Beginner help with PC audio setup

[Jonty]

I've just replaced our ageing home PC with a new Dell XPS and would like some advice on getting the best bang for buck audio setup for it.

 

This PC is mainly used for surfing the web and playing our music collection (iTunes), as well as playing the occasional movie or Netflix to keep the kids happy. I'd also like to start dabbling with some music production using Reason at some stage too. The old PC sounded OK for what it was, but was just playing through a set of Dell 5.1 surround speakers via the Creative sound card that was shipped with the PC (I can hear the gasps of horror now! ).

 

Reading up on more advanced PC Hi-Fi setup, it sounds like I need to get myself a USB DAC and bypass the onboard sound card in the Dell. Then find a decent pair of powered speakers, which I'm leaning towards a pair of compact bookshelf style.

 

All up I only want to spend a few hundred to start with, so interested if anyone can steer me in the right direction of a reasonable DAC and speakers here and if there's anything else I need to consider. Will look at decent headphones at some stage too and I see there's a fair few threads here on that.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Would go a long way to find a better DAC Card than the ASUS STX

 

 

https://www.asus.com/au/Essence-Hi-Fi-Audio/Xonar_Essence_STX/

[Jonty]

Thanks Matt. Looks like a great card, but at nearly $500 on it's own, it's a bit past the budget once I add speakers.

 

I see others are using the Audioengine D1 or even the cheaper S.M.S.L SD-793II. Would these be OK with a set of powered speakers like Audioengine A2's?

Edited July 3, 2017 by Jonty

[Guest]

To be honest I didn't actually realise that product has shot up so much in price very recently

Keep your eyes open on the markets for second hand, I've paid from $100 for S/H. Really worth pursuing if you want something "nice" rather than something only marginally better than the on board sound. 

If you are in a hurry grab something cheap, if not hold off and wait. At least I won't be bidding.

 

[Jonty]

I might have been looking at the 7.1ch version for $500 sorry, which I don't need. I found this one on Mwave, which is $400. So price is still up there, but I'll keep an eye out for a used one.

https://www.mwave.com.au/product/asus-essence-stx-ii-channel-pciexpress-sound-card-ab59130

 

That's the version 2 model as well. I've seen a few old for sale threads on here where the version 1 model went for $100 and up. Seems like a great card.

[Jonty]

Looks like I'm in luck. Just picked this one up for a good price

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/topic/116306-fs-asus-xonar-essence-stx-i/#comment-1764554

 

Now to match it up with some decent speakers. Am considering a set of active studio monitors for around the $300-$400 mark. Heaps to choose from here:

https://www.storedj.com.au/studio-gear/studio-monitors/active-studio-monitors?SortProduct=PriceValue&PageProduct=1

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Jonty said:

Looks like I'm in luck. Just picked this one up for a good price

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/topic/116306-fs-asus-xonar-essence-stx-i/#comment-1764554

 

Now to match it up with some decent speakers. Am considering a set of active studio monitors for around the $300-$400 mark. Heaps to choose from here:

https://www.storedj.com.au/studio-gear/studio-monitors/active-studio-monitors?SortProduct=PriceValue&PageProduct=1

Nice find, driver is available on the ASUS Site and can help you find it if you need.

 

Wouldn't matter what type of system you put behind a great front end like the ASUS Xonar STX.One of mine is running what is affectionately known as the horn rig, a 4 way DSP driven 2400WRMS Separate System with plenty of 18's and a nice pair of 2 way point source horns. Plus a pair of Martin Logan CLS and a few others. to give some idea of what is in the photo, under the silk material the box looking things are 2 pairs of Exidos Malestrom 18" subs in 200 litre enclosures, weighing over over 160Kg per enclosures made from 2 laminated layers of 25mm ply. powered by over 1000W RMS, per pair  you can see the little PC mother board sitting on the table with the ASUS STX poking out of it, HAHA

 

The card will be fine on a pair of monitors 

 

[Guest Misterioso]

13 minutes ago, 125dBmonster said:

The card will be fine on a pair of monitors 

 

Don't know the ASUS sound card. Does it come with a decent volume control?

 

@Jonty Regarding active monitors on a budget, maybe try JBL LSR305. 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Misterioso

[Jonty]

Hahaha, I like the horn rig! Looks like a serious bit of kit

 

Will do a bit of research on monitors then. Even the M-Audio AV42's are tempting at $275. Or maybe I'll spend a bit more and go the KRK ROKIT RP4G3's.

 

[Guest]

Just now, Misterioso said:

 

Don't know the ASUS sound card. Does it come with a decent volume control?

 

Regarding active monitors on a budget, maybe try JBL LSR305. 

Yes, the volume control (software) on my keyboard works fine, so does the graphic EQ for tweaking. The card has 125dB of SNR (digital) and, in the hands of a good operator is amazing the things you can get from it

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Jonty said:

Hahaha, I like the horn rig! Looks like a serious bit of kit

 

Will do a bit of research on monitors then. Even the M-Audio AV42's are tempting at $275. Or maybe I'll spend a bit more and go the KRK ROKIT RP4G3's.

 

Horn rig is a jaw dropper

and some hardened Audiophiles have had to drop something off in the little room after a good ol "shake the skeleton in the water bag" type experience

[Jonty]

52 minutes ago, Misterioso said:

 

@Jonty Regarding active monitors on a budget, maybe try JBL LSR305. 

 

Thanks for the tip in the LSR305's. After reading up on them, it seems they are one of the best bang for buck in that price range, so I think I'll go with those

 

There's even an old for sale thread on here for a pair here in Canberra, so I've hit him up.

 

[JimmyiovinE]

My dorst set up was a Schiit stack and a pair of Fostex trp50 headphones. If you could stretch your budget a little you could pick up both second hand

[Pagand]

Hi Jonty,

 

I would recommend looking into more pro audio gear as you can get some great to awesome quality for an average quarter in price what most consumer grade would run. So I suggest finding a good pro audio place as they also tend to be better set up for all kinds of equipment demos.

Also if you want to do more music production, I recommend a computer usb interface like the Lexicon Alpha or Presonus Audiobox VSL 22 or VSL 44, depending on your needs, any of the three make great external sound cards as well. By the way, I'm using the Lexicon Alpha & I've had it going on 15 + years & it's still going strong. I don't do sound production myself but I am fairly serious about sound monitoring.

I understand it may be out of budget at present but especially if you're leaning towards music production, look into something like the Genelec 8010A's, for size, you can't beat sound quality especially if your source is good though be mindful if your source is terrible, no matter how good your gear is, your audio is going to be terrible.

 

Also, for straight good quality sound on the consumer side, Bose Music Monitors can't go wrong, they should still fit into your budget for the pair but I haven't checked in a long time so I can't confirm or deny price.

 

Hope this helps.

[Jonty]

So after a couple of weeks of pondering, I ended up going with the JBL LSR305's with the used ASUS Xonar Essence STX card I picked up on here. I picked up the JBL's for $390 from JB Hi-Fi as they were floor stock.

 

 

After a bit of fiddling around with the setup, I set the sound card, Windows and my media source (just iTunes) to 24bit 44.1KHz and played a few songs. To say my ears have been opened to a new world of sound would be a HUGE understatement! 

 

For a <$500 spend, I'm absolutely blown away with the result! It probably sounds weird, but my ears are actually sore from listening to this new setup, due to the sound overload they are receiving with various layers coming through to be processed now that simply weren't there before. Hard to describe, but that's how it feels after a couple of hours of listening today.

 

Thanks for all the advice guys!

[PleasantSounds]

Congrats! 

The next thing to do may be to lift them a bit.  Ideally get the tweeters to your ear height, which could improve imaging. At the same time you will reduce the bass bouncing off the desk surface and may get a bit more bottom end. 

 

[Jonty]

Thanks Pete. Just starting to play with the EQ a bit in the Xonar settings to get the sound the way I like. Got a bit more bass into them which is sounding better, but lifting them should improve even more as it is sounding a bit bright.

[Guest rmpfyf]

@Jonty for the money you've got don't underestimate your TOSLink out - you might not get world-class jitter out of it but the isolation's free. No TOSLink? Go USB. 

 

A decent ol-skool 2 channel DAC will get you started - think a Music Fidelity V-DAC, and if you're lucky you might snag one with the optional linear PSU for a few hundred all in. Can't find one of them? Look up the TDA1543-based DACs around the place (Starting Point Systems). I'd prefer the V-DAC: it's cheaper, underrated, and will do 192kHz. 

 

For 2-channel speakers to get started just find a pair of studio monitors. As mentioned, position them right.

 

Finally borrow a calibration mic off someone on the forum and do your room response filters. 

 

If you really want to go nuts you can install an audiophile OS and dual boot it for when you really want the last word in what your PC can do. It costs you nothing but your time to do this. 

 

Not world-class jitter + decent speakers + entry-level DAC + corrected response will slay anything else for the price.

[Guest]

Nice work there 

On 06/08/2017 at 8:40 PM, Jonty said:

So after a couple of weeks of pondering, I ended up going with the JBL LSR305's with the used ASUS Xonar Essence STX card I picked up on here. I picked up the JBL's for $390 from JB Hi-Fi as they were floor stock.

 

 

After a bit of fiddling around with the setup, I set the sound card, Windows and my media source (just iTunes) to 24bit 44.1KHz and played a few songs. To say my ears have been opened to a new world of sound would be a HUGE understatement! 

 

For a <$500 spend, I'm absolutely blown away with the result! It probably sounds weird, but my ears are actually sore from listening to this new setup, due to the sound overload they are receiving with various layers coming through to be processed now that simply weren't there before. Hard to describe, but that's how it feels after a couple of hours of listening today.

 

Thanks for all the advice guys!

Most welcome, enjoy it Mate !!!! As @rmpfyf says the Toslink is an isolated digital output, great for interfacing with a Digital Sound Processor or a DAC, personally use the SPDIF and use a miniDSP as a DAC  found another level of quality and Signal to Noise Ratio for my media. Just keeps getting better  that card.

[Guest rmpfyf]

23 hours ago, Jonty said:

So after a couple of weeks of pondering, I ended up going with the JBL LSR305's with the used ASUS Xonar Essence STX card I picked up on here. I picked up the JBL's for $390 from JB Hi-Fi as they were floor stock.

 

After a bit of fiddling around with the setup, I set the sound card, Windows and my media source (just iTunes) to 24bit 44.1KHz and played a few songs. To say my ears have been opened to a new world of sound would be a HUGE understatement! 

 

For a <$500 spend, I'm absolutely blown away with the result! It probably sounds weird, but my ears are actually sore from listening to this new setup, due to the sound overload they are receiving with various layers coming through to be processed now that simply weren't there before. Hard to describe, but that's how it feels after a couple of hours of listening today.

 

Thanks for all the advice guys!

 

 

As written elsewhere

 

Get those tweeters at ear level

 

And play around with room correction, you won't look back

[Jonty]

1 hour ago, 125dBmonster said:

As @rmpfyf says the Toslink is an isolated digital output, great for interfacing with a Digital Sound Processor or a DAC, personally use the SPDIF and use a miniDSP as a DAC  found another level of quality and Signal to Noise Ratio for my media. Just keeps getting better  that card.

 

Thanks for the tips about the Toslink guys. Although I'm a bit confused by this... bypassing the card's built in DAC via Toslink or SPDIF (I didn't get any of the adapters with the used card unfortunately) and buying another DAC? I thought this card had an excellent DAC as it was?

[Ugly]

On 06/08/2017 at 9:16 PM, PleasantSounds said:

Congrats! 

The next thing to do may be to lift them a bit.  Ideally get the tweeters to your ear height, which could improve imaging. At the same time you will reduce the bass bouncing off the desk surface and may get a bit more bottom end. 

 

 

Yep, get em up off the desk. Use a couple of bricks if you have to. 

[ophool]

I thought this card had an excellent DAC as it was?

It does and with your present setup nothing more is needed.

Just put the info re optical connections on file for possible later reference.

Raising the speakers could pay dividends.

 

 

[Guest]

17 hours ago, Jonty said:

 

Thanks for the tips about the Toslink guys. Although I'm a bit confused by this... bypassing the card's built in DAC via Toslink or SPDIF (I didn't get any of the adapters with the used card unfortunately) and buying another DAC? I thought this card had an excellent DAC as it was?

Always keep in mind the less DAc  conversion the better, 1 is best, the horn rig has 8 channels at 24/96 each which makes a stereo sound stage (that card is gold Mate)

[Jonty]

Thanks for clarifying guys. I'll enjoy what I've got for now, then research more about some of the more complex options available to me down the track

 

My new Cowin E-7 headphones arrived yesterday too, so can play around with the new setup as loud as I like after the kids go to bed now! I'm guessing the best way to use those is to plug direct into the 6.3mm headphone jack at the back instead of via Bluetooth? I'll need to track down an adapter for that as the headphones are 3.5mm.

 

Also need to track down some speaker stands which won't break the bank. These seem to be OK?

https://www.storedj.com.au/fluid-audio-ds5-desktop-stands-pair