If these were the early 2000s. We would have said that having a sound card is a flex. With good reason, too. You'd slap one into your PC, crank up a media player, and pretend you were mastering audio.

Audio and desktop PCs have a long history of not playing well together. Most PCs get okay audio, but your average desktop doesn't have great sound-system tuning, which leaves you having to do the ...

I just inserted an Asus Xonar SE ($69) sound card. It works in a new Intel i5-12400 boxen. I spend enough time in the office to listen to sound and music through a more than decent Yamaha / Dynaudio ...

Marc Storch is a commerce writer currently based in Denver, Colorado. He is passionate about making tech accessible to all and being excellent to each other. Outside of writing about tech and video ...