New Sound Card

I have a Audigy X-Fi, I got it for several years ago when Creative was the only game in town. I have been unhappy with the quality of my sound card for the last 6 months or so, some minor static and noise. For the last 2 months the static and line noise had been getting worse, when I would boot up sometimes I would get static until I reset the card to factory defaults, it was very annoying. Whenever I would watch a Blu-Ray with a HD Audio encode, I would also get popping and noise whenever there would be a explosion or loud noise. After looking around a bit, I ended up getting a HT Omega Claro.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271004

Several key things sold me on this card.

1. The Headphone Amp. I have a nice pair of Sennheiser 595HD cans, and while they are not super high fidelity, they are high enough where I can hear the difference in HQ audio files. I also can now justify the purchase of some very high end headphones when I can afford them, probably sometime next year.

2. The HT Omega control panel. After reading several reviews, all of them praised the control panel used for controlling the functions of the card. Being able to switch output types, speaker configs and channels on the fly is really awesome, and has a ton more functionality than the Creative software did.

3. Front Panel Support. I have a front panel on my case that I have not been able to use for the last 4 years. Stupid Creative only had support for the Dell front panel audio hookups, which are a long thin 8 prong plug, the standard 4x2 box plug was not supported. The X-Fi would not even let me use the individual plugs that are on the same cable as the 4x2 plug, for basic AC 97 sound, they would not fit. The Claro has a perfect hookup for front panel HD audio, works great. It even mutes the back speaker jack when the front panel is hooked up.

4. The optical hookup. For now I am unable to use the optical inputs, as Windows XP can not monitor the input to control the volume. Windows 7 is able to, and I am considering moving on to Win7 later this year. Once I am able to use the optical input, it will greatly simplify my cable mess, and the game systems should sound a lot better to.

I am very impressed with the sound quality of everything, even basic AVI Xvid 2 Channel audio sounds better. HD Audio sounds mind blowing. Games sound about the same, except for one. Dead Space on 5.1 sound has an amazing clarity, even better than it did before, I have never heard anything like it. If anyone needs a new sound card and has $200 to burn, this is a fantastic choice.