Creative Titanium HD's DAC vs External DAC

The advice I've heard is to stick with the Titanium HD (or other high-end sound cards) unless you're prepared to drop $500 or more on a DAC. Even then, make sure you feed it with S/PDIF so that you can at least use the Titanium HD's X-Fi DSP in games.

As for amps, I'm not too well informed there (especially since I don't pay a lot of attention to dynamics that need dedicated headphone amps to sound proper), but the E9 seems like a good way to get started.

Yea not to mention it has a option to change it default op-amps but you need a Torx T5 size screw driver to get inside it to swap out its op-amps. As it uses machine socket Dip-8's. The op-amp socket that is used for just the headphones is the one directly behind the 6.3mm in the front. Tho you Polly wouldn't as it voids your warranty for the Fiio E9.

Also you may need to use High Gain for those HD650's which the switch for is on the rear of the Fiio E9.

I would keep the X-Fi as-is. No point in buying something additional; put whatever extra money into a beefier amp or another pair of headphones or the bank etc. If you want something fancier, look at a fancier amplifier.

Sure, the X-FI HD has pretty good specs and components so a good amplifier would be a good point to sink some cash into.  Good amp and DAC will let you hear everything the card is capable of.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021815&p_id=5598&seq=1&format=2  this cable is what you need to plug the X-Fi HD PCI-e into the Fiio e9. The RCA end goes into the RCA on the sound card, the 3.5 end goes into the Fiio E9 line in.

Yes all the settings you use will be transfer. Certain ones from ebay tho some times people sell fake ones on ebay, But you can buy them thru burr brown, linear and national. Check your pm.

I should point out that such a cable is already included with the Titanium HD, but it's not a very long or thick one.

As for opamps...at least with National Semiconductor, you can order free samples (so long as you aren't using a Gmail address), up to 5 of a given part. They may take a while to arrive, but free is free. I haven't experimented with replacing anything with LME49860NAs yet, though, since I like the card as it already sounds.

Subscribing to this thread because I'm kind of a noob on the subject as well.

I have the same sound card on my PC, and I also have a pair of M-Audio Bx5a's. However, I hate adjusting the volume through the computer and it is too inconvenient to adjust the volume on the monitor speakers by reaching around behind it each time. I was hoping for some sort of desktop interface to make life easier and am assuming the Fiio E9 should work in this situation? From my limited understanding, you would hook up the sound card --> E9 --> Bx5a speaker and the quality from the sound card won't be lost?

The Fiio E9 can function as a preamp from what I've read; basically any such device that can work as a pre-amp will work here. You'll feed that signal into your active monitors, and set their volume level at some pre-determined point (I'd start at 12 o'clock, knowing nothing about them). 

To connect an outboard DAC, you just go from the S/PDIF output to the S/PDIF input on the DAC. You'll use an optical or coaxial (RCA type) connector; quality should not matter one bit. Keep the length reasonably short (under say, 30 feet).