[geeks] audio issue with PC case

[Shannon]

On 22-Feb-2014 21:07, Joshua Boyd wrote:
>> If this were purely audio, like professional stuff, then I'd be using
>> optical connects to some external audio hardware.
> 
> What are you doing that isn't purely audio in this day and age?  

Games? I guess what I mean by "purely audio" is things where I'm only
working with audio... not stuff like games that generate sound.

> I gave up on using a PCI sound card in my desktop for general use.
> When I tried the audio on the back panel it was very noisy. My
> solution was to use the S/PDIF connected to  FiiO DAC that cost about
> $20 on amazon. Problem solved.  But, I was already using an external
> headphone amp, or else I might not have found this so satisfactory.
> That DAC also supports Toslink optical for mother boards without
> S/PDIF.

This is actually a PCIe bus sound card.

The audio ports on the back of my current motherboard are nice and
quiet. The main reasons for using the sound card instead are that it
solves my headphone issue, and it has some processing features that help
compensate for my terrible listening environment and gear. It also has
some nice noise cancellation for the microphone.

Also I have had crashing/lockup issues with the Realtek audio drivers.

In some rare cases where the software does really complex sound
processing or a ton of channels, it also helps offload the CPU.

The USB audio I have tried sounded nice, and I liked the isolation.
However the sound was generally "laggy", and in some games it seemed to
severely limit how many channels you could play compared to a discrete
sound card. In some cases I had notable CPU usage as well.

They may be much nicer now, I have no idea.

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