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Geek Culture / Is there a reqiurement to upgrade a Sound Card for a good headset?

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Fatal Berserker
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 04:57
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Ive never really understood the purpose of upgrading the sound card (other than better bit rate) but ive been looking for a headset for the past few months (lol) but ive always put off actually buying it.
The problem with my current microphone was that it has high levels of static now and is slowly dying on me.

So i have been looking at some headsets, today i was looking at some from SteelSeries (because i was watching dreamhack and there was a 10% off commercial).
Do i need to upgrade my sound card? How do i know what sound card is required? (most sites dont even mention, and the sites who do just sound like they have a partnership).


My soundcard:



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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 05:25 Edited at: 13th Apr 2011 05:31
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yes it is a good idea to get a good dedicated sound card if you are buying a nice headset or a nice sound system. Not only does the sound card, noticabley improves the quality of sound, but later if you want to upgrade to a good $500 5.1 system or something, you will have the option of digital or hifi sound, and if you love sound and love blasting your music on full and love to drive your neighbors crazy( if you live in an apartment like me, the neighbors got fed up and just covered their wall with soundproof material lol)

anyway, 50-100 bucks willl get you an great sound card and its totally worth it. my sound quality really improved after i switched my audio system from an intergrated creative soundblaster X-FI on my $300 dollar motherboard (fancy motherboard, fancy intergrated sound card, i though the intergrated card ion this mobo was just as good as any dedicated card) i was wrong. i got myself an ASUS Xonar D1. the thing is great, it destroyed my intergrated creative soundblaster X-fi, It was like as soon as i git my Xonar D1 installed, and started playing music, i hear a pop and smoke comes out of my comuter, i open it up, it was the intergrated audio chip that blew up because it was that jealos of my Xonar D1. so it like died of jealosy lol.

Anyway it should be from 50 to 100 bucks, as far as i remember. but i bought it last year so it might be even cheaper now.

Now there are cards out there that are $100- $200-$500 Sure they are powerful, but unless you are going to buy some totally kickass active sound systen ("active" means with a dedicated reciever) these systems cost $700 and above. Or if you actually work with sound do recordings and stuff, dont bother buying a card above $100 bucks. Now my soundsystem is called a "passive" sound system where a reciever is built into the subwoofer, and the system just plugs straight into your computer soundcard withought having to go trough analog to digital converters or that stuff. so mine is like one of the best passive sound systems on the market. I got it for $500-600 and i have an ASUS Xonar D1 to go with it.

so depending on how good your earphones are, you could always get a cheaper audiocard for less than $50 bucks, it might not be as good as some of the more expensive 4 channel audio cards, but it will definatley be better than your intergrated raletek sound device

look on newegg for a decent sound card. trust me a good sound card is worth it, No matter what people say, sound is always extremeley underrated.

one of my computers has a an ancient 5 channel home theater sound card (with a front panel sound controller ) from late 90s the thing was extremeley unpopular, it didnt even have drivers that supported win xp because there was no win XP during that time. Even tho it was kindof buggy, i got it to work And even this 15 year old piece of crap made my 15 year old speakers sound really good way better than the intergrated soundcard on my motherboard

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crispex
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 06:27
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Honestly, I never had a problem with ADI integrated sound cards. I have an ADI SoundMax HD in my computer, and I really can't tell much difference between it and my ADI SoundMax 97, which had slightly crappier sounding mic input, but that's about it.

I just now realized I've had a typo in my signature for the past 3 years.
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 06:41
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well maybe your ears are bad, or maybe your sound system is not good enough to start taking advantage of the soundcard.

both of these soundmaxes seem to be crappy soundcards.

from what i gathered about them is they are notebook intergrated soundcards? (and the 97 i think is a mini pci soundcard for a notebook)

am i right?

well notebooks all generally have crappy sound cards. and its not even the cards, notebook speakers are nearly always tiny and crappy, even on the fancy $2000 gaming laptops (why do they even bother sticking subwoofers on them?)

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Phaelax
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 07:19
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Integrated sound cards have come a long way. I'm not necessarily sure I'd buy a new dedicated card in my next system, but I've typically spent around $200 on SB platinum cards multiple times.

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Fallout
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 09:55
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It depends on the quality of what headset your buying and how discerning you are. Integrated sound cards are pretty good these days, as Phaelax said, and the simple truth is, you won't be able to tell the difference unless you listen to them side by side.

If you could plug cheap headphones into an integrated board, then test a dedicated quality board straight afterwards, you could probably tell a slight difference in quality. Repeat that with expensive high quality headphones and the difference will be more noticable.

Basically, you've never been too bothered about high quality sound before and a better headset will still improve the quality over your last head set, so don't bother changing cards. Upgrading your sound card just to get a slightly higher quality of sound when you're not a musician or you're not setting up some uber entertainment environment, is pointless.

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Lemonade
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 10:00
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Another bonus is the 3D sound mode. It's great for gaming if you have 2.1 speakers or headphones.

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Thraxas
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 11:19
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Personally, I wouldn't waste money upgrading the sound card in my PC. The integrated sound cards I've had have always been enough to suit my PC needs.

A man will one day wear a tophat in glasgow on a sunny day juggeling grapes while humming the jurrasic park theme tune.
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 12:29
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but its really nice to to have good quality sound over bad quality sound

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crispex
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 13:50
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Quote: "am i right?"


No, far from it. The ADI Soundmax 97 used to be the integrated standard up until 2007 in most pre-built PC's.

Quote: "but its really nice to to have good quality sound over bad quality sound"


You don't need a $250 sound card to get good sound. I get GREAT sound on my Soundmax HD, and I wouldn't ever even consider investing in a new card. I can't really see your argument here, as most people are satisfied with their integrated cards.

I just now realized I've had a typo in my signature for the past 3 years.
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Thraxas
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 14:58
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Quote: "but its really nice to to have good quality sound over bad quality sound"


You don't miss what you never had

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Interplanetary Funk
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 15:51
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for audio quality most modern motherboards output is more than good enough, I have a standard mobo sound card hooked up to some very good quality speakers and the only thing that affects the sound quality is the actual track (occasionally software causes problems too though), and my mobo supports up to 7.1 surround sound.
The only advantage of expensive sound cards is when you're doing a lot of sampling on the input, e.g. you were using a computer to output the sound of a midi device. Other than that I honestly don't see the need.

Get on my level
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 17:07
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Quote: "You don't miss what you never had"


thats pretty wise!

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Fatal Berserker
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 20:13
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Thanks for the responses so far.
So will there ever be any compatibility issues?

Ive been looking into buying something like this:
http://shop.steelseries.com/index.php/audio/steelseries-5h-v2.html

And why would anyone pay another 20 euroes for the same thing but with a usb connector?
http://shop.steelseries.com/index.php/audio/steelseries-5h-v2-usb.html

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Apr 2011 20:45
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Quote: "And why would anyone pay another 20 euroes for the same thing but with a usb connector?"


because its exclusive. If i see something that i really like, usually i am willing to spend a little more money on it. sometimes even on comlete unneceseary things but it catches my eye, and i really like it.

for example, i have this sony ericcson phone which i think looks really cool, but it has faulty bugged hardware. so the hardware wears out after 3 months, so i buy another one of these used if its working. i ended up bying three of these phones because i really like how they look



i cant resist. this phone always ends up being buggy, yet i still buy another one because i like this phone soo frigging much!

it looks so cool dosent it?

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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crispex
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 00:26
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Quite honestly that'd be considered a "basic" model in the states. I don't want to sound ignorant, but it seems like Russia is a bit behind technology-wise. It's not a bad looking phone, but if you've seen some of the smart phones rolling out these days...

I just now realized I've had a typo in my signature for the past 3 years.
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BiggAdd
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 01:49
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Quote: "Quite honestly that'd be considered a "basic" model in the states. I don't want to sound ignorant, but it seems like Russia is a bit behind technology-wise. It's not a bad looking phone, but if you've seen some of the smart phones rolling out these days..."


I don't think he was saying this phone is top of the range, I think he was making the point that despite the hardware flaws, he is willing to buy the phone again when it breaks because he likes the style. (That was my interpretation anyway)

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crispex
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 05:43
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Now that you say it it makes more sense. Anyway, I can't really understand those who choose style of substance. A perfect example: Crysis. No real innovation, but good graphics. Meh.

I just now realized I've had a typo in my signature for the past 3 years.
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Lemonade
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Posted: 14th Apr 2011 10:24
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You can get a really good sound card for $80: http://www.amazon.com/Creative-SB0880-Express-Blaster-Titanium/dp/B001E25KDK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302765810&sr=8-1

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 15th Apr 2011 06:43 Edited at: 15th Apr 2011 07:00
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@ crispex
Quote: "Quite honestly that'd be considered a "basic" model in the states. I don't want to sound ignorant, but it seems like Russia is a bit behind technology-wise. It's not a bad looking phone, but if you've seen some of the smart phones rolling out these days..."


not true i just hate smarphones. in particular the thing where every smartphone is copying an Iphone.

yeah, there are actually tons of smarphones in russia. to the point where random people come up to you and offer you to buy an iphone for cheap (proboly stolen) once while i was waiting for the bus near a crowded place, and 3 sketchy people in some 5 minutes came up to me and offered to buy smarphones

i actually do have a smarphone, but before the term "smartphone" became popular they were called communicators in russia.




asus p550

sure this thing is old its like from 2007 before iphones. then again, it looks cool in my opinion, i dont even use it as a phone really. i just use it for work, doing spreadsheets and using the GPS and playing bubbles during subway rides (so frigging addicting)

Quote: "A perfect example: Crysis. No real innovation, but good graphics. Meh."


you know, i actually really enjoyed crysis and not because of the graphics. I didnt have a powerful- enough computer untill 2010 to play crysis on full settings. Honestley the storyline of Crysis was pretty cool. i played that game like 20 times already, i even beat it in one day once.

crysis 2 was sort of a dissapoint. even the graphics arent even direct x 10 they are dx9

the point is i am real old school

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