Sennheiser GSX 1000 External Sound Card

This thing is beautiful and the sound is much better than motherboard audio. The surround sound algorithms are also a huge improvement over Dolby Atmos or Razer Surround for software virtual 7.1 options. Update 05/29/2018 - I have used this for about 6 months now. I've grown so accustomed to it that I forgot what bad audio sounds like. I play Overwatch a lot. At least 4-5 times a week for a couple hours at a time. I used to play on motherboard audio with Dolby Atmos enabled in-game. For poops and giggles I decided to give that a try again after using the GSX 1000 for 6 months. It was terrible going back to my old audio setup. Even though my headphones are still good. I use Sennheiser's G4me Zero headphones. Motherboard audio + Dolby Atmos sounded muffled like I was listening to the game through ear plugs in my ears. The GSX 1000 7.1 audio is so much more accurate as well as much crisper and cleaner sound. I can never game again without the GSX 1000. You don't know what you are missing until it is taken away. It is easier to tell the difference after using it for so long now. Also be sure to read the manual. While it is plug and play you still have to configure a few things on your computer to make sure it is working properly and to the best of its ability. This thing is capable of 24 bit audio at 96KHz. I think when you first plug it in it defaults to 16 bit 48KHz. For 7.1 surround sound to work it needs to be on 24 bit 48Khz or lower settings. The 24 bit 96KHz option it has is for HD 2.0 Stereo only. I read up a lot on this product before purchasing and noticed a lot of audiophiles complaining about how this performs with music and most of them say you can buy a better DAC and Amp for cheaper. While I agree if you are only listening for music there are probably better and cheaper options like the FIIO products, but in Sennheiser's defense I really think the audio for music on this thing is incredible and still miles above motherboard audio. It has presets for movies, music, and FPS gaming. Make sure you select the music preset on it and it will sound a lot better for music. I think this thing will work on headphones up to 50 ohms. So it won't drive very high end headphones, but this thing wasn't designed for music. It was designed for gaming. The reason why you drop the money on this thing is because of Sennheiser's proprietary virtual 7.1 surround sound algorithms. Sure you can buy a nice DAC/amp that can drive 600 ohm headphones, but you will just have very high quality 2.0 stereo sound. Not 7.1 virtual surround sound. You could try Dolby Atmos to virtualize the surround sound, but it won't be nearly as good for gaming as this is since Sennheiser's 7.1 algorithms make it much easier to pinpoint the direction of the origin of a sound. This is crucial in competitive gaming. Imagine hearing footsteps on a nice DAC/amp with 600ohm headphones in 2.0 stereo. The sound quality of the footsteps are going to sound very high quality. You will definitely hear the footsteps, but you will have no idea what direction it is in. Throw dolby atmos into the mix for virtual surround sound. Now there is some directional assistance. Now you can tell the footsteps are behind you somewhere, but not accurate enough to know from which side behind you. Now add Sennheiser's 7.1 virtual surround sound. Now you can hear and know exactly where your enemies are as if you were in the game yourself being able to use your own natural hearing ability. This is why you buy this, because you want the best directional sound advantage. You won't find that anywhere else. I don't know why the haters of this product don't understand this. If you are only listening to music then go buy a FIIO DAC/amp for cheaper than the GSX 1000. The silly thing is though that although an arguably better DAC/amp for audio quality is cheaper than this. The headphones that you would want to pair it with are more expensive for HD audio. You probably have to spend $400 on the Sennheiser HD 600 headphones for a noticeable jump in audio quality over the Game Zero headphones for $250ish, so it is truly more expensive overall to go the audio quality only route. To sum things up. If all you know is motherboard audio you will definitely not be disappointed in this product for everything. Especially gaming. This is the best gaming audio solution I have ever tried. It does great with music and movies too. This is a great all-in-one audio solution for everything you would need it for if all you know is motherboard audio. Make sure you have decent headphones. It probably won't do you too good if you only have $30 headphones. I'd recommend anything at least $100 or more from Sennheiser to get the right experience with the GSX 1000. I have the G4ME Zero model which are very good and you can probably find them cheaper now than when I bought them. If you have already spoiled yourself with 300-600ohm HD audio headphones with other high end audio equipment then you will probably be disappointed sacrificing very good sound quality for great sound quality with great directional sound. (You will still sound like a baby though if you complain about it) However if money isn't an issue you could use the GSX 1000 as your virtual 7.1 driver and then use your own DAC/amp as a pass-through to drive your massive expensive HD audio headphones and you could probably get the best of both worlds from there.