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natefarious
33
Feb 19, 2018
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Internal sound card offers the benefit of low latency multichannel analog output, so if you have any plans to listen on 5.1/7.1 speakers hooked up to a PC for gaming, internal sound card is the way to go. (While you can encode Dolby Digital and DTS in realtime on some PC audio solutions, send the compressed audio over a digital connection and then decompress it with an outboard decoder, doing so introduces additional latency which isn't ideal especially if you're gaming on a PC.)
Also, based on my research the DAC and opamps in the Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 are very good and an equivalent outboard solution for multichannel audio and headphone amplification would cost at least twice as much (the dedicated headphone amp in the AE-5 has an excellent 1 ohm output impedance).
Feb 19, 2018
Twebs
6
Jun 12, 2018
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natefariousI'm curious to know if you have compared the AE-5 to any other sound cards like the Asus Strix Raid Pro or something along those lines. I've been a long time Creative Sound Blaster Consumer. But after having some recent issues with my Sound Blaster E5 and having to deal with the horrendous technical support they offer. I think I am finally done with them. I've also read a ton of negative reviews on that new Sound Blaster AE-5 as it seems to be effected by the old SB Software monster (bad support lots of bugs). My E5 now randomly goes into Sleep Mode while gaming or doing anything else on my PC (they added this feature in the last 2018 firmware update), and for some reason Technical support tells me there is no way I can revert to an older firmware as they have no way of doing that... Which is complete BS... So I'm now stuck with a $200 external sound card that randomly goes into sleep mode and requires me to exit any Competitive game as well as Media players, before being able to bring it back out of sleep. Worthless in other words. Well, I may be able to use it as a paper weight.
Sorry for the Rant.... Just extremely disappointed in Creative Labs at the moment. But back to my actual Question. If you could give me a nice comparison between it and anything else Sound Quality wise, I would appreciate it. I'm a budget Audiophile/Gamer and I'm on the fence right now between a few of these cards. While leaning away from Creative's Sound Blaster. My SBZ's are all still working fine. Just lacking in sound quality compared to the E5. And if I'm going to grab something new, I would like whatever I get to be just as good or better.
Jun 12, 2018
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