Greetings!
Long have I been in the enthusiast space when it comes to electronics, computers, headphones and the like, and sound cards are no exception. I have owned more Sound Cards than I care to admit. From my first 8 bit sound card (ISA) being a game changer over the PC Speaker (on board), and even the Tandy (on board). Then Turtle beach (PCI), others and then through most of the Sound Blaster line until finally to my last ones being a HT Omega Claro (PCI) and Asus Xonar DAC (USB). With this purchase now the NU Audio (PCI-E). Each being an improvement over the previous I owned, and this is no exception plus my first RGB LED Card oh and I guess PCI-E but that's not as cool.
When I saw EVGA announce the Nu Audio I quickly looked into it's design, specifications and the experience of Audio Note (UK) Who helped make this audio card happen. In fact I like that is called an Audio card versus sound card, because at this point these cards do more than simply generate sounds. Admittedly I was a bit skeptical at first about EVGA making a Audio card, but after seeing Audio Note and hearing that Andrew Han, the CEO of EVGA is an audiophile it made sense that this might be a passion project and that chances are it will be done well.
I ordered the card, via EVGA.com and after a 10 day wait and the package nearly being lost I finally got the card. Once it got here, I did my usual unboxing video and pictures of the card.
Then since I was quite excited, proceeded to install the card. Decided to power the card with it's own modular sata cable straight to power supply to reduce any chance for interference.
Now that the sound card was installed, I turned on the computer and it worked basically immediately. But I needed to go get the software and drivers. This actually was a little confusing at first because the software is mentioned on the product page, but when you click it it takes you to the article page
https://www.evga.com/articles/01281/evga-nu-audio instead of the software download page. And when you click on Software or Download on that page, it just one scrolls you down basically to where you started on the previous page with nothing to download except locked Audio samples. The drivers actually can be found here in the downloads section.
https://www.evga.com/support/download/ Other EVGA product pages have the link in the support tab, so I expected a link as well.
After finding the software, I installed it and the familiar flash update utility came up to update the card's firmware. I let it update, and rebooted for good measure. Now I was ready to test.
Immediately I noticed a drastic improvement in sound quality over the Xonar which already was a huge improvement over the on board audio. There was absolutely no noise, the volume was much louder and immediately I could use headphones that wouldn't work well on the Xonar or Onboard. Sennheiser HD 598 Cs did not work at all on my Xonar, but they were able to be driven by the Nu Audio and to great volume. I also tried Bose QC35 and HyperX Cloud revolver headset. All sounded extremely good on the Nu Audio card which I couldn't say before.
The NU Audio software is very basic but functional. I was disappointed to see no preset EQ settings, Though it does let you make custom ones, but the software is confusing. Having baseline presets for various genres like they do in other software and devices would help people form a good starting point who are not as technical as a audiophile. The LED tab has basic lighting functions, which only the standard ones appear to work. Sonic, Lightning, Fireworks and Frequency all doesn't seem to work, and just turns off the LEDs on the card. But these are just software issues, which likely will be worked out in a future update soon.
Music sounded clearer, louder and much more distinct than before. The sound reproduction was closer to what I would hear in real life. Additonally I was able to hear things that were either too low or not produced well previously. After my first night of testing, I noticed something... my ears were ringing slightly due to the volume. The sound was so good, I had not realized that I had the volume as high as I did. I compare this to being at a concert and not noticing until after the show is over. So be careful not to accidentally blast your ears off, because this card certainly can put out the volume with clarity. I had set the system volume to 100% as recommended for best quality and turned down the headphones volume which is how I blasted my ears.
The next day, some gaming. I'm not much for software 5.1/7.1 emulation and much prefer pure stereo sound. I tried Battlefield V and immediately ran into huge issues. The sound was basically a distorted mess. Then I quickly realized it's because I left the Nu Audio card on 32Bit/384k from the night before and Battlefield 5 doesn't work at that frequency. Once I dropped it down to 24bit/192k and the game then had working audio. However at this setting the game had audio stutters probably due to the unnecessary upscaling, even on my i9 7940x. So while it worked now, it was causing other issues. Setting the sound to 24 bit/48KHz which should be the native sample rates of the game sounded perfect and no longer had issues. Basically this goes back to the Nu Audio software, and if there was profiles this would be a easy problem to address for those of us who switch between different use cases. Once the audio frequency issue was resolved, I set Battlefield 5 to "Stereo and Headphones". While playing, I was able to hear the sounds much clearer and sharper and the explosions were more pronounced. Gunfire sounded much more realistic and I could hear enemies walking much easier and in generually just much more immersed in the game. Having 4k, HDR and now this audio card has made Battlefield 5 quite the experience. The only thing I need now is a second 2080 Ti FTW HC to smooth out those frames.
I experienced a similar experience with Overwatch. The game sounded clearer, more defined and enemy movements were much more pronounced. In Overwatch enemy footsteps are louder than friendlies, but it became even more clear. Also I was able to enjoy hearing fireworks off in the distance that I couldn't hear before on the Chinese new year maps along with other little effects that were quiet before or just were not as defined.
As for music, it's extremely enjoyable especially at higher bit rates with FLAC. It has caused me to start finding all my high bit rate music files again and enjoy music that I feel like I've been missing out on. Even Spotify sounds better with high quality turned on. Much louder, fuller sounds with better separation. Basically happy ears, makes me want to get a $1000 pair of headphones.
Con: Not water cooled, just kidding.
TLDR: Overall i'm very happy with my purchase of the EVGA NU Audio sound card which has improved the audio quality of both music and games on my system.
I would recommend this to anyone who is still using on board sound and anyone with a older DAC who also would like to clean up all the extra wires on your desk.
PS: To EVGA 500 kB limit makes writing reviews with images difficult and low quality.
post edited by CyberbrainPC - 2019/02/04 16:26:15