So ive recently ordered a pair of senheiser hd 518's and im just starting to freak out now because im afraid that they wont sound as good as wham im expecting. I know its going to be because of my poor onboard audio but i was wondering. For a headphone user, am i better off getting a good sound card and running the headphones off of that? or could i continue using onbaord audio but with a decent amplifier.
I heard that using both or either one helps you get the most out of your headphones but whats the difference and what one should i consider buying? So far my current understanding is that an amp will help with high impedance headphones whereas a sound card just helps with sound processing.
im just looking for some tips or educational videos that explains this concept in detail.
OK.....The Senheiser HD 518 are 50Ω & 108 dB/Vrms, so will sound better then a lot of headphones unamped (as the 25-70Ω is the impedance range you would expect for portable devices to push) So, I would be inclined to suggest a decent soundcard (after all a amp will just amplify poor audio too if you have a really bad onboard DAC).
What is your MOBO?
Pick a Asus Xonar sound card in your price range, and you will get excellent results. (Can recommend the Xonar Essence STX).
If thats to much, or you are also planning to listen to lots of music on a portable device too, consider a headphone amp with a built in DAC (digital to audio converter) like the Fiio E17 Alpen or my personal favorite at the moment is the Open source Objective2 headphone amp.
Just in case it's not clear the difference here is noise introduced by the switching power supply, or possibly other digital electronics on the motherboard. It's better to physically isolate the audio DAC portion, to try to minimize the electrical noise on the analog output.
Most of us take the digital output from optical, or from HDMI so noise is a non-issue in that case.
The only other concern regarding buying a discrete sound card is the load on the CPU for sound processing. It seems to me the GPU is perfect for this but what do I know.
I own a pair of Sennheiser HD558. The sound is very clear (as to be expected from a Sennheiser product) but I'm seriously missing more bass. I believe this is caused by the lack of amplified output produced by the onboard audio chip on my motherboard and my phone (Galaxy S3).
I have yet to try plugging my headphones into an actual amp and listen to the sound through a better output.
My motherboard is an asrock z77 extreme 4 and i dont plan on using these headphones with any portable devices. Im just looking for a setup that i can set and forget, making sure that im getting the most out of everything.
and as for sound cards... if i was going to get one i'd have to go retail. only because its most convenient and the shop that i go to is MSY. Im from australia.
This link is pretty much my selection of sound cards. the asus xonar cards are $28 or $84 within my price range. But would it really be worth going for the $84 card or will the $28 do me just fine for my headsets.
and as another side note. Does having a sound card make my microphone sound better to other people.. even though im using a very cheap 2k ohm mic with a sensitivity of -60dB
And how about you just try out some USB DAC/AMP? For example FiiO E10? That box costs like 50 dollars and it's a great way how to go around some expensive sound card or the internal sound card in the computer.
I am using Sennheiser Momentum for a while now and I really enjoy them, so I wanted to jump over that crappy sound card I have in notebook and get a better quality for a low price, so I went for FiiO E10.