Ive had my soundblaster X7 for nearly 10 years, its been great for my use case but now the windows drivers for it are so old (2016) that anticheat software of modern games sometimes conflict with the very old files. Ontop of that its developed strange behaviour which to me is a sign its failing...

Yeah i got it now, its not so much cause i want surround, i actually happen to dislike the surround stuff the X7 can do, i just like the EQ and the easy switching between outputs plus the occasional need to hook anything up to it via bluetooth.   But if this high gain option keeps playing well...

Holy crap that makes a world of difference, i might need to try running that for a while instead of emptying my bank acount ;)

Haha yeah i guess thats right, i have no issue spending a bit on it when its to make sure my ears get a nice treatment for many years to come :)

Because the headphones i got are 35 ohm, i wouldnt want to ruin them already

Mostly cause i have no idea where to start or what will drive my headphones without hitting a limit too early

That sounds like a ton of work, and quite expensive ;)

    So lets say i get two of the Schiit ones, DAC and amp, id completly bypass getting any sort of sound card apart from the onboard stuff, which i guess works if it runs through SPDIF, which as far as ive understood just sends through the pure signal with nothing fancy added onto it...

  Im in Denmark so i would need to pay import tax for anything from Schiit i think. In those 400-600$ i dont count shipping, but of course would be nice to get all i need from one place with decent shipping costs.   Now from ive gathered so far it doesnt seem like a DAC is extremely important...

    Thanks for clearing up a lot of information   Ive tried my headhpones through my speaker amp and that works really well, even with the X7 in between the amp and the pc, gives me a bit more control with the decent EQ that it has, problem is that its big, draws alot of power and is for my...

That just controls the volume through windows, it has the same effect as if i went to the volume mixer in windows and adjuest with that

A little update, i tried hooking the X7 up to my speaker amp, a very old ONYKO stereo amp, through that the headphones sound so much better, the sound has much more of a kick to it, now the problem would be solved if i just used that setup each time... but the amp is quite massive and it eats...

Thank you for clearing up alot of what i didnt understand!    And from what you said, i think that id be most happy in the end if i get rid of the X7 and replace it with an amp since my motherboard already has a pretty decent soundcard on it...

The ohm switch is only for the speaker output im afraid, and ive went through all the windows options i could find with no luck so far, it does seem like it must be related to the X7   EDIT:The X7 connects through USB to the pc and then the headphones are plugged in with a standard minijack...

Let me start off by saying im pretty new to everything regarding dac/amps for headphones, i found it quite confusing to search around for information on it all so i figured it would be better to ask my questions here and maybe someone would be able to give me advice on my current situation.  ...