Soundcard recommendations needed

Sooler

Consider a Arcam rPAC
http://www.whathifi.com/review/arcam-rpac

ohbilly

^^ Will have a look now thanks

My brother has offered to sell me his Asustek Xonar Essence STX for £50 when he upgrades in a month or two, not sure if it's a good price or not.

-TangleFoot-

ohbilly wrote: »

...not sure if it's a good price or not.

Apparently they retail for ~£145.

Lum

Xonars are very good cards, both in terms of sound quality and value for money, but they are a bit fussy about what computers they will work in.

Download this tool and run it in the background while you do your normal computing activities. If the graph doesn't stay entirely in the green then steer clear of a Xonar. Eachtime that graph spikes into the red you are likely to get pops or skips in your music playback.

ohbilly

I'll run that tool now, thanks for that

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

Apparently they retail for ~£145.

Ah wow didn't have a chance to look yet so I am definitely taking him up on the offer.

Cheers for that

Lifeforms

Lum wrote: »

Xonars are very good cards, both in terms of sound quality and value for money, but they are a bit fussy about what computers they will work in.

Download this tool and run it in the background while you do your normal computing activities. If the graph doesn't stay entirely in the green then steer clear of a Xonar. Eachtime that graph spikes into the red you are likely to get pops or skips in your music playback.

I second this. Xonar card for music worked on old motherboard, doesn't work on replacement motherboard, and works ok in another computer...
Hence buying the cheapy one of ebay to test it.