Need help deciding on a Soundcard, between ASUS Xonar DSX and HT OMEGA eCLARO

[Abula]

I finished a haswell build and to my misfortune im having issues with the included Realtek 1150, in the past i had nightmares with Creative and their drivers, to the point that on my PC i use only realtek and accepted the worst sound for stability. But im willing to go into a dedicated sound card again, as i have lot of static noises on the realtek.


Setup
Sound card ---> 3x 3.5 mini stereo plug to RCA ---> Emotiva UPA-5 amp ---> JBL NSP1 speakers + Sony SA700 sub


Use
Mostly gaming, most of the time im playing alone on the 5.1 setup, but i do play with friends regularly maybe couple of hours at night, but the rest of the time im speakers. I play BF3, LOL, WOW, SC2, DOTA2, CS:GO, D3. I do use it for music but still more on the speakers, i do play ocasionally a movie or two but not what i spend most of the time.


The Sound card needs
5.1 analogs - 3.5 mini streo plugs
No static at all when gaming or playing music
Has to sound better than Realtek
Below $300
Stable drivers for windows 7 pro
Has to be PCIe, i have no PCI slots


What im considering atm, but open to any none creative suggestion,


HT Omega eClaro
I have read good things about HT Omega over the years, but one thing that has remained is they are expensive, but as long as it works well, i don't care. I like some features of it, like serial cable for speakers, this will help me a lot when cleaning and not needing to replug individually. I like also has a dedicated connection for the headphones, so i don't need to do what im doing atm to have the 2 channel front go to my headphone amp and then to the speaker amp, but not a big deal either. The other thing that worries me is that the last windows 7 drivers that i see from them are dated 2010... thats a long time, either they are really good into their drivers and no issues have happen on 3 years, or their support lacks.


Asus Xonar DSX
A friend has one and he says been perfect for a year, he is using asus drivers, but i have read a lot of support on asus lacks and that many go into unified drivers, but checking asus web for the card, has 2013 windows 7 drivers, so maybe is not as bad as im thinking or not with this version. One thing that i like is the price, more than 3 times less than eClaro.


So what do you recommend me? im open for other sound cards as long as they are not creative.

 

[Cos]

Speaking from experience, I have an IVY BRIDGE build and had problems with Realtek when using a usb microphone or headset.

I have a Sound Blaster Xi-Fi Professional Fatality Card with front panel and I will say that the drivers work perfectly. As for your experience with Creative I could not agree with you more, when windows Vista 64 bit came out, was a nightmare. Windows 7 Drivers worked perfectly and no problems with windows 8. Makes no difference if it's windows 7 Premium or Pro, they work fine in both.

For gamming I still have to say that Creative is the best sound card choice. Asus seems to be reporting the same problems with its drivers with a lot of users. I have no experience with the HT Omega, but overall reviews for this card seem good.

I have used the Creative Sound Blaster since the 8 bit card days and while I feel your pain on the driver issue, the one thing I do know is that there is a ton of support for it and Creative is going to be around a long time, so I have stuck with them. If I were doing more home audio applications I probably would look at their newer card or the two you suggested, but gamming, there is minimal to no difference between cards.

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[Abula]

I have my fears on Asus, but have some friends with them say they dont have any issues, checking asus website, seems the DSX has 2012 drivers, nothing on 2013 though, the D2 and DX have same 2011/2012. I have seen some user reviews that report issues with drivers, but lots of good experiences.

I decided on the eClaro, really wanted to try one of the PCI versions in the past, but never had the chance or money when i wanted it, after wards it just faded and stayed on realtek.

If the eClaro doesnt work out, i might give a creative soundblaster a shot, but i still fear the drivers, even now browsing on newegg last reviews,

Twice I've had the device disabled error message, and had to uninstall the drivers, shut down the pc, remove the card, reboot, shut down again, reintall the card, and the drivers. Since,,no problems..
Very pricy for a flaky card...

The drivers for this card are the a new level of low. The card worked somewhat on the first day but after up dating the drivers the card began to screech and pop during playback and the microphone began to get metallic and echo. After reverting to original drivers the card could no longer be detected by windows and or their software suite. This could not be fixed by a restart and even after COMPLETELY wiping my drive in an attempt to have this card work , it still failed. Installed all new motherboard drivers and bios, still failed. R.M.A.ing tomorrow.

After only about a day of instillation ive started receiving a lot of errors including one that saying the audio device is disabled whenever i start up the driver. this can only be fixed by restarting and with no ssd this is a serious time waster.

I would boot up the PC and Windows would not recognize the card, and the creative software also would not recognize the card. I had to reinstall all of the software and drivers to get the card functioning again. I also have random times when Windows will stop recongizing the card and I will just have to reboot. But the software problems have been frustrating, I would have rather spent the money and went with the ASUS Xonar..

this card worked fine the day I got it, I decided to play some bioshock, then I got bored so I decided to listen to music, but the card went absolutely nuts. It started distorting, screeching, and making all kinds of weird messed up noise.
I loved this card at first, but if it does this again, i'm returning it.

The biggest problem with this card is that it has some of the worst drivers out there. Creative has never been good with drivers, and this card is a shining example of that. The sound cuts out on my speakers sometimes, it makes a harsh static when any audio is being played and it lags my games when it happens, and it does not sound good at all with music.

Either way thanks for taking the time and posting on my thread, really appreciate the time and suggestion

 

[panteragstk]

Having used realtek and creative for years I get what you mean about the drivers and static from the realtek. I personally would get something external. PC's are pretty terrible environments for noise. Grated, I have an internal x-fi and have never had any noise issues with it. Great card since I first got it. No driver issues to speak of with windows 7.

Since most games run on direct sound instead of EAX like they did back in the day you can use HDMI out to a receiver or pre/pro (over your budget, but possible) and output to your UPA-5. Or you could go with an external audio interface that will sound fantastic for whatever you use it for. If you go route #2 I would get an M-Audio ProFire 610 as long as your board supports firewire and you run 32 bit windows (those limitations are why I don't already have one.)

If you do decide on an internal sound card you need to make sure it is somewhat shielded to avoid the issues you've already encountered. I believe Asus, Creative and a few others make a few cards like that.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I whole heartily agree with Panteragstk on this. No internal sound card will guarantee you noise free - there is just too much rfi interference inside the case.
I have found out than my old and faithful SB Audigigy 2 Z which was flawless for longest time started to be very noisy then I swapped my video to 7870
Imo just get an AVR (if you have the space for it) - $300 will go a long way with refub models - like this one:
DENON AVR-890 7.1 Channel 105W A/V 1.3a Receiver | Accessories4less

You could use hdmi or digital audio out (from onboard realtek is fine) cable to hook it up.

 

[Cos]

Its funny, I have built way over 20 PC's for myself and friends as I usually upgrade every 2 years. I have had a Sound Blaster Card in everyone I have built for myself and, with the exception of driver problems (pretty much in Windows Vista 64 Bit only) I have never experienced any issues.

Now as panteragstk and BoredSysAdmin states, there are definitely better solutions to improve overall sound quality but unless you are driving it with superior HT speakers, chances are you are not going to notice any difference.

1. No, I don't work for creative labs
2. I always put the Sound Card in the bottom most PCie when possible to get further away from CPU, GPU (though hard to do w/SLI)
3. I buy the shielded version of the card just to be on the safe site, which is a small concern with eClaro which doesn't look to be shielded.

Either way, I would be curious to see your feedback on the eClareo card

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

For me switching from my pci SB to AE D1 dac (using tosslink) essentially killed all noises and hiss, but ymmv.
Did I noticed any other improvements in quality - nope, but it was by itself very annoying

 

[Hi Ho]

I have had an HT Omega Striker 7.1 for several years and I have been very happy with it. I haven't had any driver issues and sound quality is excellent through speakers and headphones. The noise floor is very low. It is undetectable, in fact, even when I use my sealed Sennheiser headphones unless I crank the volume to the max with nothing playing. I use digital coax to connect to my home theater and it works great. The HT Omega has the advantage of incorporating Dolby Digital Live which allows you to use the digital output for games and get true 5.1 Dolby Digital encoded on the fly. A lot of cards will not do this and only provide surround sound via the analog outputs.