Again you do not listen to me. There is no clarity improvement, but the EAX sounds d*mn good, and it is even better with good speakers, and yes if you are using crappy speakers, then you should get speakers first, but you should AT LEAST invest in an Audigy2 ZS, which can be had for $70 on newegg! It will be a pretty big difference if you are upgrading from onboard sound or a cheapo sound card, again, not because of clearity but because of the EAX and hardware audio features. It also takes the load off the CPU.