Sound Card

[Rachel]

Hello

I have spent a complete day researching on the internet for a solution to my query. Nothing found yet - not even near so I thought I would give you experts a go!

My PC has a built-in Realtek soundcard which crackles and pops so I thought I would buy a PCIe soundcard to match my Logitech Z5500 speaker system and Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones.

I'm going round in circles with this one, for one reason or another. I have shortlisted it down to two (Creative Soundblaster ZxR and Asus Xonar Essence STX 11 7.1) and I found negatives on both of those so I started again, looking at external/USB sound cards.

I really fancied the Asus Xonar U7 Compact 7.1 which has got good reviews. Now, the problem is that I can't find out if it is compatible with my Logitech speakers. My connections are: front (green) rear (black) centre/subwoofer (orange) and the Asus has umpteen connections and I don't know which one to put where or if they will work together.

I don't have a TV but I do watch BluRay/HD movies through the PC which is mainly DTS or Dolby. I listen to FLAC music through my headphones. The bottom line is that I want to get the purest sound possible with what I've got (or intend to buy).

So how do I connect the Xonar U7 to the Logitech Z5500 or are there any other sound cards you would recommend.

I've been told that the Realtek DAC is useless and the Logitech DAC is no better - that's one of the reasons for me wanting the upgrade. Apparently the Logitech is better with analogue rather than optical.

Apologies for the long version ..... but I wanted to spell things out so you can get a fuller picture.

Thank you.

 

[nathanjrb]

Hello

I have a Xonar D2X and z5500's too. I'm currently hooked up optically, which isn't ideal.

I think if you use optical then the sound is just passing straight through the card and into the onboard Logitech DAC. If you use analogue then all the processing power is done on the card, as I understand it, which in my case is far superior.

I'm connected via optical because I currently don't have long enough analogue cables

 

[tom_gr7]

hmm, i'd go for an asus card, i dont creative cards at all. I'd suggest an ASUS DX (PCI-E) (or a more expensive card) and then connect your speakers to the soundcard via analogue cables. - That way you will get considerably better sound than using spdif/optical. Optical is great, but analogue will give you better sound imo.

 

[Spuff]

. Optical is great, but analogue will give you better sound imo.

Spdif and optical are both digital connections and in theory they should pass data with 100% accuracy. Analogue signal chains will always impart some, maybe small, change to the signal.
You want your best digital to audio converter to be doing the conversion. It may well be that your sound card does a better job than the DAC built into a speaker might, in which case using the analogue out from your soundcard will give a better result.

 

[Rachel]

Thank you all for you input. It all makes good sense. There's one thing that comes from this and that is looks like the Asus card is the one I will get but what model - I'm not sure. So as I see it, the way to go is analogue then I will only be using the DAC from the soundcard and not the speaker, but doing it this way would I lose the DTS Dolby which is mainly what I use.

BTW I will NOT be using the soundcard for gaming. It is purely for films and music.

So, getting back to my connection question: I have 3 connections at the back of the Z5500 control panel which are (1) front (green), (2) rear (black), and (3) centre/subwoofer (orange). The back panel of the Xonar U7 soundcard has 5 connections : (1) front left (2) front right, (3) side surround (4) centre/subwoofer and (5) rear out. What goes where?

 

[nathanjrb]

The U7 is labelled Side/Centre/Rear right? (See picture)

Logitech green into centre
Logitech black into Rear
Logitech Orange into Rear



You shouldn't need to use the front left and front right.

Edit: Your Logitech speakers need to be set to 6ch Direct if I recall correctly.

The dolby digital encoding will be done via the Xonar Audio Center