Laptop sound card for HD650s

monkey_boy · 3 Oct 2008 at 15:51

Spec me a Laptop sound card for Sennheiser HD650s

Hi All,

What are peoples reccommendations for an external sound card that:

-Will drive my headphones effectively
-is preferably PCMCIA, but not at the expence of reasonable quality
-Works with Vista 32-bit

The first point is the most important, because I only use headphones or the rubbish built in speakers.

Thanks very much in advance

monkey_boy · 7 Oct 2008 at 13:30

Just to add a bit to this in case anyone can help, I've looked at the audigy 2 zs but it doesn't say anything in particular about headphones whereas an Asus one i've seen says that it has a quality headphone amp built in. The downside to that one is that its usb rather than PCMCIA. Which would I be best to use?

Flibster · 8 Oct 2008 at 00:15

HD650's are hard to drive properly. That will be the biggest issue. I'd doubt that either would handle them well. My laptop's built in didn't handle HD580's well, so I'd expect the HD650's to be just as bad.

I'd possibly look at the Audigy and a portable headphone amp. Cmoy's can power the HD650's reasonably - they would need a better amp to sound fantastic - which is kinda the point of the 650's.

gt_junkie · 8 Oct 2008 at 08:37

I'd have to agree with Flibster.

I just use the standard output on my motherboard supplying a ProJect HeadBox II headphone amp.

Works incredibly well with my own HD650's although eventualy i either plan to use a modded X-Fi (have the parts just need to get round to doing it) or a dac to convert the digital output from the mobo.

If i were you i'd possibly just get a headphone amp to see if you're happy with the sound. If it turns out you're not then you can then get any sound card (pcmcia or usb) you like.

gt

monkey_boy · 8 Oct 2008 at 17:01

Thanks for that,

I've gone for a Headstage Lyrix Amp with a USB DAC so it should work as an external sound card. The bonus is that I should hopefully be able to use it with my iphone if i ever want to.

Greenlizard0 · 8 Oct 2008 at 17:23

I asked a very similar question in a thread I started last summer. Hope this helps.

monkey_boy · 8 Oct 2008 at 17:56

That is useful, thank you. How did you get on with the Echo Indigo?

Greenlizard0 · 8 Oct 2008 at 20:12

I returned back to my desktop and haven't touched my laptop for a while. I never bought it. I might one day though that depends if I ever have to use the lappy for a sustained period of time.