Hey. I bought new hardware and with it, change of sound hardware. Previously I had a mobo with an ALC650 audio codec. Now, my new mobo has the ALC850. I thought it would sound the same, but I was wrong. The sound seems distant, as if played from the bottom of a well or cave, and lacks clarity and crispness. I was hoping to hear from someone who had the ALC850 to tell what they think. Any opinion/recommendation is welcome!

I don't know about ALC650, but ALC850 should be "Okay, but not great":

http://sjeng.org/audio/NForce4.htm

The "surrounding components" can make a large difference, so exact results may depend on the mainboard. The above was an Asus A8N SLI Premium.

The sound in this chip is dull. I think my Soundblaster AudioPCI sounds better (crisper, clearer sound). I can fiddle with the equalizer, but it doesn't cut it for every song

Well, "dull" and "distant" are very hazy terms, and you could as well be imagining the differences, but:

http://sjeng.org/audio/SB128.html

There is no question the old SB PCI 128 is a better soundcard.

Sorry Garf, I can't express it better in english (native language: spanish). To give you an example, go to the Treble control of the souncard and lower it. That's how it sounds, dull, and sometimes worse. Like if the sound comes from far away, low fidelity.

Btw, where's the index to those links you're giving me? I wanted to browse different results for other cards too, if I can

Any card recommendations? mostly for my kind of usage (audio listening, lossy and lossless, not games). Nothing very expensive, but better than this SB128.