What goes around comes around, and I was already a bit torn during the test 5 months ago, so I decided not to judge the Creative Sound Blaster X5 on my first impressions, but to run it in parallel with my HIFIMAN EF 400 for a longer time with various headphones alternately. In principle, not much has changed in the acoustically oriented judgment [...]
If the sound card drops out or cracks, USB devices do not work or only work sporadically or the performance drops, then interrupt conflicts are usually the cause. This is something that Windows users have long since ignored out of sheer convenience, although the problem is as old as PCs and has only shifted under the colorful operating system [...]
If you also hear what you see, the external analog amplifier has a nasty background hum, the headphones are much too quiet, and the sound comes across much too flat and powerless in other ways as well, then something is obviously rotten with the system. But where is the best place to start and, above all, what are the causes? I have already [...]
Disclaimer: The following article is machine translated from the original German, and has not been edited or checked for errors. Thank you for understanding!
With the Sound Blaster GC7, Creative is primarily targeting streamers and gamers whose focus is on combining the best possible immersion with easy and convenient communication. So it’s more of an acoustic two-way street rather than a tonal one-way street for sound-loving nitpickers. I am fair enough to consider this principle and also the [...]
The Realtek ALC4080, which was launched in 2020, can now be found as a sound solution on many new mid-range and high-end Intel boards without the customer really knowing what’s behind it. Exactly that I would like to change today gladly and have a suitable data sheet from a mainboard developer procured. The ALC4080 breaks with the long [...]
What happens when Schubert’s trout goes down the Oehlbach acoustically grandiose and takes the invested 20 Euros right along with it? That’s exactly what I thought when I spontaneously ordered an Oehlbach PureClock to solve my nasty chirp problem and wasn’t really sure whether such a passive stick was pure snake oil or a passable [...]
I’ll write out the product name once (almost) in full: S.M.S.L Sanskrit 10 MKII AK4493 HiFi 768KHz 32Bit XMOS USB Native DSD256 Decoder, then for simplicity’s sake I’ll just call the thing Sanskrit 10th MKII. The name with the 10-year anniversary has allowed itself the manufacturer to exactly this anniversary. I was intrigued by [...]
The fact that the small mobile DACs and headphone amplifiers cannot keep up with stationary devices should be well known due to their size and the associated technical limitations. But since I own some Beyerdynamic headphones myself as well as the A20 as a headphone amplifier, I was quite curious about the comparison. After all, they also [...]
The Sound BlasterX G6 looks like a G5, at least at first glance and as long as you don't look at the price tag. The 149 euros on the Creative homepage are a whopping 30 euros above the current street price of the predecessor. Of course, the legitimate question arises as to whether the whole thing is really worth the extra charge. With its USB [...]
The classic soundcard is dead, long live the classic soundcard? Somehow it is and I would like to explain it again with a longer self-experiment. I myself criticize the headphone outputs of the onboard sound solutions often enough and am always glad when motherboard manufacturers have followed the suggestions of customers and editors and improved [...]
A USB sound solution with a decent DAC, microphone input and extra headphone amplifier for less than 30 euros? Dreaming on, I thought until I found exactly that here: the Sharkoon Gaming DAC Pro S. Now, of course, Sharkoon hasn't reinvented the audio navel of the world, but has fished an OEM on land that has a remarkable combination of DAC and [...]
You can start from scratch and work your way free, or you can rely on long-standing expertise, which you buy purposefully. EVGA has done the latter for good reason and, together with Audio Note, has launched the EVGA NU Audio as a plug-in sound card that does not want to crack, but wants to knock. You can see that very quickly in the price [...]
As a man, you forgive a beautiful woman for a lot of things, but does that also apply to technology? I am actually more of a fact-based person who can also live with an open wire if the performance is right. And then there's a part like that, which looks really good. But can the Sennheiser GSX 1000 score just as well in terms of acoustic [...]
Virtual Acoustic's Cave GH51 Pro is a completely redesigned wireless headset with four drivers per earcup, neatly implemented Bluetooth technology, and a switchable, proprietary wireless connection that includes uncompressed content largely lag-free and in decent quality. In addition, there is a separate transmitter with a high degree of [...]
