Where should I spend my money? new soundcard or some kind of headphone amp?

Phal

Phal

Phal

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My Beyerdynamic MMX 300 headset just arrived today and it sounds awesome but can be a little quiet on some songs/programs etc depending on the source. I can probably find ways to ramp up volume a little bit here and there but I'd rathern not do it at the cost of quality so I'm looking for something to spend my money on :)

My soundcard is getting on a bit now, it's a X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series

Aside from some annoying bugs with the software the card seems ok and still works but I don't expect it to last forever!

If I wanted to improve stuff where would my cash be best spent? A new soundcard or something ampy?
 
Well I guess it depends on the returns I get for the cash. Anywhere near the £200 mark I guess would be my max although I'm not really sure what this gets me?
 
Also, I play quite a lot of games so I don't really want to lose any of the processing for that. Would a separate DAC bypass all the funky games related sound processing?
 
I use a FiiO E9 with my Titanium HD soundcard as i found the same problem as you with certain songs been a bit quiet.
 
You'll probably have to spend a lot more than £200 on an external DAC to get one with a better DAC chip than the one in your card. External DACs are massively overpriced IMO. Cheapest route to a better DAC is to buy a better internal soundcard such as a Titanium HD or Essence ST, but that won't solve your volume issues.

BTW I would have thought those cans would be pretty easy to drive to a high volume, as they are rated at only 32 Ohm. Do you have all your Windows volume controls set at 100%? You can set all digital volume controls to max without any loss of quality (in fact, you lose quality when you have them set at less than 100%). Having analogue volume controls at max may introduce clipping but probably won't, and in any case you can test for that (download udial.ape, widely available - will glitch if your system is clipping).

I'd say your best bang for buck upgrade will be a headphone amp. I can strongly recommend the Matrix M-Stage, which you should be able to pick up for £220-250. This will solve your volume issues, and also improve sound quality by driving your headphones better than the line out from your card is able to.
 
I sometimes wonder whether my soundcard causes me problems. It is quite old now since I bought it in 2003 or 2004 probably. Some mp3s play fine without any problems in Foobar but quite often I have to scan the Mp3 and remove any replaygain that is applied otherwise I get weird click/crackling noises in the song. As soon as the replaygain has been removed I can crank the volume without any ill effects. All the Windows volumes are max already.

I quite like the idea of the Titanium HD but not sure how good it is for games? The top end Fatality XFI thingy looks more like the equivalent of what I have at the moment but I'm not sure how those two compare.

Just want something which doesnt gimp my game sound but also sounds good :)
 
I've never had that kind of issue with Replaygain, not sure what could cause that. I use it myself (for clipping prevention) and have never had an issue.

The Titanium HD is great for gaming - as good as anything else Creative have offered - provided you don't want multichannel audio over the analogue outs. It has only stereo analogue outs, but is capable of all the same effects processing etc. as other Creative models. It will do multichannel over digital out, but then you need an external DAC.
 
Well I don't currently have anything plugged in to any in/outs of my soundcard other than 2.1 speakers and headset but these are just normal jack plugs.

The Titanium HD seems more sound/audiophile orientated but as long as it does all the other games crap well then I would be happy. I'd probably miss my little front panel though so for that I'm tempty by the more gamish Fatality card :/

The replay gain stuff only seems to effect some mp3s which is definitely weird.
 
The only games related thing the HD doesn't do that the other Creative cards do is analogue multichannel output. It has much better analogue sound quality than other Creative cards, which (together with the lack of 5.1 analogue sound) is why people say it's an audiophile card. If you're only using 2.1 then you won't notice any difference in gaming at all, and should only really upgrade if (i) your current card is, as you suspect, faulty, or (ii) you want much improved sound quality for mp3 playback.
 
So the Titanium HD is only a PCIE card? There's no front panel for it or anything like that?

Do people just make do with all their cables running to the back of the PC? My headphones would be a little short of cable for when I lie on my bed if I had to connect them to the back :/
 
Cabling isn't an issue for me because I have the stereo RCA outs connected to a headphone amplifier that sits on top of my PC. The card does appear to have connectors for an I/O drive, like the Fatal1ty and Platinum, but I don't know if there is a dedicated drive for the HD, or whether it's compatible with drive bays for the other cards. I guess you could contact Creative support if you want to know before buying.
 
Well I came close to ordering the Xonar Essence STX because of the dedicated headphone port etc but my need for hassle free sound in gaming brought me back to the Titanium HD so I've ordered that :p
 
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