Sound card recomendation

[Jibs]

I'm looking at adding a sound card to my system. I'm currently running a core 2 quad but i'm beginning the slow upgrade process. I listen to a lot of music on my computer, i watch a few movies and I do no gaming. I do a fair amount of dj'ing, i generally run my turntables to my mixer and my mixer directly into my computer and work with the input in Adobe Audition.

I'm looking for something that will offer me good sound, i'm not sure if there would be any benefit to rca inputs vs. the standard headphone jack inputs. Since input lag can sometimes be an issue, i've always wondered if it would be more beneficial to use a pci express card vs. a standard pci card, i would like something with as little lag as possible.

Thanks in advance for the help

[Dragonstongue]

Ht Omega cards would more then likely be something that would work well for you.

Some of the Asus Xonar line is excellent for sound production as well as sound quality. I have a Xonar DX and while I cannot attest to its overall mixing quality and such, it does have excellent sound for movies, music, and gaming, and is not to expensive. For the Xonar line anything with an X in its name is PCI-E based anything without X is PCI based. Example Xonar DG is PCI, Xonar DX is pci-e, DX2 again pci-e etc.

The other option you have is to go to headfi.org and ask around there, they have extremely experience folks in sound quality be it recording, editing or what have you. I would ask there as well. Not saying no one here has valid experiences, but alas, alot of folks there are audiophiles as well as proffesionals in the sound industry. best of luck.

[Adzsask]

If you just want to get your feet wet per say, I'll sell you 2 cards(best one is an audigy gamer z2) $20 to cover shipping and I will give you both of them.(in Canada)

[WhippWhapp]

My vote is for a Xonar, used many flavours over the years- never disappointed, currently using a HDAV1.3.

A Xonar USB has a decent headphone amp, DAC, DD encoding and SPDIF all in one for $50.

[Shadowmeph]

I have the Xonar dx and it is quite good, but since most of the time I use Head phones to watcjh movies and or play games I have just used to on board sound card and it is also decent. but like I said the Xonar dx is a very good sound card the only problem I ever had with it was when I was using Linux and had to get a fair amount of hep to rebuild my Kernel and then driver for the card. but I have had never had any problems at all in Windows

[lowfat]

How much you looking to spend?

[Keywork]

You can also consider getting a USB DAC/amp. Something like a UDAC-2 or a Fiio e10, are very reasonably priced and offer great sound!

[BlueByte]

Downside for the Xonar Essence STX is that it only has one input jack on the back of it. Its a great card for output, but for input go for something that has audio in. I have looked at m-audio cards in the past because they are easy to get a hold of but never got around to trying one.

[jibz]

Did this guy really just steal my name?

[Keywork]

Originally Posted by jibz

Did this guy really just steal my name?

Owned?