Sound card for Game Zero headset

SB Z is well enough for most headphones and consumer level Sennheisers definitely aren't power demanding.

If wanting stronger output capable to driving pretty much any headphone then price jumps considerably.
Though price doesn't always tell everything about quality... SB Z has all around better hardware than Sennheiser GSX.
 
The ASUS Xonar cards at the higher end such as the STX line are also exceptional with headphones, but they cost more. There are also external USB based options.

BTW the soundcard in the OP is old. X and ZxR are the current chunky soundblasters.
 
Last edited:
mistersprinkles said:
The ASUS Xonar cards at the higher end such as the STX line are also exceptional with headphones, but they cost more. There are also external USB based options.
Click to expand...
Sound BlasterX AE-5 has TPA6120 using cards (including ZxR) beaten in not having any significant output impedance.
So Creative has now that technical area finally covered.

And for gaming SBX Pro Surround is very well balanced binaural simulation.
 
mistersprinkles said:
BTW the soundcard in the OP is old. X and ZxR are the current chunky soundblasters.
Click to expand...

The Soundblaster Z isn't old; it's still a current card. It came out in 2012; ZxR in 2013. Soundblaster X-Fi and Recon3D; now they're old cards. :)

Sound cards aren't like GPUs where after 5 years, they really are old and outdated. :p
 
Enjoying this little setup so far. The Z is on par with my old Titanium HD when that was fairly new. Very good positional audio in games, and my FLAC's sound brilliant.

Looking at it, if i return this and get the ZxR, would there be a big difference, pairing it with the headset in the OP? Cost as well obviously but i'm still undecided.
 
I personally wouldn't use the ZxR with a Game Zero, it has a horrendously high output impedance (38 ohms) and Senns are susceptible to low damping ratios - it should be at least 8:1 whereas this would be 50:38, which would likely result in overblown, flabby bass due to poor control of the voice coils.
 
As above; and also, for gaming, the increase in cost is not worth it. ZxR would only make sense if you were using headphones for gaming that needed more power than the SB Z can give.
 
rids57 said:
I personally wouldn't use the ZxR with a Game Zero, it has a horrendously high output impedance (38 ohms) and Senns are susceptible to low damping ratios - it should be at least 8:1 whereas this would be 50:38, which would likely result in overblown, flabby bass due to poor control of the voice coils.
Click to expand...
Bass increase comes from Sennheisers having horribly bumpy impedance curve with impedance literally multiplying couple times at driver's resonant frequency:
http://graphs.headphone.com/index.p...e=30&graphType=7&buttonSelection=Update+Graph
With output impedance that forms frequency dependant voltage divider...
Resulting bigger part of output's power driving headphone at those frequencies.

For flat impedance curve cans output impedance just lowers damping factor.
Inline volume controls or those in for example Game One and Zero headsets work same way as output impedance.


Marsman said:
As above; and also, for gaming, the increase in cost is not worth it. ZxR would only make sense if you were using headphones for gaming that needed more power than the SB Z can give.
Click to expand...
ZxR needs both pwoer and voltage hugnry cans for it to work.
For just power hungry low impedance cans that output impedance wouldn't be good.
Anyway new AE-5 is both lot cheaper and has better headphone output than ZxR.

Creative isn't only one with output impedance problems.
One Asus Xonar serie had even 100 ohm output impedance.
Asus Strix Raid Pro seem to have same "feature":
http://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/amp/asus-strix-raid-pro.php#rw3
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom