New Sound Card? Asus Xonar DG make audio better than onboard? - Page 2

The E7 is good at driving low-impedance headphones, but if you need more power, you'd couple the E7 and E9 together.  You can read up on both components in this thread:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/554593/does-anyone-own-the-fiio-e7-and-e9

Fiio reportedly has a good price-performance ratio.  I have no experience with the gear, so I can't say whether you'll be happy with the setup or not.

Correct, you can take the E7 with you as a portable external sound card, and the E7 will perform better than any onboard sound you'll have on most any notebook.  If you go for the Fiio setup, you should just start with the E7, see if that satisfies your needs, and if not, get the E9 too.

I'd recommend looking at reviews for the Fiio vs the HeadAmp pico Slim.  Both get great reviews:

http://www.headamp.com/pico/pico_slim_amp/index.htm

There are probably a few more options around, but anything you see get frequently discussed here probably is an able performer, and it comes down to taste.  If you definitely need a mobile amp, go for the Fiio or HeadAmp.  If you're only looking for something stationary, check out Schiit.

No problem, and laxsar shared very good advice, too :)  I think you have all the information you need to make a great decision now!

I think you would be quite happy with the Fiio E7 (and E9 as needed).  It's one of the best price-for-performance DACs on the market, and it's great for both portable and stationary purposes.

http://www.headfonia.com/fiio-e7-portable-dac/

Maybe the best way to think about it is calculating how many hours you spend a week listening to music, and then take the total cost for your audio upgrades and divide that by the hours you'll spend listening over a year.  It constantly amazes me how people skimp on $10 here and $20 there for monitor, keyboard/mouse, and audio, when they end up spending thousands of hours using that piece of hardware.  You definitely want to go with something you'll be happy with, even if it means you need to tighten your belt for a few weeks, to make sure you'll be happy in the long-run.  The Fiio should hold its resale value well, too, so when you're ready to move on, you can probably end up selling it for 50-70% of what you bought it for, or even gift it to a friend or family member.

I wouldn't stress too much on 16 vs 24bit.  Just because your DVDA or whatever is higher bitrate doesn't mean it's necessarily better.  For example, lots of people prefer the original Metallica black album release over the DVDA, and the particular recording comes down to personal preference since the mastering is very different between many redbook and DVDA/SACD/HDCD releases.  I've encountered more than a few 24bit releases, where I prefer the original 16bit release.

The most important thing is to get a headphone and source (DAC) you're happy with, then amp to round out the kind of sound you want.  As long as you're using lossless files and you're outputting via USB, firewire, or S/PDIF (AES probably doesn't apply to portable DACs), you are good to go!  Be sure that you're using bit perfect playback on your Mac, too (lots of threads on that here).

Let us know how it goes!

Can anyone tell me if the amp works straight fron the headphone jack or do i need to change the settings from VOIP MODE TO GAMING MODE? it seems that the gaming mode increase the sound by alot the sounds pretty low with the VOIP.