Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sam-Fi 
I have a pair of powered monitors and a couple cans at the moment.
Dilemma: I bought an e-mu 0404 and it doesn't have enough power to drive my headphones.
I have the hd600 and dt880/600 - the e-mu sounds great but you can tell it is seriously lacking power for these cans.
I need a desktop usb soundcard/dac that can drive my phones and has a preamp out that can send signals to my monitors.
Thanks,
sam
many of us use the asus xonar st. It has a built in headphone amp, and it can easily power my Ultrasone 900. With my AKG 701, it doesn't do quiet a good job at it since the AKGs are very power hungry, but i believe that your dt880 would be closer to my ultrasone 900. There's a headphone out for your headphones, and there are RCA outs for your power monitors. My setup runs a little different from how you're doing things because,
asus xonar st (Spdif) --> cambridge dac magic --> ultrasone 900
i want to add an amp there eventually, but for now, that's what i'm working with. The ability to use spdif later will prove very useful for you if you continue to get head-fi equipment in the future. Good luck on your purchase!
