Asus or Creative sound card?

I want to replace my creative x-fi platinum sound card. I use a crappy Behringer uca222 with rca inputs to record audio. There is a lot of background noise, hissing, etc.

So my preferences are the Creative ZxR and the Asus Xonar Essence STX.

I use a Tascam 8-track digital DP-01FX to record. So I often record audio coming from my Tascam to my PC (using wavelab) and rca ins/outs.

I want a lot of compatibility. the Tascam has Midi, rca and digital (SPDIF I'm assuming?) outputs. (so SPDIF is better than rca?)

I have a usb midi cable which I'm assuming works fine.

Any preferences or insights or suggestions?

 

The Creative sound cards have bizarre driver issues like always. Sometimes it's just randomly detected as something else instead of a ZxR with no seemingly right way to fix it. Just yesterday mine was being detected as a Recon3D and wouldn't function, seemingly out of nowhere with no software changes.

I tried everything and when nothing worked I gave up and moved it back to its original slot and reinstalled the drivers... then it magically detected as a ZxR again even though I had already done all those same steps before.

This is not new, these strange driver and detection issues have existed since 2005 at the very least.

Honestly I say avoid drivers and internal PC parts altogether, just get a nice amp. It'll cost more than a sound card since those are $250 at most, but it'll probably be worth it.

 

an amp? like, a guitar amp? or what?

 

M-Audio Audiophile 2496
http://www.m-audio.com/products/view/audiophile-2496

ESI Maya22 usb or something else of them
http://www.esi-audio.com/products/?m=12

 

The Creative sound cards are just junk. My Z has glitches out the wazoo and I barely used it for a year. The sound source just swaps between headphones and speakers when it wants to, and sometimes you'll just get a huge buzzing and 8bit sound mode out of nowhere.

 

Would you just use the sound card as a line-input to the computer?
Or do you have other uses for a sound card?
What is the make and model of the USB Midi cable?

 

I'd like to do many things. have a spdif in, spdif out, rca in. rca out. even midi if possible (but not necessary).

the midi cable is just a generic usb midi cable. I'm assuming it's not like analog where you might get fuzz and noise, etc.

 

I own the STX and STX II and the STX is worth every penny. Driver support for the STX is very good too, I've used it on multiple OS's and never had any issues, mind that this is with the UNi Xonar driver

 

you know, looking over the creative ZxR specs, seems like it has everything I need. rca in and out, spdif in and out, aux in... Can't find another card that has that much functionality. hmm. tough choice...?

 

I own a ZxR and it's awesome. Never had any driver or accompanying software problems under Win7, 8, 8.1 or 10.

(in case anyone's wondering about Win10, you can get the the drivers to install by temporarily disabling driver verification.)

 

Did you update the driver? I'm using the driver provided with my card and it's been as flawless as a Creative product can get. I never updated the driver for my Recon3D either, and for the same reason. The provided driver was as flawless as Creative drivers will ever get.

 

Sorry for the late response, but no, not a guitar amp, a headphone amp for music listening. Something like what this company offers: http://schiit.com/products

Ah, the bad old days. I remember I had to disable driver verification for a controller driver to work since it had no signature back then. The only method was to disable it at startup, there was no permanent way. Is it still only temporary until reboot and done at startup in Win 10?

 

CMD with admin rights:

bcdedit -set loadoptions DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
bcdedit -set TESTSIGNING ON

PERMANENT!

 

As an owner of a ZxR, I haven't had any drivers issues anytime recently. When they first came out, I had a glitch where corrupt sounds would happen after some time gaming. New OS install and newer drivers fixed that though. Love my ZxR!

 

I just tossed mine on Ebay...

 

I bought my Creative soundblaster Recon/Fatality soundcard from Microcenter ( Refurb ) for $25 bucks-It was one of the best upgrades ive ever made, Audio is simply awsome now compared to onboard audio, I also NEVER experienced any driver related problems ever since I installed the card.It was install, Game-up and enjoy!
I wish I could say the same for the Headphones I bought from Creative- SoundBlaster (FURY) they are a bit on the cheep side but...... I didnt want to spend $200 dollars on a headphones only to pair it up with a $25 dollar soundcard. Creative is really good in my opinion.

 

My experiences with M-audio, Asus and other brands are worse than with Creative, especially when it comes to gaming.

 

I love my Sound Blaster Z, zero problems in Windows 8.1/10 and it is a hell of a lot better than my on-board ALC-898

 

You don't need an external headphone amp, waste of money, both got a 600 Ohm amp, plus for music listening you should know that your best of with the Essence, go for the STX II.

I guess Creative's offer might be a better deal for gaming, but reviews indicate that even the X-Fi is better than the Z series.
Heck, you even talk about recording, so STX or something even better, else just keep that X-FI.
Why do you use that Behringer UCA222?
What do you actually record via it?

Don't get tempted by the Z.

 

Yes, but the ZxR has more inputs and outputs. Yes I record and have a Tascam portastudio, but I'm not a recording engineer or anything.