soundcard vs headphone amp

marky g

marky g

marky g

Associate
Joined
28 Dec 2009
Posts
109
Location
church gresley england
i have bought dt770 pro 250ohms cans and there running off my asus xonar dg 5.1 card and they sound good. but would i get even better sound using a seperate headphone amp or asus xonar essence stx card
 
I have had both the DG and now a STX and for music the STX is better card for obvious reasons, but for gaming I haven't noticed much if any difference tbh.

I don't think the DG will amp those cans properly for listening to music but if you main use was just gaming then you should be ok.
 
I just like to say just because I thought it was an improvement upgrading to a STX doesn't mean you will as not everybody can, YMMV.
 
Since the Xonar DG already has a pretty good headphone amplifier, I would say that upgrading to a Xonar Essence STX would make a bigger difference to the sound than buying a headphone amplifier. You'll notice a much bigger difference listening to music than playing games.
 
marky g said:
i have bought dt770 pro 250ohms cans and there running off my asus xonar dg 5.1 card and they sound good. but would i get even better sound using a seperate headphone amp or asus xonar essence stx card
Click to expand...

For high impedance headphones you need a source with low output impedance, as a rule. Suppose the card's output impedance is also 250 ohm. Then the available voltage will be divided 50:50 over the output stage and your cans. The problem is that headphones don't always have constant impedance, and it can vary with frequency. My HD650 are higher impedance at the low end, for instance. Suppose your cans are 500ohm at the low end (I think that's what my Senns are IIRC). When being driven in that range their impedance curve means that the voltage will now be split 2:1 in favour of the cans. Since high impedance cans are normally voltage driven, the result is a frequency response that matches the impedance curve - in the case described, you would (and with HD650, you do) hear that as a low frequency hump which smears the sound and makes them dull and veiled.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. You avoid this entirely if you have a low output impedance source such as a dedicated amp. My amp has output impedance of 8 ohms, which means that almost all the available voltage is over the cans, and this will be so however their impedance varies. And the moral is, there's more to driving high impedance cans than just driving them loud enough.
 
marky g said:
i have bought dt770 pro 250ohms cans and there running off my asus xonar dg 5.1 card and they sound good. but would i get even better sound using a seperate headphone amp or asus xonar essence stx card
Click to expand...

am i missing something.... an "AMP" will only be as good as the device producing the sound and only "amplifies" the sound not make it better!

a better quality sound card would improve the sound quality.......

figure out what your goal is mate!
 
Some people might argue that an amp can improve sound if your existing card is incapable of powering your headphones sufficiently.
 
AlfBaxter said:
Yup - in fact I did exactly that three posts ago!
Click to expand...


them the amp isnt improving sound its simply giving enough power to the speakers to produce the sound as intended

my point is your buying an amp to fix the card's low quality............................just buy a better card
 
Trisdov said:
them the amp isnt improving sound its simply giving enough power to the speakers to produce the sound as intended

my point is your buying an amp to fix the card's low quality............................just buy a better card
Click to expand...

It's true an amp can't improve the output of the source, but adding an amp to a system can certainly improve the overall sound you hear through the headphones. It isn't always a question of power either, and all I was suggesting is that adding an amp can provide a major sound quality upgrade by controlling headphones better than a high output impedance card. Of course you're right that buying a better card can also improve the sound, but with the OP's headphones I'd say an amp will ultimately be needed to get the best out of them.
 
AlfBaxter said:
It's true an amp can't improve the output of the source, but adding an amp to a system can certainly improve the overall sound you hear through the headphones. It isn't always a question of power either, and all I was suggesting is that adding an amp can provide a major sound quality upgrade by controlling headphones better than a high output impedance card. Of course you're right that buying a better card can also improve the sound, but with the OP's headphones I'd say an amp will ultimately be needed to get the best out of them.
Click to expand...

But since both the Xonar DG and the Xonar Essence STX already have a built-in headphone amplifier, it doesn't seem obvious to me that a separate headphone amplifier would necessarily improve the sound unless the built-in amplifiers were incapable of driving the DT770 headphones properly. Asus claim that the Xonar Essence STX is capable of driving headphones up to 300 ohms.
 
Amplifiers can improve sound as such, or give different sound e.g. tube vs solidstate, one set of Opamps vs a different set, my Onkyo Reciever vs FiiO E9 vs Essence STX.
All will give a different sound. Where it's an improvement or not is opinion.

I for one am using the Essence STX --> FiiO E9 --> HD650 / Pre --> Onkyo TX-SR307+Cerwin Vega! VE-8
 
dewi said:
But since both the Xonar DG and the Xonar Essence STX already have a built-in headphone amplifier, it doesn't seem obvious to me that a separate headphone amplifier would necessarily improve the sound unless the built-in amplifiers were incapable of driving the DT770 headphones properly. Asus claim that the Xonar Essence STX is capable of driving headphones up to 300 ohms.
Click to expand...

You're right, it's not obvious and there's no reason why a card with a dedicated amp shouldn't do as good a job as a separate amp. I'm just stressing that driving headphones well is more than just driving them loud. The issue about output impedance is one example of why that is. I think the Essence STX headphone out is about 10 ohms, so you won't get the voltage divider effect I described with high impedance headphones.
 
AlfBaxter said:
You're right, it's not obvious and there's no reason why a card with a dedicated amp shouldn't do as good a job as a separate amp.
Click to expand...

Ah, OK.

AlfBaxter said:
I'm just stressing that driving headphones well is more than just driving them loud.
Click to expand...

I'd agree with that.

AlfBaxter said:
I think the Essence STX headphone out is about 10 ohms, so you won't get the voltage divider effect I described with high impedance headphones.
Click to expand...

Yup, 10.7 ohms according to the review at http://www.stereophile.com/content/asus-xonar-essence-ststx-soundcards-follow-september-2010
 
I went from my Titanium HD soundcard to my Beyer A1 amp so I don't think I ever had my headset plugged into anything crap but it's nice to know that I'm not missing out on anything :D hehe
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom