HT Omega "Claro Halo" Headphone Only soundcard - Page 5

My Halo

I received my Halo yesterday, installed it and after only a few hours of listening and tinkering with it, I can honestly say that I am done looking for audio upgrades (at least as far as a source is concerned). This things is cyrstal clear and it drives my D2000's perfectly ( via factory low impedance settings). All details, wether in game or with music, shine through. I like this card so much, that soon I will be selling my Little Dot MK V and Prelude. I was ready for a huge disappointment, but received the card I will be using for many system builds to come. Bravo HT Omega.

I want to revive this for a little bit.

Anyone else have a good experience with this sound card?

Wondering if I should get an external amp or this sound card for my HD-595's

going to be playing lots of games and drum n bass music.

I've read PCI is technically superior to pci-e when it comes to audio. Something about the packet sizes I think... I've no idea where I've read it though.
One thing is for certain. PCI will be used for many many years to come. The first manufacturer to put out a motherboard out there with no PCI slots are going to take a major hit in sales.
I think video cards are only recently taking an advantage of PCI-E, and they're really the only things out there that comes near utilizing the capabilities of PCI-E.

Should drive the HD-595's fine.

Actually, that is quite incorrect. The HDAV 1.3 has good DAC, opamp output section design and as a result great sound quality, which is better then the D2.
The HDAV in terms of analog quality is the current King of the Xonar line-up. The Xonar essence is the only other Xonar which can surpass it for analog output quality.

But according to review, HDAV performes worse than D2X

I've got an RMMA test with the headphone out on high gain (was not able to test with low gain) loaded with the D5000 (25 ohms).

I'd prefer to just put the html file and images on a website. Can anybody host the files for me?

Thanks.

Guess nobody wants to host it

Oh well. Here are the results. Headphone amp was set to high gain and I tested loaded with the Denon D5000 (25 ohms).

Summary



Frequency response



Noise Level



Dynamic Range



THD + Noise (at -3 dB FS)



Intermodulation distortion



Stereo crosstalk



IMD (swept tones)

First things First. The D5000 being powered by this card was wonderful. There is also no computer noise or any of that associated rubbish.

When doing the RMAA testing I came across a few issues.

1. The stereo in of the Claro Halo is not very sensitive. With the headphone amp on low gain I set the stereo in (tried stereo in and stereo mix) volume to 100 and the headphone out volume to 100 and RMAA still reported the volume was not high enough to do a test. The only way I could do a test was with the amp set to high gain.

Going along with this, on low gain I was able to listen to music with windows and foobar volumes at 100% without destroying my headphones or ears. It was loud - beyond how I would listen to music on a regular basis - but I could listen to it without getting a headache.

2. Changing gain is a pain. You have to take the card out of the computer to do it. This could be a deal breaker if you use IEMS and full sized headphones, but I do not think it's an issue if you only use headphones. The high gain setting works just fine for the Denon D5000. If you do not use IEMS you could set the amp to high gain and forget about it. I haven't tested the card with IEMs so do not take my claims as a definite statement.

Those are really my only two issues with this card. The drivers seem to be solid. The Dolby effects are cool or weird - I haven't figured it out.

You may notice I haven't given a comprehensive review of the audio. I'm one of the DBT Hydrogen-Audio audiophiles, so my expectations, tests, and philosophy about audio equipment are different from how many people see the world on head-fi. For those reasons I'll refrain from posting my opinions here. You are welcome to send me a PM if you still want my opinion even after all this.

Please keep in mind that the paragraph above is not a implicit statement about the Claro Halo. The sound coming into my ears now is quite beautiful

I've been doing some more testing and I have one major complaint about the Halo.

The line in sensitivity is very poor. The input volume has to be really loud before an RMAA test can be done. I was unable to RMAA a Sansa Fuze because I couldn't crank the volume high enough.

I then wanted to check how a CMOY changed the RMAA results of my motherboards stereo out. I cranked the CMOY to the point where I was worried about blowing up my headphones and it sill wasn't loud enough for RMAA to run the test.

In both cases the stereo in volume was set to 100. I don't know if I'm missing a setting. My motherboard's onboard sound stereo in sensitivity is much better than the Halo. Using the onboard sound I was able to test the Fuze and other equipment without worrying about blowing up my headhpones.

Assuming I am not missing a setting, I cannot recommend this card if you want to use the stereo in for testing or anything similar purpose. The actual "quality" of the stereo in seems fine when you can get the volume loud enough, but it needs to be very loud. There is a lot of equipment you may be unable to test because of this.

You give to much credit to RMAA, so much that you don't trust you own senses and think RMAA knows best. It's just a benching soft, not very good with this card - you don't have to ruin your headset or go deaf because of that, just wait for a new version.

Some don't know how to properly use RMAA and even more have less of a clue on how to interpret the results.
The HDAV 1.3 is the current king for analog sound quality of the Xonar soundcard line. I have tested and others have tested that I trust and we all get the same results.
When more review hit the streets for that card you will see this card has very nice analog sound quality.
The line-up would go like this:
1. HDAV1.3 (SNR120)
2. D2X(118)
3. D2(118)
4. DX(116)
5. D1(116)
6. U1 (96~100)
If or when the Essence hits it will take the top spot and become the new king but for now the above list is 100% accurate.
Ask ASUS if you are still in doubt.
Sorry guys, not trying to go off topic....

Just to try it, I ran RMAA at 24bit/192khz as that seems to be the gold standard nowadays. Both tests were unloaded.

Headphone Out



Stereo Speaker Out



Judging from the results, I either did the test incorrectly, the stereo in of the Halo is not up to this test, or the performance of this card is really not very impressive for 24bit/192khz operation.

Of course, considering that CDs are 16/44.1, I'm not sure the results posted above make a practical difference.

Try at 24 bit/96 kHz - there are some available albums remastered at this rates.

24bit/96khz. Tests were done unloaded.

Headphone jack



Stereo speaker out