Headphone upgrade, guidance needed!

Gydion

Gydion

Gydion

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Joined
7 Nov 2011
Posts
20
Hi Guys,

I am by no means an audiophile but I feel for my next upgrade I am looking at the sound for my high end PC. My current setup is Razer Kraken Pro Analog Gaming Headset, with Asus Xonar DGX 5.1. I mainly play FPS games but I work mainly from home so I'm listening to music all day.

My budget for everything is <£400, after reading a few posts and reviews the HD650 seems like a solid bet. I'm unsure if my current sound card will do, do I need an amp, what about a microphone for gaming etc.? Any guidance from you will be very much appreciated.

Thank you in advance!
 
From what I can see for gaming your soundcard should be sufficient.

If you are also throwing listening to music into the mix you would probably be best off with something like the Matrix RIP USB DAC/Amplifier or a FIIO E10 teamed with some HD650s.

These are open backed headphones though so sound will leak in and out of them, so depending on your setup this may steer you in another direction.

Antlion mod mic's are pretty cool, if not just any clip on mic would do the job.

If you want to possibly use this setup with a console as well - maybe look at an Astro Mixamp in addition.
 
650's need a more powerful amp very few solid state amps work well with 650's they are best on an OTL tube amp.There are some solid state amps that will run them decently though but so many to mention where to start.

Tube amps ,bottlehead crack , little dot mkIII

That is the trouble with the 650's to sound good they need a decent amp, on a low power solid state amp my fidelio x1 blow my 650's out of the water.
 
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AKG K712 could be a better all -rounder. I am yet to find a solution for both gaming a music I am happy with. Want to try the AKG' s as am annoyed with having three sets of headphones.
 
C64 said:
650's need a more powerful amp very few solid state amps work well with 650's they are best on an OTL tube amp.There are some solid state amps that will run them decently though but so many to mention where to start.

Tube amps ,bottlehead crack , little dot mkIII

That is the trouble with the 650's to sound good they need a decent amp, on a low power solid state amp my fidelio x1 blow my 650's out of the water.
Click to expand...

They work fine with Magnis, Valis (tube hybrid), O2, Matrix Mini, Audio-GD series, Mojos and iFi iCans and iDSDs and many more.
Where they do have problems is with lower rated USB powered amps and most mobile amps, which are meant for more efficient and lower impedance headphones.
While they will sound just fine with a good, powerful solid state amp, it is true that they can sound even better with better amps (not necessarily OTL) and is one of their greatest virtues, they scale upwards like no other headphone.
 
Thanks all for the information so far, I've just ordered the HD650 with a FiiO E10K, also the microphone suggested looks like a solid choice, I'm hoping it will be a big step up from my current Razer Kraken's!

With what I've bought are there any gotcha's, from my sound card to the FiiO E10K is there any special cable/connection/adapter required, it isn't terribly clear?

Much appreciated!
 
Can't connect the E10K to the DGX, as it's USB input only. You'd need a DAC with optical input to make use of the DGX's Dolby Headphone, etc. SMSL make some similar priced DACs with optical input. SD793II and M3 Mini.

If you don't use Dolby Headphone though (some people dislike it, because they find it has an echo effect), then there's not much other benefit of connecting a DAC to the sound card.
 
dolby headphone works through optical ? I thought if using optical all your getting is the stereo signal sent to the amp bypassing any software on pc
 
It will work like that if that if you select SPDIF pass through, but if selecting what normally would be the analogue output as default device, then yeah, all DSPs can be used via optical output when enabling SPDIF PCM out in the Xonar CP.

Similar applies to Creative cards. At least it did when I last used one, which was an X-Fi.
 
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