently. Already I've read people struggling with Windows 11 and I know from my own experience that ASUS support is not the best. I also suspect these are not as good as my STX II from a spec comparison.
I looked at Creative Labs but none of their software seems to have more than graphic EQ pre-sets meaning I can't set it how I want (Media Player has one built-in but it's not great).
I'd consider a third party graphic EQ if there is one that will work and is at least equivalent of that with the Audio Center.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of other manufacturers I've heard of producing external sound cards so my suspicion is they are not popular anymore and the industry has moved on. I have had my setup for probably 15 years now albeit with predecessor hardware in some cases so I wouldn't be surprised.
The research I've done so far seems the advice these days is to buy a DAC, run from USB and cut out the soundcard altogether.
I would prefer to maintain or improve what I have assuming I would buy an HP Mini desktop running Windows 11 and Media Player and carry on with the Logitech Z-2300 speakers and same MP3s.
TIA!