Is it worth the price difference between these 2 Soundcards?

Absorbentsolid

Absorbentsolid

Absorbentsolid

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I'd go for the Essence. It's a better card and it's a good buy at £120. You're going for good headphones, which makes all the difference. Headphone use is really what the Essence cards were designed for.
 
Is it for gaming or music or what?

Since you are getting the Beyerdynamic Dt990's you might consider going for a headphone amp rather than a soundcard at all.
 
melmac said:
Is it for gaming or music or what?

Since you are getting the Beyerdynamic Dt990's you might consider going for a headphone amp rather than a soundcard at all.
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Probably won't use them for gaming as i already have a gaming headset setup it'll mainly be for Music and Blu ray movies.
 
melmac said:
Is it for gaming or music or what?

Since you are getting the Beyerdynamic Dt990's you might consider going for a headphone amp rather than a soundcard at all.
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I'm taking the assumption he is using onboard audio, so, headphone amp connection to onboard audio? :/
 
Absorbentsolid said:
Thanks for the response,Would you say it's worth the price difference?
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Yes. If you're going for the 250Ω version, then they could do with a headphone amplifier to get the best from them, which the Essence has. The D2X doesn't.

You could just add a headphone amp as melmac suggested, but you'd be still using onboard audio. I don't know about others, but I'd not want to spend £130 on headphones then whatever on a headphone amp, just for onboard audio.

You could have course go for an external DAC/headphone amp, possibly something from FiiO, but in my opinion, the Essence is a nice buy for £120 and will do a great job with the DT990.
 
Marsman said:
Yes. If you're going for the 250Ω version, then they could do with a headphone amplifier to get the best from them, which the Essence has. The D2X doesn't.

You could just add a headphone amp as melmac suggested, but you'd be still using onboard audio. I don't know about others, but I'd not want to spend £130 on headphones then whatever on a headphone amp, just for onboard audio.

You could have course go for an external DAC/headphone amp, possibly something from FiiO, but in my opinion, the Essence is a nice buy for £120 and will do a great job with the DT990.
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Essence it is then! Thanks for all the input everybody.
 
When I bought my DT990 pros (250ohm) I started out with a Soundblaster Z, which already has a decent headphone amp and then upgraded to the Xonar Essence STX. The main reason I wanted to upgrade was that even though the Soundblaster Z has a very capable headphone amp, it wasn't up to pushing the Beyers to the volume I wanted and I was running it at 90%+ volume all the time while playing music, so you can imagine how quiet the D2X would be considering it doesn't have a headphone amp.
The Xonar Essence STX (or ST) and DT990 pro 250ohm makes for a really good pairing, the card drives the headphones with plenty to spare and for music I generally turn the volume down to about 35% to 40%. As for the sound quality, the DT990's came to life when I plugged them into the STX, it was like everything had been tweaked compared to the Soundblaster Z.
I also have a pair of Edifier 1600T speakers plugged in to the STX and they sound really good too, although the only action they see these days is video/movies because I now do all my gaming and music listening with the Beyers - they are brilliant for both.
I can see me sticking with this pairing for a long time to come because the next, noticeable step up in quality will be expensive, for either the headphones or the Xonar STX (DAC/AMP).
 
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