For lovers of great sound and music in general, the DAC or external USB sound card is often THE solution to enjoy very good playback quality. This eliminates signal loss or interference and other parasitic noise while offering additional features, starting with the ability to drive high-impedance headphones.
Before we get to the heart of the matter, let’s see what an external DAC is really for. DAC is the abbreviation of Digital Analog Converter, it is a device for converting a digital signal to analog. Obviously, it converts the digital signal resulting from the playback of your sound file into a series of analog impulses that are sent to the transducers of your headphones or your speakers. If most PCs, laptops or not, are equipped with an internal sound chip (inevitable, otherwise there would be no sound), even in 2022 this kind of solution is not a panacea, and an external DAC – better known as an external USB sound card – helps to improve things. But why use this type of device?
There are several problems associated with sound built into PCs (as opposed to a dedicated PCI Express sound card for example), but also with your home console or even your smartphone or tablet. The first and easiest to understand is simply a matter of electrical power. Limited by the internal circuitry, a sound integrated circuit can rarely deliver sufficient power (in the audio domain we speak of impedance), which prohibits the use of high-end hi-fi headphones or large speakers. This is also the reason that very often pushes manufacturers of PC speaker kits to add an amplifier to their products. Aside from this simple performance issue, integrated circuits offer few options. They are also rarely well integrated and isolated on the electronic circuits, which are subject to all kinds of interference that can negatively affect the final audio quality.
Thus, a DAC, by its external design, will allow the audio playback circuitry to be removed from the components of the machine that can interfere with the audio processing. Other advantages of a DAC include that it has many options for changing the sound parameters, be it in playback but also in recording, which is also a must for microphone users. Whether you’re a fan of Discord games or streaming, you know the importance of high-quality audio recordings. However, if the microphone is an essential element, you can’t really take advantage of it by connecting it to a low-end sound circuit. Because of this, we are seeing more and more gaming gear manufacturers offering high-end DACs. This is how we introduce ourselves to Creative. If that last name means anything to you, it’s simply because the brand has been evolving in the audio world for a very long time and the elders have probably already invested in the brand’s internal sound cards, such as For example, the famous Sound Blaster is still in the catalog in surprisingly successful versions. Not surprisingly, the company offers several external DAC models that are easier to install and offer many features ideal for gaming.
Creative Sound Blaster GC7
That Sound Blaster GC7 is one of the highest quality products from the manufacturer. Offered at a price of 149.99 dollars, it is the most suitable DAC for gamers but also streamers. The slightly sloping chassis actually offers dual DSP for sound processing and a wealth of directly integrated programmable controls for on-the-fly changes during your games. With two controls, it is possible to directly adjust the volume of the game or your microphone, maximizing your comfort and performance in the game.
That Sound Blaster GC7 features four programmable buttons on its body for quick access to your saved presets. The set even features customizable RGB lighting.
Just to stay one step ahead of your opponents who Sound Blaster GC7 uses mechanics like SXFI Battle Mode to hear every sound. This proprietary technology helps improve the perception of the sound environment in games by giving you an idea of the direction of shots and their distance. There’s also Scout Mode technology, which allows hearing the smallest detail in-game (e.g. weapon changes). The idea is to boost certain frequencies to boost certain sounds like footsteps and reload sounds in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which will allow you to know where enemies are with great precision.
Connected in USB Type-C with a signal-to-noise ratio of 120 dB, the Sound Blaster GC7 is a DAC capable of reading 24-bit/192kHz signals in PCM. It also has the Super X-Fi Headphone Holography mode. Thanks to a dedicated circuit, the system uses algorithms to transform stereo headphones into a real surround system. The SXFI is much more than a virtual 7.1 as it offers a fully personalized experience according to your morphology. To benefit from it, you have to take a picture of your ears with the dedicated app so that the system can map our hearing organs and adapt to them as best as possible. Applied to some of our favorite music, the breadth and space SXFI gives to our tracks is surprising and makes us rediscover them in a new light.
Get a discount with promo code GAME BLOG10 until May 31st!
Creative Sound Blaster X4
Both are compatible with your PC, your Mac and the latest generation consoles such as the PS5 Sound Blaster X4 is a USB 7.1 DAC that stands out for the great versatility of its connectors. We thus benefit from a very good spatial sound on loudspeakers or headphones. The DAC comes with three flagship technologies including Super X-Fi or SXFI which we mentioned above, surround virtualization and the ability to encode and decode audio streams in Dolby Digital Live format, a point worth mentioning in this one product category is quite unique in terms of coding.
Remember that surround virtualization technology, as the name suggests, allows surround processing of the audio stream. Creative’s algorithms intelligently identify the spatial information of the audio signal in order to enhance and adapt it to the chosen output format. The idea is to be able to use a much better spatialization in the game and therefore know more precisely where the sounds we hear are coming from. Competitive players know that this advantage can be crucial in a competitive game. Here we find the already mentioned technologies SXFI Battle Mode and Scout Mode. The audio spaciousness also benefits listening to music, especially in a multi-speaker system.
The Sound Blaster X4 DAC is available for $139.99. Get a discount with promo code GAME BLOG10 until May 31st!
Creative Sound BlasterX G6
That Sound Blaster X G6 is the perfect USB sound card that works just as well on your PC as it does on your game consoles. This DAC is also optimized for consoles thanks to features like GameVoice Mix, which allows PlayStation 4 or 5 users to offer audio balancing features between chat and game.
The USB sound card therefore works with PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC consoles and combines a 32-bit/384kHz USB digital audio converter with an advertised signal-to-noise ratio of 130dB and a discrete Xamp amplifier for ultra-detailed sound. The famous Scout Mode technology, which we described a bit above, is also available.
That Sound Blaster X G6 was designed to make life easier for the user with a single knob that controls both game tone and mic volume for easy tuning. The other buttons control processing profiles and scout mode, as well as “toggling” between speaker mode and headphones. Of course, the other advantage of this DAC is its super compact size, which allows you to take it with you wherever you go. A strong argument, especially if you use your Nintendo Switch console in Nomad mode. And don’t let its small size fool you, the sound BlasterX G6 is the brand’s most audiophile DAC on paper, with its innovative features: enough to shine with quality headphones.
The DAC Sound BlasterX G6 is offered at a price of $119.99. Get a discount with promo code GAME BLOG10 until May 31st!
OUR COMPETITION
Just to make the best of everything Creative Labs & iGamesNews are giving away 3 Sound Blaster GC7, the perfect solution for high quality audio rendering!
To enter, go to our Twitter account and simply retweet and like the contest tweet!
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