Negative...you need a sound card that can output analog stereo Dolby Headphone. Other option would be to output DD or DTS over HDMI to a device that can turn that into stereo Dolby Headphone, like a recent home theater receiver.

Quote: The SSD that Apple chose for the MBA has support for garbage collection in its firmware. The fact that OSX does not support TRIM is therefore a non-issue.

Focus. :)   Audio comes out of computer in either analog or digital form. Analog would come from the analog jacks of the onboard sound or from the analog jacks of a add in sound card. You can either headphone amp that analog sound or not--that's up to you and the headphones you like to use...

Read the reviews on notebookcheck.com. They have db ratings for all of the laptops they test.

I think the Grado SR-80i are the best phones you can get for $100 or less. Tight bass. Aggressive mid range. Great for rock.

There are plenty of quiet laptops out there that run Windows 7. You need to find a laptop review site that makes noise a priority in their reviews. www.notebookcheck.com is such a site. MacBook typically runs around 31db and there are plenty of Win 7 notebooks that do the same.

Quote: Originally Posted by jilgiljongiljing SACD as a format, cannot send bitstream to anything. Optical does not have the bandwidth to do LPCM for surround sound. The only way to get LPCM for surround sound is to use HDMI and have a receiver that is capable of handling LPCM for...

Plenty of cheap Sony ES CD players for sale on eBay. Maybe a used Oppo DV-980H universal DVD player?

If it was my $360 to spend, I would buy a new sound card with a built-in headphone amp (maybe the Auzen Forte or the more expensive ASUS STX or HT Omega Claro Halo) and then spend the rest on a pair of Denon 2000's. For my personal taste, the AT's and the Grado SR225's just don't have enough...

I suspect they're not fake. They could be gray market, though, which might mean that the manufacturer would not honor the warranty if they needed service of any kind. Always do your homework on prices that are too low to believe.

Futuresonic's Atrios will get you exactly what you are looking for if you want an in ear monitor type headphone.

So I want to buy a budget desktop amp (up to $200 or so) that's "well-rounded", if such an amp exists. I say "well-rounded" because I'm not sure what cans I want to pair it with yet. In fact, I want an amp that I could use to audition lots of cans, everything from high impedence cans like AKGs...

I'm considering purchasing a USB DAC/AMP for my laptop that runs Vista. I was wondering if the laptop's speakers will still work after I connect the USB DAC/AMP or if all sound is then directed to the DAC/AMP at that point. I like to use the speakers for just the normal assortment of boops/beeps...

They'll definitely sound better than anything you've ever heard before. But, like anything else, you're going to have to pay attention to the music to hear the benefits. If you're going to be exercising or IM'ing your friends at the same time as you are using the Sony headphones, you're probably...

Definitely worth spending a few dollars on an inexpensive sound card, like a used Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 Value. You'll find audio to be much cleaner than the motherboard sound even though this soundcard way down the soundcard food chain. It's usually $10-$15 U.S. when purchased on eBay...