xfi xtreme music or Asus Xonar U5 5.1 USB for Sennheiser PC 350 SE

Kmodo · 18 Oct 2016 at 21:02

Currently have Asus Xonar U5 with my laptop and xfi xtreme music with my desktop PC.

To be honest I can rarely be bothered to get the Asus Xonar U5 out the laptop bag. Just wondering if I should leave it permanently set up with my desktop PC as a replacement for my old xfi xtreme music?

Will it be an upgrade? Headphones are Sennheiser PC 350 2015 Special Edition 150 Ω

Thanks!

Rroff · 18 Oct 2016 at 21:04

If its a proper X-Fi Xtreme Music it'll be hard to beat unless you spend a fair bit on the latest and greatest.

Kmodo · 18 Oct 2016 at 21:07

Rroff said:
If its a proper X-Fi Xtreme Music it'll be hard to beat unless you spend a fair bit on the latest and greatest.

Ahh okay.. it is from way back like maybe 8-10 years ago maybe haha

edit looks like that http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/x-fi-xtreme-music-sound-blaster-review,1.html

rids57 · 18 Oct 2016 at 22:03

I don't understand: you have the U5 and you have the X-Fi - why can't you use your ears to answer your own question?

Kmodo · 18 Oct 2016 at 23:20

rids57 said:
I don't understand: you have the U5 and you have the X-Fi - why can't you use your ears to answer your own question?

I work away from home 5 days a week and don't have my desktop with me haha, sitting in the hotel room and wondering if there was a clear obvious answer.

The Xonar has a high impedance setting which I don't recall ever seeing on my xfi...also the xonar is out of the case (less noise?).

rids57 · 19 Oct 2016 at 00:07

Fair answer

The impedance setting just adjusts the gain, so it can be used with both low and high impedance headphones / earphones. What it doesn't do is change the output impedance (~20ohms), so even though a low impedance headphone will play without too much noise, the sound quality "may" suffer depending on whether the headphone is sensitive to damping factor.

Even though your card is pretty ancient, it probably still holds up well against the U5 as those things were very impressive when they were first released and sound card tech hasn't really moved too far since.

Kmodo · 19 Oct 2016 at 00:40

Thanks for the explanations

Guess I'll keep the U5 with the laptop and xtreme music with the PC then.

One last question, to help power the headphones from the xtreme music sound card will something cheap like a "Behringer MA400 Monitor Headphone Amplifier" or "Behringer HA400 Microamp 4 Channel Stereo Headphone Amplifier" do the job?

Kmodo · 19 Oct 2016 at 00:59

Think I've answered my own question. Cheap mains powered (non DAC) headphone amplifiers don't really exist at this budget they are all battery powered portables.

From googling the closest thing I'm looking for is SMSL sApII TPA6120A2 at £50!

rids57 · 19 Oct 2016 at 01:16

Neither of the Behringers are suitable.

The SMSL will do what you want, the TPA6120A2 is the same amplifier driver chip as used in the Xonar STX, which is certainly not short of power.

Rroff · 19 Oct 2016 at 13:18

Kmodo said:
Think I've answered my own question. Cheap mains powered (non DAC) headphone amplifiers don't really exist at this budget they are all battery powered portables.

From googling the closest thing I'm looking for is SMSL sApII TPA6120A2 at £50!

I've been quite tempted to make up a PCB for it lately - a high quality basic desktop powered headphone amp can be built around a pretty simple circuit - especially if you use an AC adapter like the basic SMSL amps.

Kmodo · 20 Oct 2016 at 22:12

Interesting. Done a google for TPA6120A2 and came across the chips, circuit boards etc. Don't doing it myself

but I have found this on ebay

"H9 Digital HIFI Earphone Amplifier TPA6120A2 Chip + Adapter Plug + Power Supply" £33 :0 that's more what I'm talking about only negative is it's shipped from china but at least I know now reasonably cheap does exist

rids57 · 20 Oct 2016 at 22:30

and there's me thinking £50 was more than reasonable

Kmodo · 21 Oct 2016 at 07:15

rids57 said:
and there's me thinking £50 was more than reasonable

Unfortunately I don't have the disposable income these days, £50 is too much for slightly more punchy sound. Especially when I thought I could do it for about £20

Rroff · 21 Oct 2016 at 11:02

Kmodo said:
Unfortunately I don't have the disposable income these days, £50 is too much for slightly more punchy sound. Especially when I thought I could do it for about £20

I won't tell you how much I've spent since first deciding to replace my old headphone amplifier :| its more than £50.