You know what's sad about Realtek?

[Crow47]

In the shop I work at, we have a literal forest of old towers in the back. I was back there scavenging yesterday and I found a pretty old Creative Audigy audio card. Now I've been hating the Realtek in my computer for awhile, and I've been throwing around the idea of a new sound card for awhile. So I take the old thing home, pop it in my computer, and you know what? It sounds better than the Realtek. How sad is that? An eight year old sound card completely blows away today's high definition audio. Just thought I'd leave this here.

[WhenKittensATK]

It isn't HD audio, until you put in an HD source. To me my Realtek HD onboard sounds better than my Audigy 2 ZS. Plus Realtek HD has microphone speaker calibration

 

EDIT: Your board has a Realtek ALC1200 and mine is a Realtek ALC888S, but I think the 1200 is just a rebrand of the 888 for ASUS boards.

ASUS have a non-standard codec, the ALC1200. This is believed to be an ALC888S or T in drag. Since Gigabyte have their own "type", Asus had to have one too.

Edited October 29, 2009 by Krazyxazn

[sYstEmATiC]

The only real gripe I have with Realtek's on board is the low gain for analog connections like headphones. They need more gain behind them. Its not really a big deal to me (unless Im at a lan) though because I use my receiver to power my headphones which use the Optical (digital) out's for the source. My receiver pushes MUCH more power to headphones than the sound card.

Edited October 29, 2009 by sYstEmATiC

[Crow47]

That's an interesting observation, Krazy. But I dunno what to tell you. I have my computer hooked up to my receiver through digital spdif, and currently the audigy is hooked up via analog rca to the receiver, and everything is much clearer and more precise. I'm currently waiting on my mini toslink cable to arrive from monoprice so I can hook it up to my receiver through optical digital. Maybe I just notice a difference with my speakers and my ears, who knows? Sound can be very subjective.

[Andrewr05]

The only real gripe I have with Realtek's on board is the low gain for analog connections like headphones. They need more gain behind them. Its not really a big deal to me (unless Im at a lan) though because I use my receiver to power my headphones which use the Optical (digital) out's for the source. My receiver pushes MUCH more power to headphones than the sound card.

AGREED

My Grados sound alright through my on board but they would sound waaay better with a dedicated amp.

[pezcore]

an 8 year old Benz is nicer than a brand new Kia too

 

 

edit* - I hate that we can't edit without it saying so, even if you catch a mistake seconds after you post

Edited October 29, 2009 by pezcore

[Silverfox]

an 8 year old Benz is nicer than a brand new Kia too

 

 

edit* - I hate that we can't edit without it saying so, even if you catch a mistake seconds after you post

 

Paid members can edit and not have the comment He he.

[Verran]

To me, it all depends what you're doing with the card. At my desk, I use the onboard on my X48-DQ6 and it sounds fine through a set of decent 2.1 speakers. For my HTPC in the living room, I run it through a full high-end receiver and speaker set, so distortion is much more noticeable. I found that running a 3.5mm -> RCA from the headphone port needed too much amplification and sounded crackly on the onboard of the DFI nf4 Infinity, so I picked up a cheap Turtle Beach card with an optical-out and things sound much better now. I think it's just a matter of what you're running your sound out to, as well as how picky your ears are, of course

[Silverfox]

My onboard sound for the Dell Studio 17 is highly susceptible to electrical interference and crackling whenever there is HDD activity. It drives me absolutely insane and I wish there was something I could do about it (though Windows 7 is slightly quieter than Vista for this for some reason). Even an External USB Creative X-Fi suffers the same wrath.

[Crow47]

Well, I do a lot of music listening and gaming, and for something I got for free, it's a heck of a card. I'll work on getting a better card asap, but one thing at a time. This has just sated my appetite for something better for now.

 

*EDIT* I would like to clarify that I have pretty decent speakers, and combined with my immensely picky ears, the difference is immediately noticeable.

 

Also, I found my card is actually an Audigy 2, not an Audigy as I first thought. Whee, one more generation!

[Compxpert]

<3 my PCI-E X-Fi... although I still have garbled audio sometimes where there is only 2 ways to fix... 1. Reboot, 2. (Easier way) Go into sound properties and play DTS or DD test tone and it fixes it.

[cirro]

i love my realtek honestly. i have always put mine through recievers though. my 780i has 2 3.5mm jacks -> rca's to my sony reciever which its perfect for the 5.1, and then i have the rest going to my logitech 5.1

 

most of the noticable differences in sound quality i control from the reciver or software equalize it.

 

never really felt the need to go spend extra money on a card with perfectly fine audio on my mobos