Seinheisser 360!

samuelc · 10 Feb 2011 at 14:23

Hello Guys

Just about to order it from Ocuk. Could anyone recommend a good soundcard to go with it? I'm currently using the soundcard which comes with the asus rampage 2 and I'm guessing it doesn't have an amp.

Price isn't really an issue but ideally not more than £100.00 i guess.

thanks,
sam

Marsman · 10 Feb 2011 at 14:38

Xonar DG. It might be only £20 or so, but it's super value, and decent even though cheap. It has a headphone amp which the PC360's will benefit from. Going on comments from other people that have bought some PC360's, you really need an amp to get the best from them. Only other cards that have a headphone amp are, Xonar Essence, X-Fi Titanium HD and Auzentech Forte. All are great cards, but the Essence and Titanium HD are about £150. Forte is the cheapest of the 3, at about £120, but hard to find now it seems.

Xonar Xense also has a headphone amp, it's almost identical to the Essence, but it can only be bought with the PC350's. Again going from users comments, the 360's are superior to the 350's. Having said that though, the Xense bundle is great value at £170, whereas an Essence and PC360's will cost what £280?

You don't have to go for a sound card with a headphone amp though, but you possibly might need to buy a separate amp, to get the best from the PC360's.

samuelc · 10 Feb 2011 at 14:48

Hello Marsman,

thanks for the swift reply. Hmm.. say I upped my budget to £150.00, would there be a good deal of difference between the Xonar DG and the Xonar Essence? Think I'll give the XiFi's a miss as I hear there are always driver issues.

thanks,
Sam

Andrew Moore · 10 Feb 2011 at 14:57

samuelc said:
Hello Marsman,

thanks for the swift reply. Hmm.. say I upped my budget to £150.00, would there be a good deal of difference between the Xonar DG and the Xonar Essence? Think I'll give the XiFi's a miss as I hear there are always driver issues.

thanks,
Sam

The Essence is a fantastic purchase leaving you with a soundcard specially tuned for the provided headset giving better sound than the 360 and say an D2X can actually provide together... also works out cheaper too so worth the look! If however you are sure on the 360s, I would look at the DG. It may only be £20 or so but its an absolutely fantastic product bringing a whole new level to the quality of the sound

Marsman · 10 Feb 2011 at 15:00

I have both a DG and an Essence. Recently bought a DG to go in my gaming PC, mainly so I could use Dolby Headphone. The Essence I have in my HTPC, which I use for film and music. The Essence is certainly the superior sounding card, no doubt about that, but the DG is outstanding value.

If you can afford an Essence, then it's a superb card. There are some members here at OcUK, who have both PC360's and HD595 headphones, they have said the PC360's sound as good as the HD595's when amplified. The PC350's are probably bundled with the Xonar Xense for that very reason. I used to think the Essence or Xense was too good a sound card for gaming headsets, but there has been some very positive feedback that the PC350's and 360's work very well with the Essence/Xense, partly because of the headphone amp, that they benefit from.

DG is still a superb card for the money, for anyone not wanting to drop a pile of cash on a sound card.

Marsman · 10 Feb 2011 at 15:23

One might ask, is the Essence worth 5/6 the cost of the DG? That's a tough question to answer. It will vary person to person. I do think for gaming, and gaming alone, the Essence is a bit overkill. That's why it's not in my gaming PC. The Essence is first and foremost a music card, that's how I see it anyway. Most people use their PC's for all three now, music, game and film. So for anyone to use it for music aswell as gaming is ideal really.

Some might feel that although good, it's not worth £140 to them. Obviously, one can't know that until that person has compared it to the DG themselves.

roman59 · 10 Feb 2011 at 15:35

samuelc said:
Hello Marsman,

thanks for the swift reply. Hmm.. say I upped my budget to £150.00, would there be a good deal of difference between the Xonar DG and the Xonar Essence? Think I'll give the XiFi's a miss as I hear there are always driver issues.

thanks,
Sam

Using a X-Fi Titanium HD & Sennheiser PC360'S in my setup at home for gaming/music never had any driver issues at all on the X-Fi HD, it runs sweet as a nut on Windows 7 (64 bit).

I have been through a lot of headphones over the last 18 months, (thank god for ebay) Rocaat Kaves, Razer Megladoons to name a few & finally found a pair that have great sound qualities & are so comfortable to boot.

Cheers

Farooq · 10 Feb 2011 at 20:24

I am using the xonar d1 and a fiio e5 amp with my pc 360s excellent all around combo at a decent price.

55.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-004-AS&groupid=701&catid=11&subcat=
16 quid for the fiio e5

with any xonar these settings work excellent with the sennheiser pc 360's

audio properties 6 channel
sample rate pcm 192 Khz
analog out set to headphone
spidf out only dolby headphone selected
and set to refernce room small no echo this is preset Dh-1
svm on (highlighted light blue) sound volume monitor this is a must for voip when gaming
hope it helps mate

samuelc · 10 Feb 2011 at 22:23

Helo Everyone and thank you very much for the quick response.

I've decided to go with the Xonar Essence STX as I think it blends nicely with my current system though I have a few final questions hope its not too basic but..

1) I noticed on the xonar it needs to be powered via Molex as well? Or am I being a nut? Cabling's surely quite messy with that though?
2) Will the card perform well for Music as well as Gaming?
3) Primarily for music but essentially World of Warcraft. Reckon it will do well?

ta,
Sam

samuelc · 10 Feb 2011 at 22:23

Farooq said:
I am using the xonar d1 and a fiio e5 amp with my pc 360s excellent all around combo at a decent price.

55.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-004-AS&groupid=701&catid=11&subcat=
16 quid for the fiio e5

with any xonar these settings work excellent with the sennheiser pc 360's

audio properties 6 channel
sample rate pcm 192 Khz
analog out set to headphone
spidf out only dolby headphone selected
and set to refernce room small no echo this is preset Dh-1
svm on (highlighted light blue) sound volume monitor this is a must for voip when gaming
hope it helps mate

Hey Hey mate. yeap been reading all your posts. Extremely usefull tbh. Thanks a bunch Farooq. Do you game on it?

Marsman · 10 Feb 2011 at 23:55

1) Yes, it requires a molex. Headphone amp requires extra power the PCI/E slot cannot deliver.

2) It's essentially a music card, that's where it excels. Really it's a card for music, game and film use.

Farooq · 11 Feb 2011 at 00:28

samuelc said:
Hey Hey mate. yeap been reading all your posts. Extremely usefull tbh. Thanks a bunch Farooq. Do you game on it?

Firstly cheers mate glad I could help n pass on some user experiences and as for gaming to say I game on it would be a understatement I dont watch tv anymore I opt to play gams online while listeing to tunes and ventrillo with guild/clan mates being semi social while choring fps games like bad company 2/ cs source and of course the obligatory warcraft session that decends into the early hours for no apparant reason. only to find you have work early in the morning and only 4 hours to sleep.

basically I am heavy gamer like most of you on this forum lets be honest I watch downloads series like spartacus/dexter etc movies got my pc hooked up to a 1080p samsung tv nice gaming set up for after work relaxing.

but to answer your question they work excellent for all media games movies voice comms and music. In badcampny 2 for example the dolby headphone has to be heard to be belived you can pick up suttle noise cues and directional aids semi cheating your way up the score board with a little bit of help from good heaphones and excellent sound card. warcraft/ ventrillo/skype (Voip) is also excellent long periods online with zero difcomfort and I mean that they dont even sit on your ears they are circumaural (sit on skull) open backed which lets your ears breathe and not get sweaty after a short period. Plus you dont get horrible muffled sound from your own voice from closed back headphones like the goldring ns 1000.

Anyhow im done posting about 360's I have a few posts up and I think if you forum guys read them you will get the idea what the pc 360s are about and ideal settings and hardware.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18234213

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18225053

pc 360's are really for hardcore gamer's only or people who spend hours on voice comms. They are not your run of the mill razer/creative/logitech efforts these is no comparison these are aimed at a different market all together you will need the following.

1. you really need a suitable amp to get best from them.That said the best from them is audiophile grade 558 / 595/ 598 sennheiser quality(high end) 28000hz+ range same part/magnet and part number used in drivers for headphones.

2 have a sound card that can do them justice any asus xonar or high end xi-fi like the HD will be fine. (Dont buy these and use on onboard audio its just wrong)

3 when using them make sure you leave mic boost off its a top of the range noise cancelling mic its does not under any circumstances need boosted and distorted just turn input sensitivty up if needed.

4 make sure you have windows speaker properties set to 24 bit 192000 Hz its marked as studio quality. This allows all programs ran in windows to use the higher sample rate not the default windows cd quality 16 bit by 44100 Hz which is low. also do this for for micraphone set to 192000Hz.

this is a run throughhow on how you set the above point 4 in windows7 even those without these pc 360's do this anyway it might boost your settings if you have not already.

control panal

sound

playback(recording for micraphone)

select desired device usually speakers

advanced and then defualt format.

set to maximum with studio quality 24bit ideally 192000hz (not all cards will go this high) sample rate varies with quality of sound card and chips used on them

This will allow you to change and get the best out of your hardware and headset cant stress how many people forget to do this.

samuelc · 11 Feb 2011 at 08:56

Wow. Thanks for all the input guys. Really invaluable! going to get a soundcard today thats for sure...

Thanks ever so much guys!

sam