I did digging and I have that tier S headphone amp. However, I cannot use the onboard for headphones because the front-case headphone output carries wayyyy too much electronic noise.
It’s a Z. It’s got red shielding and a red LED.
Mobo manufacturers like to cut corners and costs unless you’re buying high-end boards, and the sound is often cheapest possible components. Not just the Realtek chip, but the ports, too. Easy to get interference/noise.
I am not sure how sound even works on my PC. I know I get it via hdmi from my RTX2080. I assume the onboard mobo does a pass through to the graphics card? I’ve never thought about it till now. It just works and sounds good enough.
The above problem was happening with my 1070 Ti. Received a 3070 on Friday, plugged in the HDMI cable from the receiver, and the problem is gone. Now I can play a music file without missing the first couple seconds of the song. I guess it was a hardware issue then?
In any case, my HDMI audio is working fine now. The Sound Blaster Z will remain retired.
I’ve decided to replace my Sound Blaster Z, which is over a decade old, with a Sound Blaster AE-7. It arrives tomorrow, but it is the great experiment. I want to upgrade my audio, and this is the first step. On paper it’s a significant improvement over the Z. I want to see how it does with my Logitech Z623 2.1 system.
The next step will be to find a decent 2.1 bookshelf speaker solution.
Did this a year ago with some JBL A130’s and desktop DAC/AMP combo. Sounded so good I skipped a subwoofer for now. That’s passive though. Lot’s of decent active solutions these days if you prefer that route. Edifier’s, Kanto’s or AudioEngines should be fine.
I use a sound blaster x4 with my pc and output to a 5.1 system and a decent headphone, nothing too expensive, Logitech 5.1 and Austrian audio phones, sound is great.
Anyone comes over lives it and even my son and his mates who are 16/17 think it’s ace.
Wife thinks it’s annoying as hell
Sold it for $100 cash yesterday on Craigslist. Someone apparently thinks it’s relevant.
What was your outcome here?
I was at Micro Center and saw a number of sound card options. I’ve always loved great sound in videogames. I used to have a Sound Blaster 16 with a Turtle Beach Maui back in the day for General MIDI. Is there benefit today?