Question 1

Is this card compatible with Windows 10 Pro 64bit?

Accepted Answer

That's what I'm running and it works great.  Excellent card, but be sure your motherboard has a PCI slot as not many do these days.   There are PCIe to PCI converters out there though.

Question 2

I do not quite understand PCI compatibility. I am looking to get the "ASRock Z170 Pro4S LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard" and a nvidia 980 video card. Does this sound card work with this setup?

Accepted Answer

Yes, this card will work with the setup. But please look at why you want a sound card. The reason you would consider one is if you absolutely need the 7.1 optical out. I bought this because i also bought an Astro A50 headset that required the 7.1 optical to use the full sound features. The motherboard you are looking at already has 7.1 audio output through the analog ports and if you're looking at a GTX 980 and are planning on running a monitor with speakers by using the HDMI port then a sound card is completely unnecessary.

A sound card is for specific needs and 99% of anything gaming will be perfectly fine being handled by the motherboard or graphics card (depending on what you're using for output). In my honest opinion i suggest saving your money and using the $180 to buy a good headset, keyboard, or mouse.

Happy gaming

Question 3

My motherboard is Crosshair V Formula - Z and does not have PCI Expansion slot, can I connect this soundcard to PCI ExpressX16?

Accepted Answer

You will not be able to plug a PCI express X16 peripheral into a PCI slot.

Question 4

Does this have a builtin amp to help drive more powerful head phones?

Accepted Answer

It has an opamp for the front (stereo) channels. Not sure what you mean by "more powerful" headphones—it drives Sennheiser HD 515s with no problem.

The sound is vastly superior to any onboard audio you can get, and the better Sound Blaster boards as well.

Note that unlike onboard audio and most (all?) PCI-E audio boards, this unit does its own processing instead of offloading it onto the CPU.

In case you intend to use this for gaming, I'll mention that I have encountered only one driver incompatibility on Win7 64—a WinXP game from a small publisher.

HT Omega has Win8 and Win10 drivers on its Web site.

Question 5

is this compatible with asus maximus vi hero motherboard?

Accepted Answer

The Claro II is a PCI board and the Maximus VI Hero only has PCIe slots. The Claro will NOT physically fit a PCIe slot. For this motherboard, you will need the eClaro, which fits in a PCIe 1x slot.

There is a photograph of a motherboard with the different PCIe connectors and a PCI connector on the Wikipedia page for PCI Express. The connector at the bottom of the photograph is a PCI connector. You can see that it is a different size from the PCIe connectors and also that the key slot is at the opposite end of the connector.

I can tell you that the Claro II is vastly superior to the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS it replaced. It is much quieter and the sound is noticeably better, through both a good-quality 2.1 speaker system and mid-level Sennheiser audio headphones (not cheap iPod or gaming headphones).

Question 6

The motherboard I am looking at is the "ASRock Z170 Pro4S LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard." I am fairly new to PC building and I still do not quite understand PCI slots and their compatibility with one another. I plan on getting the nvidia gforce 980 video card. Is this soundcard compatible with this setup?

Accepted Answer

I"m running that board on my wife's computer and a ASRock Z370 Pro 4 on my own music studio computer with this sound card as one of my music cards as well.  They work great.  My Nvidia card with the latest drive is also handling 4K at 60 Hz without a problem.

Question 7

I have a Dell Inspirion 3847. I want to upgrade my sound card.. will this sound card work...ie plug and play?

Accepted Answer

If your computer has a PCI slot, the card will fit. You may have to disable any other onboard audio. That can be done in control panel/ sound. The card comes with software and driver CD, but you should go to Omega web site and download update package. Just choose Claro II and your OS, and download. Unpack or unzip download file and double click on install exe. After install, go to control panel, then sound. Disable other audio device(s), and set your Claro II output as default device. I use S/PDIF out to my home theater.

Question 8

Will this positively fit the top slot of my HP Pavilion Elite model # m9550f? The top slot now has a fax card in it that I no longer use as I don't have a land line anymore.... Do all my faxes by email now.  It's the only slot that has the long connection that this card looks like it takes.

Accepted Answer

The Claro fits a PCI slot. If the slot you are referring to is a PCI slot, then, yes. I would check your manual. Your MOBO looks like it has one PCI slot and it is the farthest from the CPU. The slot closest to the CPU is a PCI Express. BTW, great sound card.

Question 9

How best would I use this card? Wouldnt any audio system capable of delivering 7.1 surround already accept the hdmi from my video card and get the audio that way? And if I didnt use the optical what system would I use to take advantage of the 7.1 channel through the 3.5mm jacks?

Accepted Answer

7.1 is only available through the optical outputs. The advantage of this card is that it provides true Dolby 7.1 output, no virtual sound here. Your video card uses a virtual surround sound output and most cards only output 5.1. I currently run this card for my headset that uses true 7.1 and there is a very noticeable difference between the 3.5mm sound and the optical 7.1. you would only buy a sound card if you were looking for the purest sound output you could from a PC and taking the burden of sound output off of your graphics card.

Hope this helps,

Question 10

I'm looking for a sound card that will accept PS4 audio through optical in, and play it in Windows through my 5.1 speakers.. My 5.1 speaker setup does not have optical input.  Why is it so hard to find a product like that? Is this finally what I'm looking for? Thank you.

Accepted Answer

I think optical-in is still fairly unusual. I bought this card because it was one of the few that supported my 5.1 system which is powered by a Yamaha receiver. I use the optical-out to the receiver. Overall, it's a very good card.

Brand	HT OMEGA
Model	CLARO II

Audio Chipset	C-Media CMI8788
Channels	7.1
Sample Rate	192KHz
Digital Audio	24-bit
SNR	120dB
Encode	Dolby Digital Live Dolby Pro Logic IIx Dolby Headphone DTS INTERACTIVE DTS NEO

Line In	Yes
Line Out	Yes
SPDIF In	2-pin optical connector
SPDIF Out	2-pin optical and coaxial connectors
MIC In	Yes
CD/Aux In	Yes

Interface	PCI
Operating Systems Supported	Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, and Windows7 (32 and 64 bit)

HT OMEGA CLARO II 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Card

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Item#: N82E16829271007