Realtek onboard sound just not cutting it

[agnes]

I'm looking for a decent sound card to use in my PC when I'm not using HDMI out from my Nvidia GPU to my amp.

It has to handle both mic input well (which Realtek does NOT at all) and exceptional headphone playback quality. I've got an ancient pair of Senn's HD595's which are a decade old and absolutely bliss still.

I'm a gamer, it's not essential for the whole 5.1 gimmick stuff, a decent soundcard outputting decent stereo will do.

Thanks!

 

[agnes]

Awesome input, so a decent headphone amp/DAC for the desk with optical input, connected to a standard sound card, like a bog standard creative sound blaster? As the digital output on the soundcard can simply be passthrough allowing the DAC to do all the magic...

Hmmmm, in that case, any decent amp's around that don't require me to sell my kidney?

Tube amp would be rather nice for aesthetics... But not essential as it's mainly down to quality of sound. And I know some tube amps are just a rip off.