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mans knows!

I have been wanting to ask you why this is. I mean, x-fi's are still respectable sound cards, why would they bottleneck the AD700's? What kind of hardware do you suggest to take full advantage of the headphones?

real hardware, with OPAMPS(correct lol?) ;D
Spanky is the sound man, so he will explain it correctly.

I have been wanting to ask you why this is. I mean, x-fi's are still respectable sound cards, why would they bottleneck the AD700's? What kind of hardware do you suggest to take full advantage of the headphones?

X-Fi was strictly popular for sound processing for gamers. In the higher-end audio world, you don't want to mess with or process audio during playback. Smallest circuit and less handling as possible so your equipment reproduces the sound as accurate as possible. Sure, processing is a good thing but only for an engineer who is composing and mixing the audio in a studio with the proper equipment and training. Back to X-Fi, games don't use it anymore. The hardware processing on it is old and it's gone the way of PhysX. There's plenty of threads on the Creative forums where people wonder what the point of X-Fi is because Creative isn't really doing anything to ensure it's future or merge over to OpenAL.

So, the hardware processing is worthless on your X-Fi, that leaves an audio circuit that's mediocre at best. It's something comparable to modern motherboard audio, unless again, you have an Auzentech model which is made with better components. The only way I would use one that's made by Creative is to use SPDIF output. The analog output is passed through crappy OPAMPs and low-end capacitors. Also to think about is the DAC chip which is not high-end by any means. DAC technology changes very fast, chips made in the 90's that were implemented in units costing several thousand dollars are beat by units today that cost maybe $200. The DAC chip in the X-Fi is nothing special.

real hardware, with OPAMPS(correct lol?) ;D
Spanky is the sound man, so he will explain it correctly.

X-Fi has OPAMPS, they generally suck though unless you go for one of the Auzentech models but by the time you spend that much money, it would be better to get an external solution that's not X-Fi.


I really ran out of steam to finish this post the way I wanted. Here's a few outside links that might give you some more knowledge:
http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB12/NFB12EN.htm
http://www.mav-audio.com/base/product/tube_magic_d1
http://www.head-fi.org/t/524263/audio-gd-nfb-12/225
http://www.head-fi.org/t/226975/hotrodding-the-x-fi-a-laymans-guide-no-56k
http://www.head-fi.org/t/589078/almis-x-fi-mod-hotrodding-sound-blaster-x-fi-models

Spanky so if i had 200 dollars right now to spent on my sound. What soundcard + headphones would you recommend? OnBoard + better phones or a mix soundcard + medium phones?

It's so funny to me, that someone actually complaines about the sandstorm noise in a map that actually takes place during a sandstorm . I guess that's a real hassle for those sound-tweaking whores trying to listen sounds from one end of the map to the other.

Let's delete ambient sound from every map. For me, for example, it won't give too much. But for noobs and no sound/low sound players yes. More camping, "because I hear enemy but I'm scared to go for him".

Spanky so if i had 200 dollars right now to spent on my sound. What soundcard + headphones would you recommend? OnBoard + better phones or a mix soundcard + medium phones?

If I could write something- I'm sure that I will never bo so stupid again to buy sound card and good headphones for only one game. It's no sense. It had a sense, because of matches and competitions.

Not for this game, for my system. Movies, Music, Gaming. I play mostly WoW.

Exactly. Why have an EAX X-Fi system when movies and music don't use it and only some old games do use it. Better to have a hi-fi external system.

One thing I forgot to mention is power. PC power is very dirty and noisy. It's great because it's super efficient and powers high end graphics cards but for audio equipment, computer power supplies are horrible. Best setup is an external USB device. USB will be around forever and you can get devices that supply their own power so USB is purely for communication.

You guys that are interested and/or bored, might want to check out this thread:
http://aao25.com/audio/what-makes-an-excellent-sound-card/