I use a 2nd Gen Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 to drive my JBL LSR305 mk2 monitors. it's pretty much plug-in-and-forget and loads more convenient over dealing with a internal card solution.
Integrated mainboard soundcard thing by Realtek (ALC1220)
Though I wish I had an actual soundcard along with a midi-interface, just to be able to get and use a physical Roland MT-32 someday.
Well, the short answer is "whatever it came with". I don't really use anything for audio much other than listening anymore aside from my Google Pixel 3 (bandlab), and my iMac 2015 24" (Bandlab and Garage Band), and even then I couldn't tell you unless I had it in front of me. Surprising since I'm a musician. Even then, I'm ujsing an IK Media IRig 2 for the audio interface on the phone and the mac.
Now my retro-systems, I can rattle off the sound cards by model # and chipset all day long. They're just more interesting and weird than the modern stuff is, which I find boring, probably because I work with it all day.
~The Creeping Network~
My Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/creepingnet
Creepingnet's World - https://creepingnet.neocities.org/
The Creeping Network Repo - https://www.geocities.ws/creepingnet2019/
I have a PCI Express X-Fi Titanium for my modern PC. Sound quality is great going through my Marantz Stereo Amp. Also lets you use soundfonts.
Modi 3 DAC w/ Eris 3.5 monitor is my setup. I listen an infinite loop of mod, game music, movie ost, some 70's rock, & bit of classic.
I really didn't need an external DAC but for whatever reason realtek spdif output had this wonderful feature of crashing windows out of blue. 🙁
Sound card wise, I use an Asus Xonar D1 PCI in my Asus workstation, and an Asus Xonar U7 USB for my Mac, which I had since 2010 and 2015 respectively.
Monitor wise, I use the Audioengine A2 speakers and Focus Spirit headphones, which I had in 2014 and 2016 respectively.
My 486 is my real DOSBox, as well as my customised DOSBox!
I am not very active on VOGONS, please send a private message if you need a quicker response!
Due to moving I've been using my laptop a lot lately. Then I unpacked my rather basic (but fast) Win7 machine, but it still has dinky onboard sound like the laptop does.
I was grateful a few days ago to finally get my old WinXP beast going again (which has an Audigy2 ZS in it). I'm not an audio expert or anything but music definitely sounds better on it.
Electricity is a lot cheaper than it was in CA, so I don't mind running that computer now. I might still get some sound card for the Win7 system though.
