The thing here is that folks are suggesting high-quality cards, but if the only thing that concerns you is eliminating the distortion you're getting from the motherboard audio, almost any dedicated sound card should provide you with sufficient isolation to remove noises like hard disk access and a lot of EMI, relatively speaking.

My advice is to buy from a reputable, local dealer with a good return policy - ANY Asus or Creative - and pop it in. If the noise is eliminated, mission accomplished.

If you do go the USB route, be very careful that it also supports your microphone, since you're using a headset.

Good luck!

Boz

oled tv is going to be even better than crt's judging by their specds, but thats going to be in a few years. I do have a Galaxy S2 and the amoled screen is amazing, no ghosting, and the blacks are darker than night :)SPBoss

Im torn between either the ad700s or the HD598's either of which will be connected to an Astro Mixamp. I know the 598s are twice as expensive but let's pretend for a moment that they cost the same for the sake of a simpler argument. 'Im more concerned with which wouod be better overall and not so much the best bang for buck.

Alter_Echo

Two things you can try, both of which involve opening the side of your PC case:

1. Make sure the front panel connecter is plugged directly into the sound card, not the motherboard.
2. If it is plugged into the sound card, sometimes this is just a loose wire. Disconnect and reconnect the front-panel wire.

Good luck!

Boz

No; at that price you'll do better with the M-Audio AV30 or - if you hunt around - the AV40. NVIDIATI recommends a pair of Swan speakers, typically, but you'll have to find them, first.

Good luck,

Boz

I just wanted to finally try a good headphone for the first time in my life and people at headfi recommended hd600 or 650 and i chose the 600s cause i read what ppl said about it and was convinced to get it. Also its because the 650s were $350 a month ago but are $500 now at amazon so i chose the 600s for $316. Planning on getting the E17 when it comes out, will that improve sound quality by a lot? Right now im just using the E9, i didnt wanna buy the e7.

SolidSnake2011-

old head phones which were Klipsch Image One that were plugged straight to my computer with no amp or anything. I am planning on getting the E17 so I'll use the E17/E9 combo, will that help a lot with the sound quality? Also I just tested the headphones with 720p/1080p music videos I downloaded off youtube and some songs with 320kbps and like I said cant tell the difference in quality. I listen to all genres btw but mostly pop, rock/metal, hip hop/rap, and R&B.

SolidSnake2011-

I have tried several ways to post links, but it seems to be bugged at least for me. I can't seem to post links the last few days for some reason

The_Last_Ride

Greetings:

My inbox and updates boxes have not been updating for several days, now:

Normally it reads a digit zero or up, but lately has not been posting. This is Firefox 10.0 on Windows XP V2002 Service Pack 3.

Thank you,

Boz