SB X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card vs Asus Z97M-Plus on board Crystal Sound 2 vs new card?

[Darkmatterx]

Title pretty much says it all. SB X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card vs Asus Z97M-Plus on board Crystal Sound 2?

I'm currently using the SB card because of the front panel it comes with and I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 558 Open Back headphones. These come with the large plug and an adapter so you can use the smaller more common jack that is used by MP3 players and phones. I also have a Logitech Z5300 (yes, that old) 5.1 sound system that I just took in to a shop to get 1 input port re-soldered and he told me the sound was still good for a set of PC speakers.

I'm asking all this and saying all this because I thought I would get better sound through the big jack port in the front panel of the X-Fi but the sound guy who fixed my Logitech 5.1 said that for the amount of watts I would need, the small connector is just fine.

So, if I don't need the front panel, then the on board sound becomes an option but I don't know the difference in quality of a newer on board sound device vs and older discreet sound card. There's also the less desirable (to my bank statement) of getting some current sound card but I wouldn't know what to get.

 

[Darkmatterx]

Guess thats the difference between my old card and new ones. Mine only has 1 port not used and it is for a mic. Even if the software allowed me to switch it to a headphone jack the ports are so close together that with the speaker wires in place I can't get the headphone adapter jack into the port.

I currently stream stuff from my PC to my Sony Bravia TV through an HDMI cord from the video card (Nvidia 1070) to my TV. I assume that my headphones connected to a new sound card would give me superior sound over the built in stereo speakers on my TV.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Oh yeah, much better than the TV. With the built in amp and DAC you can get better headphones too. 😛