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PC Sound Cards in 2025

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noisyturtle:
With the Audigy Fx V2 I can hear a sound quality difference right away, even with 2.1
It comes with software that is not intrusive, but the settings are limited.
Sound Modes that give you different presets for the Equalizer. Direct Mode which disables all software presets, nice to have a button for. Scout Mode specifically for dialogue audio for live chat, didn't bother testing.
Initially I did experience some noise feedback from my GPU, even being shielded it was super noticeable with headphones. Seating it further away seems to solved it.
All combos I tried all worked flawlessly, plug and play - Headphones/2.1/3.1/5.1/Optical
I was surprised how easy optical sound was to get working through an external DAC. Picked up the sound right away with the extra DB Pro daughter board, and I've always had tons of issues getting optical working on my ancient sea vessel of a rig. Aye she be puttin' on thee ages, but she's clean as a nun's fanny, and sounds twice as lovely!

I'mma test out 7.1 next week

noisyturtle:
The sound balancing between applications, and switching from speakers to headphones, is not great. I keep blowing out my eardrums forgetting 40 on my speakers sounds like 80 in my headphones.
The Creative app does have a Direct Mode that plays directly from the source, but then you lose your custom acoustic and equalizer settings.
I wish there was an auto-detect, or a simpler way to switch to headphone mode instead of opening the app and doing it every time.

The 24-bit 192,000Hz audio in 5.1(and even 2.1 & 3.1) does sound significantly better with uncompressed audio. Even to my damaged and aged ears, I can hear instruments and background noises I never noticed before.

Aljami25:
Onboard audio is plenty good now, sound cards are more for niche setups or people who really want that extra quality. Creative sticks around thanks to their name and audiophile crowd.

noisyturtle:
The main reason I got the Audigy Fx V2 was for 5.1 optical input.
The tweakable settings are nice to have, but I wish the software automatically detected when switching between speakers and headphone mode so you didn't have to open the panel and change over manually.

I experience zero audio overlay or drops in games when using high-output settings in 24-bit 192000hz. I do notice some drops in dialogue and background overlay noise when using my motherboard audio, or when I switch to med/low output.

So it IS better. Is it worth it for normal people? Probably not.

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