Which Soundcard gives me the best SPDIF sound

Right now I can not decide between Asus Xonar D2X Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD and the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD.

I want to use DTS and DDL

What can you recommend me else?

I have read a lot of nonsense in the Internet over SPDIF, people say any soundcard with SPDIF gives me the same sound, because its digital. I have old Audigy and a Realtek 889A with spdif out, with my Wharfedale speaker I can hear even differences between the old and new SoundDiver, the old Realtek driver are far better than the new ones. :biggun:

 

It's not nonsense. Digital = 0's and 1's. DSP's and other settings can alter what you hear but do not directly affect the quality of the output.

Buying a high end sound card to use digital out is just a waste of money..

 

It's all digital and sound card makes no difference to digital out audio quality. If you hear difference, something is really wrong with audio settings or in your head (strong placebo).

 

OK if its all the same, why Music with AISO Output on Spdif are better then Standart Windows Output. Its digital 0 and 1, too.

 

Because AISO/WASAPI are bit perfect, Directsound isn't, windows fiddles with the data, but a soundcard with SPDIF is just taking that data and outputting it, no fiddling involved.

 

OK does it have Soundcards which give me a bit perfect sound output on Games, Music and Movies?

 

The only reason to get a card is if your on board doesn't support DDL.

 

When using digital out to your amp, the amp is the soundcard.
The amp determines the sound quality.
You have to spend quite a lot on the amp to match a medium quality analogue soundcard.

If you are using SPDIF for 5.1, you are compressing the sound as well as relying on the amp for conversion quality.

 

What are you outputing the S/PDIF to?
Are you ouputing to a digital input on some speaker or to a receiver, etc.?

 

Or if you want the features of the sound card over Digital.

 

If your running movies over SPDIF, then there will be no difference between soundcards if your playing back the original untouched AC3/DTS signal.

When it comes to games, since games don't support 5.1 over SPDIF, then you will need one which support DDL/DTS Connect which will slightly mess with the sound quality compared to analogue.

In this scenario, there could be a difference in quality between soundcards when using the DDL/DTS-C feature as those are encoding the stream in realtime, but not sure how much of a difference there may, or may not be.

I can recommend the Asus Xonar D2X though, an old, but still a great card whether i use analogue or digital.

 

Based on my extensive testing, there are differences in digital signals.
To those that think it is all the same what about jitter in the digital signal? There would be an easily heard difference between say an onboard S/pdif output and a M2Tech Hiface or other low jitter digital source.
A jittery S/Pdif signal can easily cause distortion and artifacts among other anomalies. Jitter is just timing errors in a signal that needs to be very precise so any deviation is in a word, bad.

This is a main reason why many higher end external DAC's are going with Asynchronous input to protect against issues caused by jitter in the source signal.

Now, granted you need to DAC and gear to hear the differences but they are there.

Generally comparing soundcards for digital output would yield very similar results personally I would try and get a card with transformer coupling but they are getting harder to find.

There is still a reason to buy a higher end card and use it for digital as the card might have features a person wants to have. That being said, many of us know that these newer cards generally will produce much better sound when connected through analog unless you have a very high end receiver.

If you are going digital, I would advise finding the cheapest card you can that provides the features you want this keeps you from paying for components you are not going to use.

 

I didnt want to go there (discussing jitter) as the equipment being used wont highlight the difference imo.
Ill go with your experience though if you believe he will be able to tell the difference.

I have an M2Tech Hiface here (RCA coax connector), its been compared to my Preludes SPDIF and have plugged it into my Minimax DAC to compare to its USB input.
It sounds a lot worse than the Minimax and only slightly better than the Prelude.
The Prelude result 'may' have been placebo, the difference was small.

But, cable quality may count for a lot here though, I was using a high quality but 5 meter long RCA cable for both the Prelude SPDIF out and the HiFace SPDIF out (the only RCA lead l I have that will reach far enough).
If he is using low quality SPDIF leads and/or long SPDIF leads, that will have an overriding effect on jitter regardless of other hardware.
And then there is the amps DACs ability to expose the difference, as you covered.


I agree, jitter is a major concern for high end digital audio out, I'm not so sure he will appreciate the difference between those different soundcards SPDIF outs.
Am happy to hear what you think?

 

Ok i know i must update my amplifier befor thinking about soundcard?

What can you recommend me, here my setup:

Wharfedale Diamond 10.6 for front
Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 rear
Wharfedale Diamond 10 CM center
Wharfedale Diamond 10 MX Subwoofer
Pioneer VSX D814-S amp
Oehlbach Speaker Cabel 4,00mm
Kaiser Digital Optical Cabel Spdif

I know my amp is really **** for this Setup, but in Games the Voice sound is quiet with my realtek 889a.
Music just sounds good over AISO
Movies dont sounds so good as on a Ps3 if compare the same Bluerays on my PC

thats why i believe the onboard sound is crap

 

The amps analogue stage is of lesser quality than the speakers and soundcard can expose.
The amps digital to analogue stage can easily be bested by a good soundcards analogue out.
After you have upgraded your soundcard, put the amp next on the list of upgrades.


Your amp has 5.1 analogue in which isnt so common these days.
So you can get the best from the amps analogue stage by using a soundcard with good analogue out.
You will then get to use all the soundcards features, the amp wont be doing any processing (so no need for DTS/DDL output - DDL sources will be processed by the soundcard).


The X-Fi Titanium HD is only stereo out for analogue, it doesnt have 5.1 analogue out.

The Auzentech HD is a good choice if you want to watch Blu Ray films and get the "high definition" soundtracks.
It has pretty good analogue quality and comes with PowerDVD that allows high def 5.1 movie tracks.
[Its possible to play the high def tracks with other sound cards now with a software hack, using Media Player Classic. (isnt quick to do though)]

The Asus D2X is also a pretty decent soundcard but I have no experience of using them.
Quality will be on a par with the Auzentech HD for analogue.


Be sure to buy some decent 5.1 analogue leads, you dont need to spend a lot.
In the US go to Monoprice.

 

Jitter only needed to be mentioned because the idea that all digital is the same is flawed. The more you get into digital audio the more apparent this idea becomes.

I am not ready to get into a digital cable discussion because as we seem to agree on I doubt the differences would be obvious given the source component (sound card). I do believe in quality cables but not uber super infused snake oil cables. Some think there is no difference whatsoever.

Source, cable..etc it is all part of the chain and you have to make sure no part is lacking but I think we may be getting ahead or above the discussion here. Long story short digital is just 1's and 0' but it also has a very precise timing component that some forget about or ignore.

 

Sorry for the bump, but basically what you guys are saying, is that in Windows 7, I will most like NOT hear a difference in sound quality if I were to compare a bit perfect audio signal from an onboard Realtek sound chip to a Sound Blaster external USB sound card? Is onboard vs extrenal card still relevant in this day and age when running bit perfect audio....particularly for music?

 

as better is your equipment as bigger is the different, with consumer gear you dont hear any different, i agree.

But try go with spdif out to class A Hardware, i tryed STX and Titanium HD 2 years ago compared with my Realtek 889. All 3 have different Sound. In that Class you even would hear different if you switch cable of speaker or if you use a energy filter for your hifi.

By the way Windows 8.1 Sounding different as Windows 7 over Spdif, i would even say better.

 

Thanks for the reply. That makes sense. In the chain of things, I guess I could say my Alpine PXA-H701 DSP is the "DAC" in this case, while the onboard Realtek chip is simply the digital signal provider.

 

For normal spdif should be a standart which sound always same, but some soundcard or onboard chip drive it over driverlevel thats why they sound different