Review on 🔉 Enhanced Sound Blaster AE-7 PCIe Sound Card, Quad-Core Processor, 127dB DNR ESS SABRE-class 9018 DAC, Xamp Discrete Custom Bi-amp, Discrete 5.1/Virtual 7.1, Dolby, DTS Encoding - Black by Matthew Frandsen

Let me start by saying that I am in no way a true audiophile or sound engineer. I just like good sounding music and I can tell the difference between a smooth sound and an exciting sound. My first impression of it was how good the card looks in person. Typically, the exposed circuit board cards look fairly minimalistic, although there are some models with pleasing aesthetics. This is the best IMO in that regard. The hardware that comes with it is fine, nothing special, and the drivers are installed automatically, with additional resources on their website. You will need an additional Molex power cable to power this card. The other connector is for RGB, which is optional and I'm not currently using it, but it's great for those looking to light up their build. The connections for the front audio jacks are fine, with one caveat (mentioned below). As expected, the rear connections appear to be of high quality (do not break easily). Once the card was set up, using the Sound Blaster Connect 2 software was fairly easy. One of my favorite features is the easy to use equalizer. My current headphones are the Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro and they are a bit harsh at high frequencies. I used the equalizer to set the upper limit -6 dB. Now they sound a lot softer to me. In addition, you can save multiple equalizer settings for different settings or preferences. Sound Blaster effect settings (like simulated surround, crystallizer, bass, vocals and intelligent volume) work very well and can be clearly seen by moving the sliders from 0 to 100. They can also be customized and saved across multiple devices. One note: using the Direct Headphone Out or Direct Stereo Out options in the program will bypass EQ and sound effects enhancements to send the highest quality unfiltered audio to your device. This is usually intended for purists who want the best possible playback of recordings on high quality hardware. Most people won't notice the difference on regular hearing aids. One of the other features of this card is a discrete headphone amplifier, which is great for those who want to use the DAC/amplifier capabilities without having to connect a separate device. placed on your desk. My headphones sound good with regular phones, but they never get as loud or dynamic. Connected to this card, they become incredibly dynamic and can sound deafeningly loud while remaining clear. Bass alone will rumble into your head. However, I found that there is a difference between the jack on the front (a typical headphone jack) and the headphone jack on the back. Both sound great, but the rear jack is better shielded and sounds cleaner (IMHO) and louder. This could be because the headphone amp comes out cleaner out of the rear jack, but that would require plugging your cans into the back of your PC, which is inconvenient. My desktop speakers are a Klipsch 2.1 setup. They sound pretty good regardless of your PC audio processing, but they sound MUCH better on this card. Now I can shake the whole room and adjacent rooms with this tiny setup. I was immediately impressed with the result and jammed along to all my previous tunes as if listening to music for the first time. I believe that you can actually get quality sound with better speakers and speaker amps, especially at this card's price point, which is much lower than mid-to-high-end DACs. Some issues with the card: - Switching the audio output from the interface (i.e. switching from headphones to desktop speakers) during audio playback may cause the audio to stop and may require a restart of the audio source. I had problems with the rear input jack, although I only use the front input for my microphone (antlion mod mic 5.0) which works very well. - The input sound is very quiet for me. I have the input gain at maximum, so my voice comes out at normal volume. Biggest problem: You'll probably start spending more money on better speakers and headphones to really get what this card can do for your PC. But it's what you wanted anyway. To the right? Overall it's a solid 4.5 with a few issues I have with it, but here I bumped it up to a 5 because it's definitely better than a 4. If you haven't already delved into the enhanced audio processing, then this is a great place to start. by price. Once you've got everything set up, you'll immediately know what you're missing.