New
#41
Even though I'm in total agreement regarding 3rd party sound cards being the best solution for quality audio.... the latest Realtek offerings are far superior to what they were putting out 3-4 years ago. The recent chips have a built in hardware equalizer that can fine tune the sound, plus the noise floor has been reduced. Bass can still be a bit flabby and the highs a bit muffled, most of that can be corrected using the eq.
What I hear in the quality cards is a type of transparency & clarity, almost as if the sound were three dimensional... this a partly from quality electronics (filtering) and circuit board design.
Ap