The cable management looks good but quickly becomes a PITA the second you need to change anything out, better with than without IMO. Sound card? You running a creative or something? I was under the impression onboard was great just as long as you didn't use 5.1 or similar. Are you going to get a thread on your sound setup next? LOL Can you get two more 40MM on the back?
Yeah, that's why I'm not going full custom with the cables even on the final case. If everything is fitted, swapping things out or moving cases becomes a nightmare. I can indeed make every one of those wires disappear almost entirely, but there's a point at which it's an art piece rather than a functioning "workstation".
It's an Asus Xonar D2X. I ditched Creative when their drivers about drove me bat-shit crazy. I might try out one of those new EVGA units eventually, but for now it's just studio stuff and the Xonar; which is honestly just as good.
The difference between this and even the on-board that is included with the ROG Crosshair VIII Hero motherboard in this rig is night and day.
On-board audio simply can't compete. They all force processing on you, and the difference between being in a very basic Faraday cage a few inches from the motherboard and being soldered to the plane is more massive than you'd think. In production it's the difference between mastering what you recorded and wondering what the hell happened.
In gaming it's the difference between a whip no-scope or an overshot. Even simply listening to music is a much better experience with a dedicated sound board. It's much cleaner, and I don't mean you have to sit there and listen for it. It's
very apparent.
Another point is delay. That may not matter for everyday productivity, but when you're physical reaction time is around 120 milliseconds... You can
feel every little bit of delay adding up. I'm not faster than my 100hz monitor on paper, but when you add up the GPU running into delays before the frames display, the input lag, and certainly what advanced sound processing drags into the fray, that extra dedicated horsepower makes a difference.
People used to joke about the memory Creative put on sound cards... Until they used the things.
I run exclusively in stereo unless I'm mixing something that requires more; even in FPS competition. My daily driver "multimedia speakers" are Klipsch Promedias, but I have JBL studio monitors for when I want to go completely flat, and obviously the slightly out of date home theater setup. It's important to be able to quickly listen on various devices; including my '90s-era multimedia speakers, cheap Logitechs, and so on.
For some reason, I can't use over ear headphones anymore after my last concussion. My equilibrium is affected when I lose reflections and/or room tone. I've no idea why, but if I'm using anything but in-ears on a range, I can't hit the broad side of a barn anymore, and get all wobbly. It's fucking strange.
I think my next thread will be updating the Impala axle thing. I've got enough energy back to get on it again. I need to get off my ass and sell that car.
Cheers,
Kennith