Hey guys, great forum and knowledgeable community here!

I have a Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer and waiting for my Audio-Technica ATH-AD700 to arrive from Amazon (great deal!) and was wondering what the best headphone amp for lets say $100US (or less) would be and place to purchase it. Or is an amp even necessary?

I would be using it for 90% gaming and a little bit of music. Sound/Music quality is not very important, 3D positioning is.

Any and all suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

you can only get so much and so accurate 3d positioning with (stereo) 2 channel headphones or speakers. If you've already got a soundblaster x-fi xtreme gamer card you probably don't need a separate amp. The headphone output on that card should be more than enough to drive your ad700. Using the simulated surround sound cmss-3d on your creative card should be good for games. The next step up from that as far as accurate 3d-positioning would be hooking up some surround sound speakers to your soundblaster card. Unless you are really concerned with music quality I wouldn't bother getting a separate amp or dac.

you might want to check out this list of amps/dacs for gaming:
Amp/DAC combo's for gamers

and this thread about surround sound gaming headsets:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/be...eadset-472143/

When I listened to my friends AD-700s on a X-fi I thought it sounded better than a surround sound system for positioning heheh.

As far as gaming headsets they are nothing to compare with a the likes of the AD-700. I have had Medusa 5.1 home edition, listened to Astro and Tritton setups. They just don't compare and take a while to configure perfectly.

While we're talking about amps, got any ideas for a good amp for a pair of Sennheiser PC350s with a X-Fi Prelude card? I have heard that unlike the AD700s, the PC350 headset does benefit from an amp.

Suggestions for the same price range? ($100~)

You can match an amp to your headphones but I wouldn't say there is a best amp for gaming. There might be a best DAC for gaming but you're probably not going to find one under $100 that does better than an X-Fi. If you want better music on those AD700 get a better DAC.

Whatever you get, make sure it supports some kind of 3D headphone software, ie CMSS 3D or Dolby Headphone. The X-Fi should support CMSS 3D, so is a solid choice.

You can get good, accurate 3D sound with headphones, arguably better than with more speakers (after all, you only have 2 ears). However, you need to make sure you are not getting stereo sound, which will be bad for positional audio.

EDIT: I may mean CMSS for headphones... don't have a creative card sorry!

DACs normally have an amp in them don't they? Or is it separate?

Quote:



Prelude has a built in amp already. 5 ohms to 600 ohm.

Dac/Amp can be together or separate.

Does that basically mean that this is as good as it gets unless I want to go overboard?

I don't know if its the best, but @ $20 its one of the cheapest.  Good amplification, but stereo, so no positioning.  There are some reviews for it:
 
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/reviews/60588/Soniq-Rush-Gaming-Headset-Amp-Kit-Review
http://www.avault.com/reviews/hardware/soniq-rush-gaming-headset-amp-kit-review/
 
Incidentally, they're looking for someone at Head-Fi to review it as shown in Mad Lust Envy's thread here:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/534479/mad-lust-envy-aka-shin-cz-s-guide-to-headphone-gaming-particularly-with-dolby-headphone/1515#post_7538447
 
So you might be able to get one free if you want to write something about it.

You don't need an amplifier. The AD700 sounds great straight out of your Xtreme Gamer. Don't bother with dacs if you don't want to lose your virtual surround effects. Or you could consider going optical out. But that's a whole other story... 
 
Just enjoy the gear you have now. I've been gaming with that exact same combo for a while now and have only recently upgraded the AD700 to a DT880 250ohm with a tube amp. Better immersion and overall detail retrieval than with the AD700 but positioning took a hit.