Should I upgrade from a recon3d to a Zxr?

Discussion in 'Soundcards, Speakers HiFI & File formats' started by goat1, Jul 27, 2014.

  1. goat1

    goat1 Ancient Guru

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    What's super amazing about it? I don't see anything that tells me the card is revolutionary. Honestly,I think my Razer Barracuda AC-1 was the best of all the cards I've had,it had some cool stuff on it. I don't like Dolby headphone,which is what the STX 2 has. I just don't see any specs that just blow the ZXR out of the water.
     
  2. Loophole35

    Loophole35 Guest

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    The Phoebus is not a bad card I've been very pleased with mine it drives my DT770's beautifully and looks really nice in my case. I have a SBz in my living room rig and it's good too but the headphone amp is mediocre at best. The driver support from ASUS is not that great but since the card works flawlessly for me I have no reason to update them anyway.
     
  3. moab600

    moab600 Ancient Guru

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    well Phoebus is not bad but neither good. i use equalizer a lot on my speakers, i barely use headphones and the sbz blows phoebus out of water, less in games more in movies.

    STXII blows both of them in all terms, now GOAT1 STXII is pretty much improved STX I version, which was already awesome. you can read the guru3d review about it, mind you i came from SBZ/Phoebus and it does sounds way better.
     
  4. goat1

    goat1 Ancient Guru

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    I did read the review. I just don't see how its going to blow the ZXR out of the water. Better maybe,leagues better,I doubt it. Plus the price on that thing is way too much. I mostly used the Sound card for games. But,I was listening to music thru the 770's last night and WOW! Forgot how good those sound. I'm gonna throw my Recon back in tonight and see the difference. Another thing,you almost need to hear the difference side by side at the same time. Both cards have different settings. Are the op amps in the STX 2 better or different? At any rate,I'm not paying that much for the sound card.
     

  5. Loophole35

    Loophole35 Guest

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    As the ZxR uses the exact same headphone amp as the Phoebus I know what you mean. With my lower end 5.1 Logitech speakers there was only a slight improvement over onboard audio but when using proper cans the sound processor really shines. The SBz uses a budget headphone amp compared to the ZxR and Phoebus.
     
  6. goat1

    goat1 Ancient Guru

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    The headphone amp,now that I believe. The Zxr has a radio button for the 600 ohm head phones. The recon doesn't have that either. That's why I believe that getting an STX 2 would be more of a sideways move than a bonafide upgrade. I suppose if you just dropped $400 on it,your going to want it to blow the Zxr out of the water. It's like in the home theater crowd. You'll get a guy that just dropped 2k on a new amp and all of the sudden the sound stage opened up and the speakers sound 10x better,you can't make it up. I've been there and done that,exact reason I sold my amp. I doubt most would be hard pressed to hear a difference,at least not a $200 difference in sound.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2014

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