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On August 22 2011 07:50 Blisse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2011 02:48 bRuTaL!! wrote:
Bought recently:
Sennheiser 650
Asus Xonar STX You should've saved up the $200 from the ASUS Xonar and bought a real amplifier instead. The Sennheiser HD 650s really deserve one, and really open up once you've got a quality $250+ amplifier behind them. Still, the HD 650s are a great pair of headphones. They just need a good amplifier to give them that oomph over the competition.
The Xonar has a headphone amplifier in it that is probably just as good if not better than a $200 amplifier and I still would have a shitty soundcard as a source...
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On August 24 2011 21:09 bRuTaL!! wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2011 07:50 Blisse wrote:On August 22 2011 02:48 bRuTaL!! wrote:
Bought recently:
Sennheiser 650
Asus Xonar STX You should've saved up the $200 from the ASUS Xonar and bought a real amplifier instead. The Sennheiser HD 650s really deserve one, and really open up once you've got a quality $250+ amplifier behind them. Still, the HD 650s are a great pair of headphones. They just need a good amplifier to give them that oomph over the competition. The Xonar has a headphone amplifier in it that is probably just as good if not better than a $200 amplifier and I still would have a shitty soundcard as a source...
Yeah I'd tend to agree here.
Stereophile has a proper review of the ST/STX and there's really not much going wrong, even when driving headphones. Most of the tests are into something like 300 ohms, which is generally less challenging than a lower impedance load but represents the nominal impedance of the HD 650, so quite relevant.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/asus-xonar-essence-ststx-soundcards-measurements
It can do 7V rms max out of the headphone jack at the highest gain setting, which is pretty much loud enough for any dynamic headphone except maybe some vintage models that are like 600 ohms and less than 90 dB SPL / 1 mW sensitivity (e.g. older AKG K240 models). So it's not like it's suitable only for a small range of headphones and will require an upgrade.
edit: the only real complaint is the 10.7 ohms output impedance. It uses the same TI TPA6130 output buffer as the FiiO E9, which is specified to want 10 ohms out there for stability I think. But into high impedance headphones this output impedance makes a trivial difference on the frequency response and damping factor, so it's a non-issue for the HD 650. Actually, this does make it a bit unsuitable (or in the least a bit different) for many IEMs and some headphones, but if you're not using those it's not a big deal.
edit2: and in the conclusion:
Through my favorite headphones, Sennheiser's HD-650, I was consistently surprised by the quality of the Xonar soundcard's output.
Stereophile of course generally reviews super-expensive speaker gear and other audio equipment.
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Not sure if this belongs here but didnt want to open another thread. I lost my earbuds yesterday and im looking for new ones but there are SOOO many ones on the market I have no clue what to buy. Id greatly appreciate any tips, m looking for in-ear(canal) earbuds with a maximum price of 65-70 euro. Altho, the cheaper the better... Well sort of:p (would feel more comfortale spending 40 if there are any okish ones for that kind of money)
edit:been looking around on the web for hours and found the Meelec A151. Anyone knows how to buy these in europe? The shipping costs on their own site is like 25-30 dollars (O.O)
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On August 24 2011 15:41 tuho12345 wrote:
amps > sound card. Don't waste your money on sound card too much, not going to help, you could buy amp and DAC as well
Some evidence please. Even anecdotal evidence is fine.
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On August 26 2011 07:11 ZaaaaaM wrote:
Not sure if this belongs here but didnt want to open another thread. I lost my earbuds yesterday and im looking for new ones but there are SOOO many ones on the market I have no clue what to buy. Id greatly appreciate any tips, m looking for in-ear(canal) earbuds with a maximum price of 65-70 euro. Altho, the cheaper the better... Well sort of:p (would feel more comfortale spending 40 if there are any okish ones for that kind of money)
edit:been looking around on the web for hours and found the Meelec A151. Anyone knows how to buy these in europe? The shipping costs on their own site is like 25-30 dollars (O.O)
Head-fi is full of retarded posts, so I'd always advise not believing most things you read, but I think this thread is a helpful starting place for looking at IEMs, since it covers many popular models:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/478568/multi-iem-review-191-iems-compared-xears-cp100ip-td-iii-v2-added-8-23
I'm not sure what your selection would be in Europe and expected pricing, but I suspect some of the better values in the $30-60 range and $60-100 range should be appropriate. There's a summary table near the bottom. Of course this is just one guy's opinion. As for European retailers, no idea.
On August 27 2011 10:07 fatfail wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:41 tuho12345 wrote:
amps > sound card. Don't waste your money on sound card too much, not going to help, you could buy amp and DAC as well Some evidence please. Even anecdotal evidence is fine.
I'm not tuho12345, but I have some ideas about possible lines of thinking.
It's probably best to define "amp" and "sound card" first though. A sound card includes amps and may have a dedicated headphone amplifier. I think by "amp" most people in this context are talking about external headphone amplifiers. "Sound card" might mean internal or external; some people think of a DAC+amp combo like a FiiO E7 as a sound card, but others do not and are thinking about devices with both inputs and outputs?
If you buy an sound card, you may be paying for all kinds of extra channels and A/D functionality, maybe a DSP that you may not use, so you may think the cost is higher than it needs to be for your purposes. However, dedicated external headphone amps are much lower volume (# units shipped) products, so they will not necessarily have better pricing despite missing those many extra features.
Also, an amp and sound card aren't even really the same class of device, even if all you're worried about is headphones playback, since a sound card does D/A.
edit: + Show Spoiler [original text, kind of long] +There are potential advantages with going external: being farther away from all the noisy electronics and stray RF inside a computer, not being limited to components of a certain size (height mostly), and using an external power supply (instead of power from the motherboard slot or computer SMPS; granted, many cheaper external sound cards just run off of noisy +5V from USB). Going external allows you to use, say, (1) vacuum tubes, (2) single-ended designs with sufficient power supply filtering to compensate for the poor noise rejection, and (3) high-power designs and/or Class A designs that use a lot of power. None of those things are particularly desirable for headphones amplification if you're going for the most accurate sound except Class A--though you can easily get great performance with Class AB or something else. Ergonomically it's nicer to have something on your desk with a volume dial and maybe other useful switches. That's the biggest inherent advantage of an external device. The con is that it takes up space obviously. The biggest "advantage" of a dedicated headphone amplifier over a sound card is snob audiophile appeal though.  Also the markets and products are a bit different. There are few high-end sound cards targeted at high-end headphones playback, and even the best are arguably not powerful enough for the least sensitive, highest-impedance headphones.
The important points are (1) that an external device will be away from noisy electronics inside the computer case and (2) because of the target markets, there are more available options and different features with high-end dedicated headphone amplifiers than with sound cards, for headphones playback (despite point #1, this is more of a sales/marketing issue than a technical issue).
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On August 24 2011 21:22 Myrmidon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 21:09 bRuTaL!! wrote:On August 22 2011 07:50 Blisse wrote:On August 22 2011 02:48 bRuTaL!! wrote:
Bought recently:
Sennheiser 650
Asus Xonar STX You should've saved up the $200 from the ASUS Xonar and bought a real amplifier instead. The Sennheiser HD 650s really deserve one, and really open up once you've got a quality $250+ amplifier behind them. Still, the HD 650s are a great pair of headphones. They just need a good amplifier to give them that oomph over the competition. The Xonar has a headphone amplifier in it that is probably just as good if not better than a $200 amplifier and I still would have a shitty soundcard as a source... Yeah I'd tend to agree here. Stereophile has a proper review of the ST/STX and there's really not much going wrong, even when driving headphones. Most of the tests are into something like 300 ohms, which is generally less challenging than a lower impedance load but represents the nominal impedance of the HD 650, so quite relevant. http://www.stereophile.com/content/asus-xonar-essence-ststx-soundcards-measurementsIt can do 7V rms max out of the headphone jack at the highest gain setting, which is pretty much loud enough for any dynamic headphone except maybe some vintage models that are like 600 ohms and less than 90 dB SPL / 1 mW sensitivity (e.g. older AKG K240 models). So it's not like it's suitable only for a small range of headphones and will require an upgrade. edit: the only real complaint is the 10.7 ohms output impedance. It uses the same TI TPA6130 output buffer as the FiiO E9, which is specified to want 10 ohms out there for stability I think. But into high impedance headphones this output impedance makes a trivial difference on the frequency response and damping factor, so it's a non-issue for the HD 650. Actually, this does make it a bit unsuitable (or in the least a bit different) for many IEMs and some headphones, but if you're not using those it's not a big deal. edit2: and in the conclusion: Show nested quote +Through my favorite headphones, Sennheiser's HD-650, I was consistently surprised by the quality of the Xonar soundcard's output. Stereophile of course generally reviews super-expensive speaker gear and other audio equipment.
Replying to a bunch of stuff here. Bear with me, thanks.
Integrated sound cards are not shit unless they're totally broken. This myth has honestly spread too far. If you've upgraded the motherboard within the last 5 years the sound card is more than adequate as a source. If you have a computer from 1995 I don't think you could install a sound card, but if you're using something from around 2000.
I also said that you should have saved up for a quality $250+ amplifier, which today, gives you a bunch of options in say, a Matrix M-Stage ($200) or Schiit Valhalla ($280) or Audio-GD NFB12 ($260*). It also gives you better options much, much more experience to gather data from.
I'm not in any position to critique a guy that makes a living listening to music, but his review didn't really speak much about the Xonar STX amplifier and how it sounds compared to other amplifiers. There's a difference between being "consistently surprised by the quality of the ... output" and "sounds amazing" if I were to be an asshat. But he really didn't specify much other than the highs were smoother. Of course, he said it was that little better than the CEntrance DACport, which Headphoneaddict says equals the Nuforce HDP. I'm not sure how well the HDP has aged since its release though since its price has not dropped ever.
I'll also say that I think the Xonar STX is a great source even without the amplifier just by looking at the ridiculous amount of information in the bunch of threads I've read. I still am not convinced that its amplifier beats today's dedicated amplifiers at the $250+ range because having impressive specifications doesn't mean it'll sound impressive. And still no one that I can google-find has gone and compared the Xonar STX to any amplifier I'm talking about. Someone said his E7 and E9 bested the Xonar STX which really confuses me since it's supposed to rival the Nuforce HDP. No one's really saying anything about the Xonar STX beyond "it sound great," which could mean a lot of things. Everything sound great at this price.
It is however a million times more accessible than any headphone amplifier, so it wins a lot of points there.
Also, I remember hearing something about someone liking the Xonar STX with the HD 800 which I guess proves there's not that much of a difference in sound in this hobby, and it's really just preference.
I'll still be glad if you like the pairing though.
And after more research it seems like the Xonar STX really holds its weight very well against the competition. I'll now say most sound cards are pointless.
And if it's okay ima still rage when someone wants to buy a Creative X-Fi Titanium.
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re: the STX
It doesn't just have good advertised specifications, but the actual performance was shown to be very good, even when driving headphones. A lot of entities (not sure if I'd grace them with the name of "company" in many cases) claim great specifications, but they may be largely fraudulent.
Then a lot of expensive audiophile stuff either intentionally or unintentionally puts in a lot of "enhancements" on the signal. It's going to be a subjective and personal thing whether or not you feel that makes it better, but if you're looking for the most accurate-to-the-source sound, you're probably not going to get significantly better than the STX. A lot of products are huge huge steps backwards in terms of staying true to the source. If something scores better in the typical industry standard benchmarks, it likely won't be by an amount that translates to an audible difference in sound quality while playing real music (or test tones), into most headphones, for human listeners.
Many people don't say it sounds great because other more expensive and impressive-looking products are supposed to sound better.
And I've got to say, some of the software drivers on these sound cards really suck, like major donkey balls. Feel free to bash on Creative, though I'm sure at least a couple of the products aren't that terrible.
edit: I've posted this before, but some may be surprised what people perceive when they don't know what they're listening to and which setup is supposed to be better:
http://www.matrixhifi.com/ENG_contenedor_ppec.htm
edit2: here too, about speakers preference
http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/04/dishonesty-of-sighted-audio-product.html
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I have 150$ and want to spend it on headphones, or a headset.
People have told me that headphones + mic are better than a headset in terms of quality.
I've been looking at these http://www.reloopdj.com/product_info.php/info/p477_Reloop-RHP-10-Ceramic-Mint.html/XTCsid/8842d2b6678c67ff46ab09c217515f65 but I'm not sure if they are good or not. People recommend sennheiser and audio technica to me, but I don't know which company is better and which headphones to pick.
Can anybody recommend headphones to me that are good and aren't over 150$? For some reason I like companies that focus on just audio, etc.
Thanks!
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On August 28 2011 04:08 Absurd Bunny wrote:
Can anybody recommend headphones to me that are good and aren't over 150$? For some reason I like companies that focus on just audio, etc.
I have two Grados SR-80is [okay, one's an 80], one for home and one for work; they are $99. Both are fantastic in terms of sound quality. You can also step down to the SR-60 ($79) or up to the SR-125s ($150, plus I think you need a 1/4"->1/8" adapter with the 125s). All three are pretty similar IMO.
The downsides to the Grados are they are not particularly comfortable physically for longer-term use (they mostly sit on, not around, the ear), and the speaker part can rotate around the attachment to the headband and twist up the wires. I'm also not completely sold on the overall build quality. A few weeks ago I dropped my old 80s on the ground and a part broke off inside and one of the sides stopped working. (OTOH, I sent it back in with a $30 check and they repaired it. I felt so old-fashioned sending something in for repair. :-))
As neither an upside or a downside, they block very little external sound at all, and leak a bit of their own sound into the environment.
If that last bit sounds unattractive, I'd recommend the Senn HD-280s (~$80-100). Some people like the sound quality more than the Grados; I don't, but it's 90 or 95% of the way there.
I haven't tried Audio Technica, but the Grados line and the 280s always come very highly-recommended. I'm also not sure how the mic part will affect the decision.
You may have an audio store near you where you can go try out a bunch of headphones and see which ones you like. If you go with the Grados, it won't even cost you anything to buy locally: everyone is required by Grados to sell at the same price.
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im not a big headphone enthusiast but i have a problem and i need some advice. last week my skullcandy lowrider headphone cracked in half at the plastic point. does anyone have any advice on how to glue it back together? (electronics are fine just the plastic is broken)
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if anyone has any solution could you please pm me, its better than scrolling through everything. thanks
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Got myself the Beyerdynamics DT990 just like the OP. Mine are the 600ohm version and they are awesome  They are powered by an Auzentech X-Fi Forte Soundcard connected to a Harman/Kardon AVR135.
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I've been looking to buy a pair of Xears Bullet xb120pro but can't find a pair of them that ships to the US for a reasonable price, on that 191 IEM guide they seem to be the best deal but I cannot find them anywhere for the life of me for anywhere near 25$ I suppose if noone here can help me I will go with M9's.
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On August 29 2011 03:28 Brutaxilos wrote:
im not a big headphone enthusiast but i have a problem and i need some advice. last week my skullcandy lowrider headphone cracked in half at the plastic point. does anyone have any advice on how to glue it back together? (electronics are fine just the plastic is broken)
I dont know what they have in the US but Araldite would probably work or some other epoxy adhesive.
Just make sure to get a decent hold on it while it cures and don't flood it
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On August 28 2011 04:08 Absurd Bunny wrote:I have 150$ and want to spend it on headphones, or a headset. People have told me that headphones + mic are better than a headset in terms of quality. I've been looking at these http://www.reloopdj.com/product_info.php/info/p477_Reloop-RHP-10-Ceramic-Mint.html/XTCsid/8842d2b6678c67ff46ab09c217515f65 but I'm not sure if they are good or not. People recommend sennheiser and audio technica to me, but I don't know which company is better and which headphones to pick. Can anybody recommend headphones to me that are good and aren't over 150$? For some reason I like companies that focus on just audio, etc. Thanks!
Either Grados or an Audio Technica AD700 would be great. + a $10 clip-on Zalman mic :D
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I've got a pair of Grado SR80's, which came in at around $160 CAD when I got them (but thy may be available other places for considerably cheaper than what I paid since the list price is $120, and I absolutely love them.
I will warn you that they do get uncomfortable after long listening sessions though... But that's just part of the Grado Experience™.
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You could try the Alessandro MS-1's. They're similar to the Grados but they come with Comfy pads rather than the Grado Bowl Pads making them a little more comfortable.
If the clamp is a bit tight you could always flex the headband.
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fyi if you're playing games grados aren't really that great.
my brother used my grados for gaming and was telling me that he didn't know where the enemies were coming from, but the footsteps sure sounded nice.
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As much as i'd love some bomb headphones it's just not in the cards for me. I have a pair of longitech headphones i use (not total shit) and some sony headphones (also, not total shit)
But looking at these makes me jizz a bit. awwwwwwwww.
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EPT
